Alberta Election Thread - Election Day April 16 2019

[Ozy_Flame]

From r/Alberta: Another UCP candidate letter concerned about a vote split in supporting the Alberta Party.

https://imgur.com/a/ZW8cKtl

Love that the AP are making the UCP sweat

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

More fearmongering.

Fyi, China and the U.S. account for 39% of the worlds total green house gas emissions. Canada accounts for 1.6%.

The Alberta oil sands account for 9.6% of Canada’s total green house gas emissions. That actualy works out to only 0.15% of worlds total green house gas emissions.

Source is the national resources canada website (a government of Canada webpage)

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/publications/18731

It's weird that him producing a fact (Alberta produced 37.5% of Canada's GHG in 2016) and talking about renewables becoming cheaper and wondering about diversification of the economy classes as "fear mongering" to you.

Now of course our reliance on coal and natural gas is due to the lack of hydro that places like BC and Quebec have, and agriculture also produces a lot of GHG, so I'm not critiquing the number at all, but again just such a weird reaction.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Locke

You know that you're voting for a political party and some randos in a camper right?

My ballot only had a choice of MLA, why wasn't I also allowed to vote for rando in a camper?

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

My ballot only had a choice of MLA, why wasn't I also allowed to vote for rando in a camper?

I'm not sure Locke knows how voting works

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

From r/Alberta: Another UCP candidate letter concerned about a vote split in supporting the Alberta Party.

https://imgur.com/a/ZW8cKtl

Love that the AP are making the UCP sweat

A letter setting out arguments and trying win over the voter is at least better than those obnoxious NDP leaflets, but it's still dumb.

[Fuzz]

It is frustrating watching Alberta get blamed for Canada's GHG emmisions though. The country gets to enjoy the economic benefits, but we get all the blame?



Maybe if they added in the emissions for the production of resources imported from other countries into other parts of Canada, or subtract Alberta's emmisions for exported products outside Alberta, we could have a proper conversation on real emmisions, rather than blame Alberta emmisions, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

My ballot only had a choice of MLA, why wasn't I also allowed to vote for rando in a camper?

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I'm not sure Locke knows how voting works

Boys, I dont think that cardboard shanty out back is a legit voting booth and I know for sure that the Camper is not a legit mobile voting booth. You might have to ask to see some ID or something.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Locke

Boys, I dont think that cardboard shanty out back is a legit voting booth and I know for sure that the Camper is not a legit mobile voting booth. You might have to ask to see some ID or something.

Nah, I don't need to go near creepy MAGA campers or talk to drivers of said creepy MAGA campers. I'm all good, my surly friend.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Locke

Boys, I dont think that cardboard shanty out back is a legit voting booth and I know for sure that the Camper is not a legit mobile voting booth. You might have to ask to see some ID or something.

I was just making fun of your apparent lack of the word "not" in your sentence. I even gave you the courtesy of not mocking you for saying we are voting for a political party, because we are voting for an MLA representative. But I see how it is.

Also, I don't need to see an ID, I've known Dirty Mike and the boys from the shanty for a long time.

[Weitz]

While a weird thing to drive around in a camper like that.. Is it really worth discussing photos from last summer, according to the tweets?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

I was just making fun of your apparent lack of the word "not" in your sentence. I even gave you the courtesy of not mocking you for saying we are voting for a political party, because we are voting for an MLA representative. But I see how it is.

Also, I don't need to see an ID, I've known Dirty Mike and the boys from the shanty for a long time.

At this point if Dirty Mike and The Boys could conjure up a coherent campaign platform I'd probably give them some serious consideration to run the place.

[puckedoff]

Sure we have a $6bn deficit but did you see what some lunatic painted on his camper a year ago!!?!

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It is frustrating watching Alberta get blamed for Canada's GHG emmisions though. The country gets to enjoy the economic benefits, but we get all the blame?



Maybe if they added in the emissions for the production of resources imported from other countries into other parts of Canada, or subtract Alberta's emmisions for exported products outside Alberta, we could have a proper conversation on real emmisions, rather than blame Alberta emmisions, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

Well yeah, BC burns for a month every summer but that's oil's fault bro.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Sure we have a $6bn deficit but did you see what some lunatic painted on his camper a year ago!!?!

Isn't it awesome? We are so energized as a province over this election! The passion!

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

From r/Alberta: Another UCP candidate letter concerned about a vote split in supporting the Alberta Party.

https://imgur.com/a/ZW8cKtl

Love that the AP are making the UCP sweat

This is an interesting component of the campaign, especially in Calgary. In some instances I think the AP is spoiling the UCP vote and in other instances it's spoiling the NDP vote.

For example in Calgary Foothills, the AP probably is taking from the UCP and making it easier for the NDP. I think Panda will cruise to victory there, but if you're running his campaign, your risk of losing to the NDP is bleeding votes to the Alberta party candidate, hence the letter to AB lawn sign owners. Obviously in Calgary - Elbow the AP is a factor and I think it's Schweitzer's UCP campaign that is guilty of doing what he's accusing Clark's campaign of doing. He'a trying to scare AP leaning voters into voting for him to avoid the NDP, even though I think the NDP is tracking 3rd in that race and it's actually him and Clark neck and neck. In Calgary-Klein it looks like the better Kara Levis does the better the UCP chances are as the votes are more fluid between NDP and AP there (338 had it likely NDP for a majority of the campaign until recent days where it shows leaning UCP, thanks in part to both better AP party polling and stronger UCP support in the riding).

http://alberta.338canada.com/districts/calgary.htm

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Isn't it awesome? We are so energized as a province over this election! The passion!

I bet the owner of the camper van proudly drives that van around and many UCP voters secretly want to drive that around too, they just don't have the rusted, creepy MAGA camper vans to do it.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Slava

But what does that actually mean? I’m not disagreeing with you, because it makes sense and I think most people would say we need to be less reliant on this industry. But what I find head is the government role in that. I don’t want them choosing which companies to give money to. I also wonder about you “just diversify” the economy. It’s really complicated and a lot of the heavy lifting is done in the market and not by the government and political will.

I think a good start would be dumping a bunch of targeted money at Alberta universities to try develop centres of excellence and a burgeoning talent pool of people in said industry. The next step is to try and draw employers. This part gets tricky for sure, do you dump money at existing companies to try jump-start things? Do you put a bunch of incentives in place to draw venture capital to try grow it grassroots? Does the government act as a VC to get things going? I have no idea. I try elect people smarter than me to try figure it out

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

What do you mean by economics of renewables being more attractive? Could you be more specific? Which ones types of alternatives?

Solar and wind have lower full cycle unit costs than coal or natural gas according to most of the recent studies on the matter. Yes.. yes.. storage, blah blah. We are so far from enough renewables on our grid to worry about it, and I'd rather the focus of innovation be in energy storage than burning up dinosaurs and figuring out how to capture all the pollution. One looks like a path forward, the other looks like clutching onto our past.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_o...city_by_source

Why do we have to absolutely obliterate one industry for another? It seems like that’s how people think.

Alberta is not a cost friendly environment for businesses. Wages are still high compared to the rest of the country. Housing is far from cheap. Commercial real estate is the only draw right now. Everyone outside the oil industry considering setting up in Calgary knows they are one oil boom away from getting destroyed by ballooning costs. Letting the industry stagnate is the quickest path to diversification. Like I said before, we made great strides in the 90s and it largely got wiped out by the next oil boom in the 2000s.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Meanwhile natural gas is the fastest growing energy source in the world (in absolute units).

Natural gas is a great transitionary fuel source, and excellent at providing base loads in the face of growing renewables as you can spin plants up and down quite quickly.

The lack of NG pipelines to export our gas is the one that to me, is a bigger outrage. The environmental risks of transporting NG are so minimal in comparison to crude, and there are a lot of good reasons to think that NG will be a big part of our energy future.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

This is an interesting component of the campaign, especially in Calgary. In some instances I think the AP is spoiling the UCP vote and in other instances it's spoiling the NDP vote.

For example in Calgary Foothills, the AP probably is taking from the UCP and making it easier for the NDP. I think Panda will cruise to victory there, but if you're running his campaign, your risk of losing to the NDP is bleeding votes to the Alberta party candidate, hence the letter to AB lawn sign owners. Obviously in Calgary - Elbow the AP is a factor and I think it's Schweitzer's UCP campaign that is guilty of doing what he's accusing Clark's campaign of doing. He'a trying to scare AP leaning voters into voting for him to avoid the NDP, even though I think the NDP is tracking 3rd in that race and it's actually him and Clark neck and neck. In Calgary-Klein it looks like the better Kara Levis does the better the UCP chances are as the votes are more fluid between NDP and AP there (338 had it likely NDP for a majority of the campaign until recent days where it shows leaning UCP, thanks in part to both better AP party polling and stronger UCP support in the riding).

http://alberta.338canada.com/districts/calgary.htm

good post. I agree that the AP takes votes from both parties, and that's part of their (AP) problem. As voters make their way in and think "I don't want to have the NDP/UCP in power" they will also not want to split that vote. It's anecdotal of course, but there are a lot of voters who see this as the one time in four years to get rid of the NDP, so they're less likely to risk splitting that anti-NDP vote around and having an NDP candidate win.

Some of those projections are interesting. A couple ridings that they have as "toss-up" are surprising. Mountainview strikes me as pretty solidly NDP, and I'm a little surprised about Varsity as leaning NDP. Calgary Currie is another interesting case.

[Ozy_Flame]

Actually the AP is hoping to take votes from both sides, and appeal to the voters who classify as moderates and centrists. Siphoning votes from both sides leads to a more likely minority government situation, where the AP, knowing will not have governing or Opposition status, can hold the balance of power.

This election was never intended be won by the AP, but rather gain exposure and position themselves as the check and balance on two spectrum parties.

The fact that these letters are going to (Mountain View, Edgemont) are likely great news for the AP war room.