Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by curves2000

One trend I have come across some friends and people in my day to day talk/work/social circle is a concern with the UCP but unease with the NDP.

A lot of people are not happy with the UCP and Smith in general but feel unease about some of the social issues, wokeness and perceived softness on crime, drugs, violent offenders, environment/climate policies etc.

Smith's and the UCP performance has been quite poor across the board on a whole host of issues but it does seem SOME of their messaging is resonating with some people on what I call common sense issues.

I do think a leader and a party that was down the middle and more mainstream/common sense like the Alberta party could do well if only they had more airtime, a leader who was better known.

If you compare the Alberta NDP to any other provincial government outside of Sask or Manitoba, they're heavily centrist and almost right-wing. They do the smart thing in ignoring the most divisive policies of the federal NDP, and they outright contradict the federal party when it comes to oil & gas. Their primary platform goals for this election are improving healthcare, education, and affordable housing. How the hell does that make anyone feel "unease"?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Part of the reason I'm going to have a difficult time voting NDP is that I simply don't align with a lot of the mean spirited takes in this thread or people like this in general quite frankly. I don't really want to be associated with angry people that call everyone morons for not agreeing with them. It's not a great place to be right now for me as I just don't like the options and I'm still not sure about what I'm going to do. One thing for sure is that this thread just makes it harder and harder to vote NDP for me.

Lol. This isn’t even dumb, it’s just a transparent lie. We know you’re lying, you know you’re lying.

Just admit why you vote ucp. We already know. You’re only lying to yourself.

[Harry Lime]

If the NDP manage to lose this election because they are too stubborn to change their name, I'll be pissed. The conservatives change their name constantly.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Not quite that simple; while the UCP have a large margin in a lot of rural ridings, the margin is even bigger the other way in a lot of Edmonton ridings. Also I believe the population/riding is smaller in most of the rural ridings. Ultimately it won't be the popular vote percentage that matters, it is who wins in Calgary and the smaller cities.

It's not smaller in rural ridings. In 2019 they divided all the ridings to about almost 40,000 eligible voters and the rural ridings in fact get bigger turnout 60%+ compered who some Calgary riding that barely reached 50%.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

If the NDP manage to lose this election because they are too stubborn to change their name, I'll be pissed. The conservatives change their name constantly.

This is a bad take and it's annoying seeing it repeated so often. The NDP have already won an election in Alberta and was the only government in the last few decades to have their leader complete a full term. That gives them name recognition that no party other than the UCP has. Also regardless of what the official conservative party name is, they always have the word "conservative" in it and the signs are always blue, that's all they need. If the Alberta NDP changed their name that would probably just be a boost to some other party which would split the vote and ensure UCP dominance

[Looch City]

I’d like to point out that we have not even reached the half way point of this month of May and we’ve already crossed the Nazi/Hilter name drop threshold (by Smith herself!).

We’re in for a wild rest of the month!

What else could this lunatic possibly say in 2 weeks? Just how dark are her past times?

I’ll take bets that she’s also a flat Earther.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Danielle Smith - If you're vaccinated you're Nazi's
Erick Estrada - The left on Calgarypuck are nasty and I can't deal with that

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I think some people are down playing just how prevalent and how far reaching some woke/social issues are in today's society and some people are speaking out. Some aspect of those policies are long overdue, needed etc but some have gone off the deep end.

A recent government environmental report for the federal government's pledge to plant 2 billion tree's by 2030 is pretty much a joke. Something like 1% of the progress has been made because of government bureaucracy which includes things like a comprehensive gender/LQBTQ study.


When people see the crime, the drugs, the meth heads, the social problems downtown and on transit, on the balance of probability more people see a "lock em up" approach or a tough on crime/mandatory drug treatment as a better overall approach to safe supply/treatment only when ready. Wither or not that is the best approach, I don't know. I just think certain things are human nature. If you or your family were a victim of a serious crime, are you asking why was this person out on bail/not in prison or are you wondering if this person had access to safe supply or if their gender/BIOPIC analysis was conducted for their bail review?

CNN is launching a series next week called " What happened to San Francisco??" Looking at the issues about how this great American city has become a filthy nightmare of crime, drugs, homelessness and mental health issues.

So yes, I do think some Alberta voters are very concerned with the UCP, Smith and the overall performance but might be more concerned with the potential policies of the NDP on some social/woke style issues. I am sure the reverse is also true.

I'm not sure common sense means making up reasons for what's causing issues in society. We've been under conservative governments in the province for decades, why don't any of the conservative voters in the province look at them? Why make up imaginary causes for issues in society?

Violent crime is an issue and everyone has a hand in it. Including all the conservative provincial governments in Canada, along with the feds. To point to one group as responsible is incorrect.

So a federal tree planting program is behind because of LGBTQ+ studies? They announced this program in 2020. Seems like there were probably bigger issues to take care of in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Can you show me a source that shows that the government bureaucracy and LGBTQ+ studies are the issue? Absolutely bizarre example to bring up. The UCP are one of the largest, if not the largest governments we've ever had and you're concerned with bureacracy. What are you even saying?

Are you really wondering why San Francisco, a city with one of the widest wealth gaps in North America is struggling with property crimes? This isn't rocket science, it's barely even a question. Why are there so many homeless people in a city that's incredibly expensive to live in, that brought in a ton of people for a tech industry and displaced the residents? You can read up on homelessness in San Francisco and see the reasons, and that would also explain why property crime has increased. Homelessness has been a problem in San Francisco since the 70s.

" As of 2019, approximately 70% of the city's homeless had housing in the city before becoming homeless, while the remaining 30% came from outside of San Francisco.[44] This figure is up from 61% in 2013. Of that 70%, 55% had lived in San Francisco for less than 10 years before becoming homeless; 6% had only lived in San Francisco for a year before becoming homeless."

Your bizarre post talking about common sense doesn't seem to have much common sense in it. Almost none.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

This is a bad take and it's annoying seeing it repeated so often. The NDP have already won an election in Alberta and was the only government in the last few decades to have their leader complete a full term. That gives them name recognition that no party other than the UCP has. Also regardless of what the official conservative party name is, they always have the word "conservative" in it and the signs are always blue, that's all they need. If the Alberta NDP changed their name that would probably just be a boost to some other party which would split the vote and ensure UCP dominance

I disagree. It's a wicked cool take full of awesomeness. I wish we heard it more. The Alberta Democrat Party. The ADP. You would be amazed how many people think of the NDP as the boogeyman.

More to that point, I am outside of calgary, and the number of UCP signs outweigh the NDP by a large margin. This isn't an indication of support swaying heavily to one side, but because people who are afraid of boogeymen are dangerous, and nobody wants to put their family and property in danger by sporting a "Notley-Singh" sign.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by FormerPresJamesTaylor

Danielle Smith - If you're vaccinated you're Nazi's
Erick Estrada - The left on Calgarypuck are nasty and I can't deal with that

There he is the King of the gang up.

“Let’s get EE guys”

Such a valuable poster.


Smith’s new initiatives look good and will win her support.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1656102982352793600

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

If the NDP manage to lose this election because they are too stubborn to change their name, I'll be pissed. The conservatives change their name constantly.

I'll 1000% blame Notley. Yes you have some pretty stupid people in Calgary hung up with that name.

You have the UCP with their ads saying a vote for Notley is a vote for Trudeau and Singh. Notley needs to do an ad with a 2 finger salute to Singh telling the federal NDP party to eff off and rebrand the name to the ANDP.

The Anti-NDP Party.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Yoho

There he is the King of the gang up.

“Let’s get EE guys”

Such a valuable poster.


Smith’s new initiatives look good and will win her support.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1656102982352793600

Shut up Cory. Take your greyanus back to Facebook and Youtube.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by DFO

What is the Alberta way of life? Keeping taxes artificially low by burning through all of our resource revenue? And then having the gall to think we’re prudent fiscal managers?

There's also a pretty incredible persecution complex in there.

Originally Posted by curves2000

I think some people are down playing just how prevalent and how far reaching some woke/social issues are in today's society and some people are speaking out. Some aspect of those policies are long overdue, needed etc but some have gone off the deep end.

A recent government environmental report for the federal government's pledge to plant 2 billion tree's by 2030 is pretty much a joke. Something like 1% of the progress has been made because of government bureaucracy which includes things like a comprehensive gender/LQBTQ study.


When people see the crime, the drugs, the meth heads, the social problems downtown and on transit, on the balance of probability more people see a "lock em up" approach or a tough on crime/mandatory drug treatment as a better overall approach to safe supply/treatment only when ready. Wither or not that is the best approach, I don't know. I just think certain things are human nature. If you or your family were a victim of a serious crime, are you asking why was this person out on bail/not in prison or are you wondering if this person had access to safe supply or if their gender/BIOPIC analysis was conducted for their bail review?

CNN is launching a series next week called " What happened to San Francisco??" Looking at the issues about how this great American city has become a filthy nightmare of crime, drugs, homelessness and mental health issues.

So yes, I do think some Alberta voters are very concerned with the UCP, Smith and the overall performance but might be more concerned with the potential policies of the NDP on some social/woke style issues. I am sure the reverse is also true.

Maybe I just live in a weird bubble or something, but I don't get the bolded. At all. And I'm afraid your examples don't seem to be supporting that point...

"Wokism" is running amok in society because we are behind an arbitrary target for tree planting?

There have been stories about how tree planting camps are a bit of a 'wild west' with a concerning level of sexual violence:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ults-1.5446211

So ya...if we're gonna spend a bunch of tax money to hire people to plant these trees it's probably a very reasonable idea to try to avoid enabling a bunch of predators...



Social disorder is just another thing altogether. Seems like a correlation =/= causation situation: disorder is more prevalent in urban area and urban areas are generally more progressive politically...it's probably as simple as that (and also really really complex)

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by curves2000

I

When people see the crime, the drugs, the meth heads, the social problems downtown and on transit, on the balance of probability more people see a "lock em up" approach or a tough on crime/mandatory drug treatment as a better overall approach to safe supply/treatment only when ready. Wither or not that is the best approach, I don't know. I just think certain things are human nature. If you or your family were a victim of a serious crime, are you asking why was this person out on bail/not in prison or are you wondering if this person had access to safe supply or if their gender/BIOPIC analysis was conducted for their bail review?

CNN is launching a series next week called " What happened to San Francisco??" Looking at the issues about how this great American city has become a filthy nightmare of crime, drugs, homelessness and mental health issues.

So yes, I do think some Alberta voters are very concerned with the UCP, Smith and the overall performance but might be more concerned with the potential policies of the NDP on some social/woke style issues. I am sure the reverse is also true.

You think the UCP will improve this?

Can you point to reasons why? Limiting access to education, health care, livable wages etc. isn't going to help reduce crime. It isn't going to help the people already struggling with addiction and poverty often resulting in them committing crimes.

This is another perfect example of why UCP voters are dumb. They don't look at what each party will actually do to address their concerns they just go with outdated myths that Conservatives= crime and punishment so will reduce all these issues, which isn't the case in anyway.

Every issue you raise is a concern of mine and my family which is part of the reason I will vote NDP because I trust them much more to address those issues than I do Smith and the UCP.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Originally Posted by Yoho

There he is the King of the gang up.

“Let’s get EE guys”

Such a valuable poster.

Such a liberal snowflake

[RogerWilco]

Originally Posted by AFireInside

"Smith, with or without her sovereignty act, is the best champion Albertans have at the moment to stand up to the federal Liberals and the Alberta “progressives” who would raise taxes, ban guns, cripple the energy sector, block pipelines, limit the use of farm fertilizers, censor the internet, increase spending and continue to impose pandemic mandates"


It would be much better if this wasn't all nonsense. They aren't blocking pipelines, the only guns they are banning are ones that serve no purpose (my entire family hunts and they have no issue with the guns being proposed currently), the NDP didn't cripple the energy industry, and no one is or has proposed banning fertilizers.



Are all conservatives just terrified little cowards? This is straight up fear mongering garbage.

Not just that, but i’m 50 years old, born and raised in Alberta. What exactly is an Alberta way of life? I honestly don’t know.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

This is a bad take and it's annoying seeing it repeated so often. The NDP have already won an election in Alberta and was the only government in the last few decades to have their leader complete a full term. That gives them name recognition that no party other than the UCP has. Also regardless of what the official conservative party name is, they always have the word "conservative" in it and the signs are always blue, that's all they need. If the Alberta NDP changed their name that would probably just be a boost to some other party which would split the vote and ensure UCP dominance

Yeah but what if they renamed themselves the New Democratic Conservative Party and had blue signs too?

[Wormius]

I have no idea what curves2000 is on about. There is no inordinate amount of crime in Alberta, this keeps getting trotted out as some boogeyman; it’s just false. We’ve hashed that out already with real police stats. Being scared because you saw a homeless people doesn’t mean a crime is being committed.

Not sure why they also scapegoated marginalized groups as the cause of this crime. Where have we seen that before?

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Spurs

You think the UCP will improve this?

Can you point to reasons why? Limiting access to education, health care, livable wages etc. isn't going to help reduce crime. It isn't going to help the people already struggling with addiction and poverty often resulting in them committing crimes.

This is another perfect example of why UCP voters are dumb. They don't look at what each party will actually do to address their concerns they just go with outdated myths that Conservatives= crime and punishment so will reduce all these issues, which isn't the case in anyway.

Every issue you raise is a concern of mine and my family which is part of the reason I will vote NDP because I trust them much more to address those issues than I do Smith and the UCP.

I actually don't think the UCP will improve things that your discussing to the degree a lot of us want truthfully.

A trend I have noticed with some people as I mentioned is uneasy with the UCP, unhappy with their overall performance but concerns with some of the aspects of some left policies, wokeism, social justice issues etc. A lot of people are also very comfortable with the NDP now more than ever.

The NDP has also seen those concerns from their previous campaign and time in government and is trying hard to counter some of those concerns. They are trying to appeal to more common folk/working class people that's why some of the marketing is about Notley "comfortable in jeans and a hard hat"

These type of things happen in campaigns and after a party wins/loses, they do a deep dive into what went wrong. I have mentioned this before but the NDP has completely changed their rural strategy going into 2023 election. Listening a lot more to the concerns and issues affecting rural Albertan's. Analysis showed they did a piss poor job while in government and in 2019 What worked with a fractured right in 2015 won't work this time around. That's the shift has occurred.

It's not that UCP voters are dumb/ NDP voters are smart or vice versa, it's that parties make mistakes, leaders make mistakes, campaigns matter.

I don't know who will win the election but I am sure if the NDP win's, some of the concerns brought up by people here about the UCP will be valid but if the UCP win's I am sure the same will be true for concerns about the NDP. It's politics and the game that get's played.

[Erick Estrada]

This thread has degenerated into an echo chamber for #######s. I know politics bring out the worst in people but I just have to shake my head sometimes. It’s all good though. I still love you guys but man, ha ha ha.