Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by woob

Ozy, you should send your list into Nenshi.

I feel like Nenshi will be touching on each of these over the next three years without my help

[Fuzz]

I'd love to see a line item list of what the war room actually spends $30 million a year on. Like, how is that even possible?

[Muta]

@Ozy - you're probably now on some conservative watchlist for publicly outlining those amazing expenditures, and I'm sure you're at least banned from CP's Canadian Federal Politics Thread. I think you kicked the hornet's nest, which is great.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Blue voters won't do jack#### in today's politics unless it hits them in the wallet. They don't care about social regressiveness. Things that politicians couldn't even attempt 10-15 years ago they're getting away with no reprecussions today.

In saying that, the NDP would do well to start tallying up the costs the UCP are piling up on average Albertans, and keep hammering home that message.

- $1B wasted on a pipeline to nowhere
- $120 million on a War Room
- $11B in lost renewable energy investment
- out-of-control utility costs
- rapidly inflating insurance costs
- Jason Kenney's "Job Creation tax cut" to the tune of $4.7B for energy companies that did not re-create jobs for Albertans (failed 'trickle down' economics, yet again)
- giving money to O/G companies to clean up their wells they're required to clean up anyways by law
- $3.5 million wasted on a report by Steve Allen for foreign-funded anti-energy campaigns that found no wrongdoing
- Buyout of Dynalife after botched privitization
- $75 million for Turkish medicine that was improperly procured and vetted and thrown to the scrap pile
- $250,000 to Preston Manning to write a biased, unscientific and gaslighting report he effectively wrote a year before
- Refusing to build much needed hospitals and in effect perpetuating capacity issues at others and leaving taxpayers with the fallout (e.g. the refusal to build the South Edmonton hospital)
- Contemplating wasting $2.2 billion to set up an Alberta pension plan
- Contemplating wasting untold hundreds of millions on an Alberta Revenue Agency to duplicate the work of the Federal government
- Frivolous lawsuits against the federal government
- Contemplating wasting $336 million to set up an Alberta police force no one wants, and $200 million per year in annual costs to maintain
- inflationary rent prices due to lack of housing / no housing plan
- $330 million of taxpayer dollars to a pro hockey team's arena
- environmental damage by allowing coal drilling and new coal projects that will have downstream effects
- Spending taxpayer money on staff and resources to spend multiple nights galivanting with an extreme right-wing Fox news host who immediately goes and sucks Putin's weiner the following week
- $100 million+ towards charter schools most Albertan's kids will never be able to attend

These are just the ones off the top of my head. I am confident there are more specific cases of corporate welfare, tax revenue shifting and tax downloading to other jurisdictions by their own hand, which in effect will create collateral costs for Albertans.

This government doesn't look out for Albertans at all. They look out for the loud political wonks on ideological lines while grifting average Albertans where it hurts.

Yeah but.... NDP lightbulbs. Or something

[Izzle]

Alberta to introduce political parties in municipal ballots!! Let's effin' gooooo....

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...icipal-ballots

/S

[getbak]

They're really hitting it out of the park with stupid ideas that absolutely no one wants.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Izzle

Alberta to introduce political parties in municipal ballots!! Let's effin' gooooo....

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...icipal-ballots

/S

Duane says it all, or should I say, Danielle does:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1768454035806515627

[Point Blank]

Alberta pension plan, Alberta police force, outing trans kids, municipal partisanship. All things no one asked for. I’m not sure if they’re purposefully being obtuse or if they’re actually just dumb.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Point Blank

Alberta pension plan, Alberta police force, outing trans kids, municipal partisanship. All things no one asked for. I’m not sure if they’re purposefully being obtuse or if they’re actually just dumb.

A few did ask for it though, some fall into the category of combating Woke.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Point Blank

Alberta pension plan, Alberta police force, outing trans kids, municipal partisanship. All things no one asked for. I’m not sure if they’re purposefully being obtuse or if they’re actually just dumb.

Owning the Libs is the party's 1st 5 commandments.

[GGG]

I’m asking for municipal parties to be required to be disclosed. We already have a two party system in Calgary politics with no visibility.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’m asking for municipal parties to be required to be disclosed. We already have a two party system in Calgary politics with no visibility.

The current council is the first that really feels like basically having parties. But that is largely due to the UCP allowing basically unlimited PAC funding.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

I’m asking for municipal parties to be required to be disclosed. We already have a two party system in Calgary politics with no visibility.

Disagree, people shouldn't need shortcuts here. It shouldn't be hard to spend 5 minutes looking at each candidates platform. But really the con-artists make sure their signs bleed blue so it's not even hard to tell.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

It explains perfectly why the report wasn't released on the day of the announcement.

I still can't believe they did this. Those dollars are going to be spent elsewhere.

I spoke to someone involved in power investments from a well known company. They are keen to develop renewables, have a good investment profile already in the space and strong balance sheet. They are legit, and have interest in multiple jurisdictions, Alberta has basically been eliminated from contention for investments. This is a massive change in their approach on where to invest in 12 months.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Disagree, people shouldn't need shortcuts here. It shouldn't be hard to spend 5 minutes looking at each candidates platform. But really the con-artists make sure their signs bleed blue so it's not even hard to tell.

When you were voting in the last municipal election did you know you were choosing between two slates?

[curves2000]

Quietly some concerns with a new initiative and collaboration project that was recently announced involving Edmonton Oilers Captain Connor McDavid, the Ben Stelter Foundation and a few corporate medical providers, namely Westcan Proton Therapy Inc.

It doesn't sound like Mcdavid is actually really involved in any meaningful way but the concerns are why a private company is going to be building this center, a private company with probable UCP MLA's or former MLA's as investors while billing AB government for the services.

Private medical companies billing government for services isn't anything new, but the government is in the final stages of completing a world class facility and the largest cancer facility in Canada at the Foothills. You don't need to build an entire new institute, you just buy the equipment, install it in the vaults at the new center and then have existing staff and newly trained staff operate the facility. If the government doesn't have the funds for the equipment in the budget (less than $15 million) you can just fundraise through various means, install it and then pay the operating costs.

There are significantly more potential concerns with this but that may be more rumor or at least not verified yet.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...nour-announced

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/his-lega...lity-1.6808367

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

I spoke to someone involved in power investments from a well known company. They are keen to develop renewables, have a good investment profile already in the space and strong balance sheet. They are legit, and have interest in multiple jurisdictions, Alberta has basically been eliminated from contention for investments. This is a massive change in their approach on where to invest in 12 months.

We probably know the same peoples.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

The current council is the first that really feels like basically having parties. But that is largely due to the UCP allowing basically unlimited PAC funding.

Did the UCP make any changes to PAC rules? I didn't think they did anything and the rules haven't been touched since the NDP were in power. The UCP did up the spending limit of candidates in municipal elections though.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Did the UCP make any changes to PAC rules? I didn't think they did anything and the rules haven't been touched since the NDP were in power. The UCP did up the spending limit of candidates in municipal elections though.

They legislated Bill 32 to limit donations to PACs from groups who generally don’t support the UCP.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

When you were voting in the last municipal election did you know you were choosing between two slates?

Yes, but I'm more informed than the average idiot (I'm an above average idiot...). But I really don't think that matters.

The worst possible outcome here is any more team sports in politics. This was the last bastion of practical representative democracy. Councillors have always been beholden to other interests, but ultimately they could vote as they saw fit. I really don't like the idea of further legitimizing an unelected ######bag(s) pulling the strings behind the scenes.

And I certainly think this change will give the Davids Parker and Craigs Chandler of the world more power. Incumbents have much higher odds of re-election at any level, but those odds go way down when they are dropped from/leave their party. I hate the idea that maintaining standing in the party will become more important than maintaining standing with the electorate through their voting record. Because sadly the electorate has proven over and over that they will believe the imaginary values that they ascribe to their party of choice no matter how blatantly a party flouts those ideas.