Alberta PC's way out front

[CrunchBite]

Not sure if it's been posted here already, but heard the PC attack ad towards the WRA over the .05 legislation.

It makes my blood boil, yes because someone is against a stupid piece of legislation that unfairly punishes someone without due process they are support drunk drivers killing 300 Albertans a year.

I know who I won't be voting for this year, for the first time ever I won't be voting PC.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

Not sure if it's been posted here already, but heard the PC attack ad towards the WRA over the .05 legislation.

I posted about this before. It is stupid to build you platform on tougher drinking and driving laws unless you are running for the president of MADD.

We are voting for a leader to run a province, not a nursery.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Please, Kent Hehr will be a PC MLA in the election after this one. The PC party is now 'Progressive' enough and has lost enough of the 'Conservative' part to be the perfect home for him. The Liberals are going to be wiped out of existance when it's apparent there's no difference between them and the NDP and that the PC's now have the back of the Public Unions. A lot of the traditional Liberal support in the past came from the "Ralph cut our wages 5% in the mid 90s, fata him" crowd or the "Rich Province, Poor Student" crowd who wanted handouts for Post Secondary education. Redford scooped up all these folks with her last week deal to propel her to power in the PC leadership race. It's clearly her strategy to consolidate the leftties and keep the Red Tories.

Sorry - I didn't mean anyone to take my post that seriously. I know Kent from school, so it was more of a joke.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

You have come back to this budget that the WRA put out a few times now claiming that it is not detailed enough. Their budget documents can be found here. http://www.wildrosecaucus.ca/media/2...ative-2012.pdf

It is an overview of their broad spending plans. Some of the detail that you are looking for is simply unattainable for an opposition party. The Alberta government has an entire department dedicated to budgeting I am not sure how or why you expect a volunteer organization to get the resources to duplicate that work. The other issue is that I don't think the WRA can get all of the information that is required. I am sure that they can't ask a department to provide a review of their spending.

I also took a look online to see what the Liberal and NDP party came up with for alternate budgets and couldn't find any document that provided their alternative. They had random ideas spread around their sites but nothing that provided an overview and certainly nothing that went into the level of detail that you require. Can I assume that you are leaning towards the government in power as they are the only ones who have the resources to fully cost everything they propose?

Is it really too much to ask though? We're talking about an organization that plans to form the next government here and they claim that they would accomplish all of this with no tax increases and with no deficit or debt. Why is it asking too much of them to provide the figures with how they come to that?

The Liberal platform is released and has been fully costed. You might disagree with the platform, but it clearly shows what they're spending and how it would be paid for. I have no idea about the NDP.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Please, Kent Hehr will be a PC MLA in the election after this one. The PC party is now 'Progressive' enough and has lost enough of the 'Conservative' part to be the perfect home for him. The Liberals are going to be wiped out of existance when it's apparent there's no difference between them and the NDP and that the PC's now have the back of the Public Unions. A lot of the traditional Liberal support in the past came from the "Ralph cut our wages 5% in the mid 90s, fata him" crowd or the "Rich Province, Poor Student" crowd who wanted handouts for Post Secondary education. Redford scooped up all these folks with her last week deal to propel her to power in the PC leadership race. It's clearly her strategy to consolidate the leftties and keep the Red Tories.

The best chance the left in Alberta has is for the Libs and ND's to merge, then takeover the Alberta Party for the name. Then have Nenshi run for leadership.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by First Lady

The best chance the left in Alberta has is for the Libs and ND's to merge, then takeover the Alberta Party for the name. Then have Nenshi run for leadership.

I'd say the chances of that are somewhere between slim to none.

The former though doesn't seem nuts. All those parties are floundering.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

The best chance the left in Alberta has is for the Libs and ND's to merge, then takeover the Alberta Party for the name. Then have Nenshi run for leadership.

Originally Posted by Bunk

I'd say the chances of that are somewhere between slim to none.

The former though doesn't seem nuts. All those parties are floundering.

Well just yesterday the poll for the Liberals puts them at what, 18%? That seems like a pretty solid gain at the expense of the PC's over the past few weeks. I know these polls don't mean anything but its still something to consider when you're writing off the Liberals.

The party that is a non-starter of these three is the Alberta Party. They might have had something at one point, but its gone. Sue Huff seems like she would be a good MLA, so its a bit of a shame in that sense, but they're on their way to zero seats and probably can hardly keep the lights on.

[GP_Matt]

I read through the Liberal plan and will admit that some of it looks interesting. I don't like the loan forgiveness for student debt as it rewards and encourages debt. The foreign credentials program is a lot more complicated than they are making it seem. I don't like the proposed personal tax increases or the corporate tax increases. Increasing the taxes paid by the higher income earners is punitive towards single income families and encourages dual income families. (I suppose his two year pre school helps out there as well) I also don't understand why they feel the need to bump taxes on everything but small businesses, why are large companies so bad? The elimination of private school funding seems aggressive, I am not sure what the issue is with private schools, but if a parent decides to send their child to a private school why shouldn't they be able to have their tax dollars support it? Why is a Catholic education acceptable but a Muslim education a waste of tax payers dollars? What about sports schools that build the class schedule around athletic events, are those bad too?
I don't like their plans to switch elections to a single transferable vote. I think that is an important enough issue that it should be determined via a referendum rather than party platform. There are lots of good ideas for reforming the electoral process but I think the issues are complicated enough to demand a full debate and referendum before a major part of our democracy is altered.
Sorry that the above is a bit scattered, I wrote it while reading the platform.
Slava, as a courtesy, would you consider picking out the actual portions of the WRA platform that you don't like for discussion?

[EddyBeers]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well just yesterday the poll for the Liberals puts them at what, 18%? That seems like a pretty solid gain at the expense of the PC's over the past few weeks. I know these polls don't mean anything but its still something to consider when you're writing off the Liberals.

The party that is a non-starter of these three is the Alberta Party. They might have had something at one point, but its gone. Sue Huff seems like she would be a good MLA, so its a bit of a shame in that sense, but they're on their way to zero seats and probably can hardly keep the lights on.

The idea of a merger is the only way that the Left will be relevant though. I remember bringing a motion forward on such an idea at the ALP about a decade ago when I was an idealistic university student and getting booed out of the building, older Liberals sitting their shaking their head saying "We have lost for 50 years and I will be damned if we do not lose for 50 more". The simple fact for the ALP is that the math does not add up, the only time it was competitive was when it ran to the right of the Tories but even then they messed up on the abortion question.

A merger would be tough, as the NDP is an unlikely dance partner as well. But all you have to do is look at the Saskatchewan Party, once the Devine cabinet got done serving time they just started a new party and 10 years later everyone forgot what they stood for 10 years earlier.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

Not sure if it's been posted here already, but heard the PC attack ad towards the WRA over the .05 legislation.

It makes my blood boil, yes because someone is against a stupid piece of legislation that unfairly punishes someone without due process they are support drunk drivers killing 300 Albertans a year.

It's not even 300 a year. It's 300 total deaths since 1998, which is less than 10% of the traffic fatalities on Alberta roads over the same time where the drivers involved had consumed no alcohol whatsoever.

[EddyBeers]

Originally Posted by getbak

It's not even 300 a year. It's 300 total deaths since 1998, which is less than 10% of the traffic fatalities on Alberta roads over the same time where the drivers involved had consumed no alcohol whatsoever.

It should either be zero tolerance or places that provide public consumption of alcohol should have a breathalyzer that you can use. The problem in my opinion is the uncertainty as to whether or not you are over. I was at the Flames game last night and then had to drive back to my small town about an hour outside of Calgary and I had a beer at 7:15 and one at around 8:15 after the first period. I probably had my last sip of beer with around 5 minutes left in the second, or at around 9 PM. I got to my car at around 10:30 PM, but I had no idea whether I was at .05 or under. If it is truly about public safety, the government should provide a breathalyzer or two so that concerned citizens can go and find out if they are over. If I knew I was at .06 last night, despite the inconvenience I would probably have gone to the casino and lost 100 on blackjack and then tested myself out again 40 minutes later.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I read through the Liberal plan and will admit that some of it looks interesting. I don't like the loan forgiveness for student debt as it rewards and encourages debt. The foreign credentials program is a lot more complicated than they are making it seem. I don't like the proposed personal tax increases or the corporate tax increases. Increasing the taxes paid by the higher income earners is punitive towards single income families and encourages dual income families. (I suppose his two year pre school helps out there as well) I also don't understand why they feel the need to bump taxes on everything but small businesses, why are large companies so bad? The elimination of private school funding seems aggressive, I am not sure what the issue is with private schools, but if a parent decides to send their child to a private school why shouldn't they be able to have their tax dollars support it? Why is a Catholic education acceptable but a Muslim education a waste of tax payers dollars? What about sports schools that build the class schedule around athletic events, are those bad too?
I don't like their plans to switch elections to a single transferable vote. I think that is an important enough issue that it should be determined via a referendum rather than party platform. There are lots of good ideas for reforming the electoral process but I think the issues are complicated enough to demand a full debate and referendum before a major part of our democracy is altered.
Sorry that the above is a bit scattered, I wrote it while reading the platform.
Slava, as a courtesy, would you consider picking out the actual portions of the WRA platform that you don't like for discussion?

I woud gladly go through and do this. Its going to take a lot of time though as they have these things all separated into different PDF's. In general though:

Education: I don't care for the funding of schools with religious agendas, and don't want to see incresed funding for private schools at all. In truth, I love the Liberal policy on these; if you want to send your children to private school, great, you cut the cheque. I'm on the fence about having the school boards pick where the schools are built as well. I get what they are driving at here, but I have some reservations about this....maybe I'll just leave it at that rather than go on a tangent with my thoughts on the CBE here. They have some policies which are more student-focused and I do agree with the ideas here, but frankly there are already some of these alternatives in the current public system. Its not a huge point of departure from the current system in some cases. I also have some reservations about the idea of keeping special needs students in the "normal" classroom. This isn't totally fleshed out, but thats the idea in their policy document.

Healthcare: This is a pretty simple one. I disagree completely that we can reduce costs by paying private care providers rather than public. Its really not likely to be effective in Alberta. I know that the Wildrose talks about Europe (which is obviously better than the other often quoted comparison to the south of us), but I have a lot of questions. We don't have anywhere near the population density that the Europeans do; can we know that this delivery method would be as effective here? Thats the tip of the iceberg though. Its just a policy I disagree with on a number of levels.

I'm not going through each plank on an issue by issue basis. I just don't see a lot of new ideas being offered up here though.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by getbak

It's not even 300 a year. It's 300 total deaths since 1998, which is less than 10% of the traffic fatalities on Alberta roads over the same time where the drivers involved had consumed no alcohol whatsoever.

It is probably even less than that. If I remember the ad correctly they are saying 300 deaths involving .08 or less. How many of those were from people under 0.05? If you take the actual target of this law, the people between .05 and .08, the true number would probably be much smaller.

[darklord700]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion...414/story.html

"By late afternoon Neil Wilkinson threw the mess back at her. The rules written for him by the PC majority do not let him peer into Mar’s fundraising event."

This is getting better and better. Redford only has two options now, kick Mar out or use her lawyer skills to weasel out of this mess. Alienate Mar's backers or the public. Neither of which is palatable.

What I think what she would do is form another committee with lawyers or judges to be the black cop.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

I love the Liberal policy on these; if you want to send your children to private school, great, you cut the cheque.

Interesting, I assume you would passionately argue the exact opposite if I replaced the words "send your children to private school" with "be treated at a private clinic".

Edit: For the record I don't support "US style healthcare".

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Jacks

It is probably even less than that. If I remember the ad correctly they are saying 300 deaths involving .08 or less. How many of those were from people under 0.05? If you take the actual target of this law, the people between .05 and .08, the true number would probably be much smaller.

Yeah, assuming they got the numbers from the reports that are on the government's website (http://www.transportation.alberta.ca/3121.htm), the 300 deaths since 1998 are from collisions where the police reported that the driver had consumed "some" alcohol, but was not impaired.

There is no measure of what "some" alcohol means or to what degree it contributed to the accidents or deaths.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Jacks

It is probably even less than that. If I remember the ad correctly they are saying 300 deaths involving .08 or less. How many of those were from people under 0.05? If you take the actual target of this law, the people between .05 and .08, the true number would probably be much smaller.

It’s a sobering statistic, but where does it come from?

When asked by QR77 radio’s Angela Kokott last week, Solicitor General Jonathan Denis replied that it “comes from an independent University of Western Ontario study that has been quoted by Robert Remington of the Calgary Herald many times.”

Indeed, in one blog post on the Herald website, Remington states “the estimate is my own.”

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Breaken...#ixzz1p7LI9tdf

Really well worth reading the entire piece.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Interesting, I assume you would passionately argue the exact opposite if I replaced the words "send your children to private school" with "be treated at a private clinic".

Edit: For the record I don't support "US style healthcare".

I'm not following? You think that I would support the public system paying for private healthcare? I don't know how I gave you that impression, but no.

[GP_Matt]

Aren't most doctors offices privately owned but publicly funded? I think a lot of walk in clinics are on the same model.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Breaken...#ixzz1p7LI9tdf

Really well worth reading the entire piece.

Ya, the statistics don't seem clear. I wonder what those Wildrosers were thinking in supporting this along with their PC brethren?