Alberta Election Thread - Election Day April 16 2019

[crazy_eoj]

Good thing to remember while watching the debate is that during the previous 2015 election the NDP was polling very close to the Wildrose (and the PC's) right before the debate, and then saw their numbers take off after Notley's performance. I don't think anyone questions that Notley had the strongest showing in that debate.

However, she'll have to do even better than that to change the NDP fortunes this election, as they are much further behind.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Nothing good comes out of these debates. I would give moderator a button that turns off candidate's mic as soon as their 3-min response time's up or as soon as they start going on a tangent by evading an uncomfortable question and giving a prepared electioneering BS instead.


Seriously, we all should be hearing and talking about:

how to get every last bit of oil & gas out of this province as soon as possible before a new form of energy could replace it and make it worthless;

how to diversify our O&G sector by investing in processing petrochemicals into something other than fuels QUICKLY;

how to make our labour force more attractive and less costly to big employers;

how to lower our cost of living;

how to spark and promote in-migration growth;

how to reduce bloated public administration and health care costs...


Instead, we are forced to listen non-stop to this white noise of non-issues like GSA rules and what some candidate said five years ago in a tweet about something equally unimportant...

Which party are you going to run for? You have my vote.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Seriously, we all should be hearing and talking about:

how to get every last bit of oil & gas out of this province as soon as possible before a new form of energy could replace it and make it worthless;

Hasn’t the anti-green energy crowd on this board been saying for the last few years that demand for oil is never going to go down? My how things change quickly. In all seriousness though pipelines are a federal jurisdiction and legal issue issue at this point so if the entire debate is centred around this issue it will largely be a waste of time.

how to diversify our O&G sector by investing in processing petrochemicals into something other than fuels QUICKLY;

The current government is actually doing this, problem is the infrastructure takes time to get built and running.

how to make our labour force more attractive and less costly to big employers;

Big employers need the ability to pay lower wages than they currently are during a recession?

how to lower our cost of living;

Lowering wages as you previously suggested makes this a harder hill to climb.

how to spark and promote in-migration growth;

Paying people less money should do the trick, that’s why people from other provinces used to come to Alberta in the first place, the lower wages. Right?

how to reduce bloated public administration and health care costs...

Should we do that by allocating our tax dollars to private schools and healthcare centres? Seems like that will either add to the costs or reduce the return on our current budget.

Instead, we are forced to listen non-stop to this white noise of non-issues like GSA rules and what some candidate said five years ago in a tweet about something equally unimportant...

White noise? Well at least we know where you stand on human rights issues.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Instead, we are forced to listen non-stop to this white noise of non-issues like GSA rules and what some candidate said five years ago in a tweet about something equally unimportant...

Why not both?

I'd argue that social issues are just as important as economic issues.

The UCP certainly has some members living in the previous decade with regards to social issues. That needs to brought forward and discussed. What's the point in taking 1 step forward economically and 1 step back socially? We'd end up no where.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Good thing to remember while watching the debate is that during the previous 2015 election the NDP was polling very close to the Wildrose (and the PC's) right before the debate, and then saw their numbers take off after Notley's performance. I don't think anyone questions that Notley had the strongest showing in that debate.

However, she'll have to do even better than that to change the NDP fortunes this election, as they are much further behind.

Last time around, she was able to coast in on the cracks in the PC armour, the arrogance of her opponents that the Dippers "could never win", and the polarizing PC budget. She also was fortunate that Brian Jean wasn't able to win hearts and minds and didn't come off as particularly effective.

This time, everyone will be gunning for her, the amount of debt the NDP have racked up, and the NDP's polarizing record generally. A win for her is going to involve Kenney coming off terribly and getting enough people to hold their nose in Calgary to get her a chance at a minority government. I doubt Kenney is going to deliver that opportunity in a debate like this.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Why not both?

I'd argue that social issues are just as important as economic issues.

The UCP certainly has some members living in the previous decade with regards to social issues. That needs to brought forward and discussed. What's the point in taking 1 step forward economically and 1 step back socially? We'd end up no where.

According to the latest poll of Albertan's these are the most important issues:

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Jiggy

Which party are you going to run for? You have my vote.

I say what I mean and I call things like I see them. I constantly struggle with being politically correct in conversations. I wouldn't last a day in politics.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

A win for her is going to involve Kenney coming off terribly and getting enough people to hold their nose in Calgary to get her a chance at a minority government. I doubt Kenney is going to deliver that opportunity in a debate like this.

It remains to be seen what happens tonight but Kenney hasn’t proven to be very tactful when being asked random questions and not working off a script. His interview with Adler from yesterday was a good example of this.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Good thing to remember while watching the debate is that during the previous 2015 election the NDP was polling very close to the Wildrose (and the PC's) right before the debate, and then saw their numbers take off after Notley's performance. I don't think anyone questions that Notley had the strongest showing in that debate.

However, she'll have to do even better than that to change the NDP fortunes this election, as they are much further behind.

This formula flips on its ear when you're the incumbant and the province is in a economic dark spot.


Its harder for her to defend her record, then it is to attack the incumbent.


Do better, she's almost going to need a stellar perfect performance.


In the last leaders debate, it was everyone including Notley ganging up on Prentice. This time its going to be an all hands on deck assault on Notley and her record.


I never expect a Mulroney vs Turner debate knockout or Kennedy vs Nixon fall apart performance. But this time, Notley's got a lot more to prove.


Incumbents tend to get slaughtered, especially when she's got a lousy set of numbers and facts backing her up.

[Shazam]

The worst time for an election for the incumbent is when the economy is not doing well.

Ruh-oh.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Incumbents tend to get slaughtered, especially when she's got a lousy set of numbers and facts backing her up.

Notleyisms that are pig's lipstick:

'Best Balance sheet in the Country' - translation: Even though 80% of Alberta's debt was incurred was on my watch, we haven't completely sewered the Province's finance's yet, give me four more years to do that running the country's highest deficits!

'Balanced budget only one year later than the UCP and we won't freeze education and health care'

translation: Financially illiterate people don't understand that my forecast has much higher oil prices embedded in them relative to the UCP forecast to hide the fact that to balance my budget in 2024 gov't revenue would have to increase 31% while it has stayed flat between 2014 - 2019 because we refuse to show any restraint on spending. When oil prices don't increase above current levels, we'll introduce a PST we didn't campaign on and point to loose wording on page 58 of our election platform to pretend we did.

'We protected the public from greedy power companies and their 'enron clause' - We protected the public interest from higher power costs by incurring billions in higher power costs to break the existing PPA's

'We needed to invest in the future generations of Albertans' - Translation: we're pretending that our spending problems are for noble capital projects such as more schools, hospitals, etc. when in reality we have a massive operating deficit

'We refuse to roll back spending on the public service because we refused to make a bad situation worse' - Translation: We goosed up employment rates by going on a hiring binge to mask the province's dismal private sector employment rates. Because we're beholden to the Labour movement that my husband is a leader in we can't do anything to manage spending, in fact we did the opposite like hiring civil servants to do hospital laundry services that the private sector used to do cheaper

[you&me]

Originally Posted by stone hands

no, it just means you're willingly putting your child into a private institution when a public one exists

i dont have kids yet and gladly pay for other peoples kids educations because a more educated society is a better society for all of us

You gladly pay into a system that guarantees all children receive equal funding for their education, province wide. Except the children that attend private schools. Because their parents choose to pay (additional sums) for their education, those children receive less funding per student than the kids in public or separate school boards.

[PaperBagger'14]

This might be the best case scenario for the debate. Complete silence.

[Shazam]

I honestly don't see why they can't just do some sort of death match for leader.

[transplant99]

'She" got the pipeline purchased?

Interesting position to take.

[SportsJunky]

Good debate so far. Mandel and Khan just don’t have the debating chops of the other two.

[Nsd1]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Good debate so far. Mandela and Khan just don’t have the debating chops of the other two.

To be fair, the dead can't really debate very well

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Good debate so far. Mandela and Khan just don’t have the debating chops of the other two.

I really like how Mandel is carrying himself. He isnt regurgitating facts memorized like Kenny and he isnt pie in the sky like Notley.

Hes playing the middle ground very well, even if he isnt as good of a speaker.

[curves2000]

This debate looks like a disaster for all involved. Everybody talking over everybody, moderator doing a terrible job, everybody reading from scripts.

Amature hour. Embarrassing

[transplant99]

I never really had an opinion about Khan before...just as well.