GDT: The Alberta Election 2012 - The Morning After - PC Majority Government

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Wouldn't rich people tend to buy more things that get taxed than poor people?

Of course, I am running on the assumption that any PST would mirror the GST in what it was was applied to. No idea if that would be the case for sure though.

If you were to set up a sales tax and repeal the income tax on a revenue neutral basis then that is much more efficient. It removes a disincentive to working, promotes saving and investing, and the people who spend the most - generally the most wealthy - end up paying the most in taxes.

So in theory it is great but in practice it can have its own set of issue; things like underground economies, cross-border and online purchases. However those all issues exist with GST and other provincial systems anyways.

Value added taxes wouldn't feel like near as much of a burden if they were included in the prices shown. I think the ongoing aggravation of needing to add the extra 5% in your head to know what the bottom line price is going to be is a huge issue. But "burying" the tax like that brings calls that it is hidden. But all cash registers are computerized now, just have the register calculate how much of the total was tax and show that breakout on the receipt.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

If you were to set up a sales tax and repeal the income tax on a revenue neutral basis then that is much more efficient. It removes a disincentive to working, promotes saving and investing, and the people who spend the most - generally the most wealthy - end up paying the most in taxes.

So in theory it is great but in practice it can have its own set of issue; things like underground economies, cross-border and online purchases. However those all issues exist with GST and other provincial systems anyways.

Value added taxes wouldn't feel like near as much of a burden if they were included in the prices shown. I think the ongoing aggravation of needing to add the extra 5% in your head to know what the bottom line price is going to be is a huge issue. But "burying" the tax like that brings calls that it is hidden. But all cash registers are computerized now, just have the register calculate how much of the total was tax and show that breakout on the receipt.

Its a bit more then changing the cash register though. In terms of organizations using any kind of accounting package or ERP adding a sales tax is a fairly significant task.

Look at what happened in B.C. with the harmonized sales tax.

[photon]

Lol so I'm driving and switch to 770 just to hear what they're saying.

"Dave you're the only unbiased journalist."

Heh...

[CarlW]

I agree with the comments about Danielle Smith not quashing her the extreme comments made by her 2 candidates helping in their downfall. I know thats what did it for me, that she basically gave it the okay for them to say that. Even my parents and their friends that were initially going to vote WildRose then saw the comments + editorials in the Chinese newspapers basically telling them not to vote Wildrose. I wonder how many of the other ethnic and gay/lesbian media basically told their readers to not vote for Wildrose?

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

My point is all election we heard about the PC fear mongering, and now here we are with a bunch of WR supporters (who spent most of the campaign saying they weren't fear mongering) fear mongering about what might happen during a Redford premiership. It's hypocritical. Just like it would be if PCers lost and said the DaniBucks bribery is what cost them, ignoring their own handout offers.

C'mon, be realistic. This election turned on a several month (years?) old blog posting made by one pastor; which was then used to paint an entire party as anti-gay and bigoted. None of which is true, of course. It didn't help that Danielle took a libertarian response to the issue, but at least she was consistent in her beliefs.

The criticism of Redford was based on her policy and record. Nothing was made up. It's too bad the media didn't decide to search out some of the old PC candidates similar statements, but likely it was the PC's driving the witch hunt.

Take for example, Pylon. He violently reacted to the hunstberger affair, and then flocked to vote for the PC party who have many members with the same beliefs, just not politicized and publicised in the same way. I think much of that happened.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I agree the Hunsperger and Leech revelations cost the Wildrose, but it was Danielle's response that cost them substantially more. She looked weak as a leader, and when she finally did speak to the Leech matter, it was two days later and was still protecting him. Doing the right thing according to ideology is nice and all, but it still cost her the election. Had she come straight and hammered them this likely would have been a closer election, at least in Calgary it would have been. Instead the Wildrose got destroyed in Calgary (Liberals with more seats, who would have guessed?)

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

C'mon, be realistic. This election turned on a several month (years?) old blog posting made by one pastor; which was then used to paint an entire party as anti-gay and bigoted. None of which is true, of course. It didn't help that Danielle took a libertarian response to the issue, but at least she was consistent in her beliefs.

And Albertans clearly rejected her libertarian beliefs. Albertans apparently believe that there are limits on the sort of discourse that we are prepared to accept from our elected officials.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

C'mon, be realistic. This election turned on a several month (years?) old blog posting made by one pastor; which was then used to paint an entire party as anti-gay and bigoted. None of which is true, of course. It didn't help that Danielle took a libertarian response to the issue, but at least she was consistent in her beliefs.

The criticism of Redford was based on her policy and record. Nothing was made up. It's too bad the media didn't decide to search out some of the old PC candidates similar statements, but likely it was the PC's driving the witch hunt.

Take for example, Pylon. He violently reacted to the hunstberger affair, and then flocked to vote for the PC party who have many members with the same beliefs, just not politicized and publicised in the same way. I think much of that happened.

People didn't see it as the libertarian response, they saw it as her agreeing with him (and Leech), or at least not disagreeing enough to do something about it.

Agree or not, that's how most people saw it. Had she come out and thrown either (or both) of those candidates under the bus, she would not have disenfranchised the moderate population that the WRP clearly needed to win. Not saying she needed to do that, because there is something to be said about standing up for what you believe in. I think it is extremely naive to think that the uninformed voting population would see it that way though.

[MarchHare]

Yeah, it really was Smith's leadership failure that cost her more than anything. She completely bungled the damage control after the bozo eruptions. If she had distanced herself from Leech and Hunsberger and strongly denounced them as having views that are absolutely not reflective of the WRP and will not be tolerated under her leadership, she would likely be premier now.

Trying to spin it as a free speech issue didn't do her any favours. Free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want without consequence.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by North East Goon

If you are rich - nothing!

Actually sales taxes along with rebates such as with the GST are progressive not regressive.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think if there was one area that Smith's inexperience really showed is her understanding of the press, either she didn't calculate that the press would find resonates in her two candidates or she wasn't willing to do one of two things.

1) fight fire with fire and dig up the quote from Morton about his anti gay marriage stance and desire to fight against the issue

2) Her last speech on the issue where she took issue with her party being labeled as antigay and racist was never pushed hard on the press outside of the Sun which reprinted the speech in its entirety.

We can talk about the fear based campaigning once again, but I don't believe that Wildrose took it to the personal level that Raj and Allison did. To me Raj twitter extoring homophobes and racists to vote for and rally around Wildrose was fairly disgusting. Allison fell back on the whole hidden agenda campaign. While Wildrose did do some fear campaigning it was more based around the PC's economic platform which to me is a fairly legitimate target.

Danielle Smith should have fought harder on the homophobe and racist painting of her party, she should have both used the press better and not been so liberal in her forgiveness of her candidates.

In the next election she is certainly going to have to be more selective in her candidates, it was a lesson that Stephen Harper learned the hard way and it delayed his accession to power by at least an election.

There were some harsh lessons learned in this election by Smith that she's going to have 4 years to mull over. Her dealings with the press and social media being a big one, her candidate control being a big one, and maybe finding and storing some ammo if this issue comes up again. Its not good enough anymore to state multiple times that contentious issues such as gay rights are not on her agenda if she's being attacked on that level, she should have plainly stated that the PC party for example had multiple members on the fringe and they never used their time in power to make basic consititutional changes.

On the other note, it sounds like there were still 50% or less voter turnout again, I really don't know what's needed to get these people off of their couches to vote, I thought this was such a crucial and interesting election and yet half of the people in this province didn't practice their right to vote, I find that depressing.

[Thunderball]

I agree that the average voter didn't see her response as libertarian, they saw it as weak and as tacit endorsement, especially when followed by the whole climate change debacle.

She needed to hammer down on the ignorant fools, both of them. She can be libertarian about it by saying something like, "I have a view contrary to them, and I deeply respect the diversity of opinions in the province, and everyone has a right to their opinions... but when comments so contrary to good governance and a tolerant society come out that are too disturbing to attach to any party, especially this one, it has to be made known that it is extremely unacceptable. As such, they will no longer be running as our candidates. I apologize for their misconduct and reaffirm our commitment to all Albertans."

Then you follow up the whole climate change saga exactly how Alison Redford did. Who cares if the science is settled or not. Its an issue that has to be addressed.

The Social Conservatives (unsurpringly to me)were poisonous to the Wildrose. If they have a hope in hell in 2016, those guys have to go, and they have to hope that the PC's didnt learn their lesson. But man, talk about how to lose an election in 4 days.

[Slava]

There are a lot of factors, but the reality is that Albertans are more progressive and centrist than people think. We're not a bunch of rednecks with no view of the future. In truth we all want a very similar thing and its a question of which party articulates a path that we think can make it happen.

The Wildrose problem to me is more than just a few candidates shooting their mouth off and not saying anything. It comes down to a few major things:

A) Some of their ideas are pretty far out there. I don't mean in an agree/disagree sense, I mean like get out of the CPP, create a provincial police force and stop using the RCMP. Getting rid of AHS and things like that. These are huge concepts and ideas and its hard to know what they even mean for Alberta. Even if you are wanting some change at this point in Alberta it has to be said that things are pretty good in general; and those are huge changes. It will take a lot of education to make some of those not sound as radical as they do.

B) People vote for a vision, and not purely against something. So while the Wildrose spent a lot of time making Redford out to be a dirty, elitist, eastern liberal who is one step away from a communist its hard to gather support based solely on that. Even if you were/are a somewhat disaffected voter these labels and the demeaning commentary that accompanies them makes it hard for "us" to come over to your side! I say us because truth be told I "feel" like an average Alberta voter. I don't think that I have any extreme views and yet the debate was so polarizing that once you kind of decided on where you would fall, switching sides was a real battle. I don't know if I can put that into words properly, but that is a major reason why I think we saw so many ballot-box conversions.

C) Related somewhat to point one, the Wildrose made a rookie mistake in my opinion. Its enticing, but you can't come out and claim that everything is terrible today, but vote for me and it will all be better. No one really believes you. Instead you have to admit that actually things are really good for Alberta. I know...who can agree that the PCs have done some good things? But with 95% employment, and provincial surpluses on the horizon that every party agrees with its basically undeniable. Instead what the Wildrose should have been preaching is a message of "things are good, but we can make some incremental improvements". This could also read as "yes, they have done some things right, but they've shown some terrible mismanagement as well and these little [not scary!] changes will help make it better for everyone."

[Slava]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

C'mon, be realistic. This election turned on a several month (years?) old blog posting made by one pastor; which was then used to paint an entire party as anti-gay and bigoted. None of which is true, of course. It didn't help that Danielle took a libertarian response to the issue, but at least she was consistent in her beliefs.

The criticism of Redford was based on her policy and record. Nothing was made up. It's too bad the media didn't decide to search out some of the old PC candidates similar statements, but likely it was the PC's driving the witch hunt.

Take for example, Pylon. He violently reacted to the hunstberger affair, and then flocked to vote for the PC party who have many members with the same beliefs, just not politicized and publicised in the same way. I think much of that happened.

Let me sum it up for you. Remember when Redford made Wilkie resign for asking why Danielle Smith had no kids? That's leadership. That's how a strong leader deals with things. Danielle Smith didn't have that luxury because the social conservatives would've left her if she did this though. It was a bad decision, plain and simple.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

My point is all election we heard about the PC fear mongering, and now here we are with a bunch of WR supporters (who spent most of the campaign saying they weren't fear mongering) fear mongering about what might happen during a Redford premiership. It's hypocritical. Just like it would be if PCers lost and said the DaniBucks bribery is what cost them, ignoring their own handout offers.

Your point above is a good one, but has nothing to do with your statement that comments made (here) after the election were examples of why the WR didn't win the election. That was where I was looking for clarification.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

don't forget suck up to the young people by targeting people in Alberta who make more then $100,000 a year for a special prosperity tax.

they'll also build these community health centers but be unable to actually staff them so they'll sit empty.

She'll continue to buy off her new friends in the union by flop negotiating with them on wages and benefits.

In four years we'll be talking about the continued long wait times in hospitals and a lack of beds and in the next election, all of the parties will promise to increase healthcare spending by massive amounts and nothing will get done no matter who gets into power.

Allison will try to bury the pay reduction promises and no one will have to pay back the no meat committee dollars.

"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5

"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10

This is so beneath you Captain. Albertans have spoken. As others have pointed out, this is a new PC government - not Farmer Ed's.

I really hate the "I'm so much smarter than the idiots who voted PC" type comments.

How 'bout we wait to see what the Redford team does before anyone slashes their wrists.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

This is so beneath you Captain. Albertans have spoken. As others have pointed out, this is a new PC government - not Farmer Ed's.

I really hate the "I'm so much smarter than the idiots who voted PC" type comments.

How 'bout we wait to see what the Redford team does before anyone slashes their wrists.

Its funny though. Its that kind of attitude that just cost the Wildrose supporters in my opinion. Like I say, if you were on the fence as a PC supporter and get branded as an idiot for even thinking thats a good idea (my words, not anyone elses), how do you ever make that switch?

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Slava

Let me sum it up for you. Remember when Redford made Wilkie resign for asking why Danielle Smith had no kids? That's leadership. That's how a strong leader deals with things. Danielle Smith didn't have that luxury because the social conservatives would've left her if she did this though. It was a bad decision, plain and simple.

Yes, it would have been very interesting if the Wildrose had brought up the many PC members with a history of bigoted viewpoints; ie: fight fire with fire.

It's easy to fire a backroom staffer. It would have been much harder to fire Ted Morton. Allison couldn't have done that, no matter how great a leader you think she is. Danielle refused to get into the deep mudslinging. And they lost because of it.

[chemgear]

Obviously there have been lots of talk about Hunsperger's bigotry but some people also pointed specifically to his condemnation of the Edmonton school board for trying to institute their "anti-bullying" policy that came with it.

When you've got some religious nutbar saying that a certain group of people are going to burn in hell and they go out their way to call out a school board trying to put in policy to stop bullying . . . well, people tend to draw some conclusions when that nutbar wants to run for public office.

Heck, toss in the other racial silly comments on top of that and people think it'll be open season on them/their kids if they're not straight, white and religious (rightly or wrongly.)

And I certainly don't think people see it as a “libertarian issue” at all. You are the leader of a political party running for office, votes, and public trust – as a leader of any organization you either strongly condemn that kind of crap or you are saying that you basically endorse/condone it. The pathetically weak and delayed response basically told voters that it was A-okay with the political party and its leadership.

“Here’s the deal, we are totally okay with bigotry and racism in our political party – but trust us, we’re not going to legislate on these issues. Just vote for us.”


To be fair, maybe Hunsperger isn't that much of a nutbar - hell, nearly 3,000 people voted for him. WTF?

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I think if there was one area that Smith's inexperience really showed is her understanding of the press, either she didn't calculate that the press would find resonates in her two candidates or she wasn't willing to do one of two things.

1) fight fire with fire and dig up the quote from Morton about his anti gay marriage stance and desire to fight against the issue

2) Her last speech on the issue where she took issue with her party being labeled as antigay and racist was never pushed hard on the press outside of the Sun which reprinted the speech in its entirety.

Nope, none of those strategies would have done anything. A 'yeah, well the other guys just as racist/homophobic as us' line would have fallen flat. Nobody would have cared. Morton's an extreme social conservative, but we know enough about the rank-and-file of the PCs to know that he wouldn't be able to push that agenda within his party.

The WRP needed to be proactive, rather than reactionary. They needed to present not just a leader but a team of star candidates who people could get to know and say 'yes, I wouldn't mind these people running my province.' Such an approach would have largely mitigated offensive comments, because the public would be able to more easily dismiss them as a couple wingnuts.

Instead, the casual voter saw a picture of the Wildrose as Smith as a weak leader with a whole bunch of rednecks lurking in the weeds behind her, just waiting for her to lead them to victory. It wasn't as though this image only reared its head in the last few days of the campaign... this was a long-held suspicion about the party that was seemingly confirmed by these comments. Going forward, that element of party identity is something the WRP needs to confront head-on and aggressively, rather than hoping nobody speaks out of line and then responding weakly when they do.