Alberta Politics Thread v2

[Weitz]

This election is going to be funnnnn

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by Rando

*virgin

Gay, homophobic, virgin

[PsYcNeT]

Uhhh....

https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-candida...AdQ5P5zRBu-tZs

Caylan Ford, who is seeking to represent the riding of Calgary-Mountain View in the 2019 provincial election, also expressed anxiety over “the replacement of white peoples in their homelands” and suggested “Western culture” would collapse if “another race” takes over in Europe and North America.

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by GGG

1) Insane spending is a subjective statement. You shouldn’t really have that in the question as you are biasing the answer. But her Green Money spending is dumb. Her holding the line on Unions is good. Her dogmatic belief in government run healthcare is bad

2) No, but it’s not worth changing at a minimum until the court rules whether the federal version is constitutional and if it is removed the revenue needs to be replaced with a Sales Tax.

3) Should am energy regulator be filled entirely with pro industry people or should it have a defending voice? The AER regulates the energy sector so it’s important that group think isn’t occuring. I’d prefer more academic environmentalists than activist environmentalists but I do believe decanting voices are important.

4) I don’t see a path that changes the current state of the trans mountain pipeline. I’d need to see media dates to back your assertion that Kenny spoke out first and that speaking out at that time was appropriate

5) Temporary Wine ban had no affect

6) 1 million plus requires source. In general the election should have been called already
7) No, NDP policy does not have anything to do with energy companies like Devon wanting out. It’s purely driven by federal policy.

I think you are baking in your opinion to your questions rather than a dispassionate evaluation of NDP performance. It reads like Notley’s Kenny smearing websites

I think the biggest question for someone considering voting PC is do you believe that a UCP government can materially change the investment environment in Alberta? If the answer to that is yes I’d love to know how that happens because I don’t see it.

The second question and now I going to assume the answer from the first is if the next 4 years economically will be similar who do you want to task with living within our means? So I have the following list of questions

Do you believe Kenny will cut taxes?
Do you believe taxes should be cut?
Do you believe Kenny will cut spending
How much spending can he cut before services are affected
How much service cuts are you comfortable with?
Do you trust Kenny?
Do you think Kenny will do what’s best for Alberta or what’s best for his donors or what is best to keep him in power or follow his ideaology
Do you think Kenny when faced with data that conflicts with his ideaology will choose to follow the data? (Essentially Notley and the Royalty review or Harper on Income Trusts)

Do you believe Kenny will cut taxes? 100% I do

Do you believe taxes should be cut? I try to follow unbiased facts and it seems that the same economists who often go against what my initial thought was agree that cutting corporate taxes will be of benefit.

Do you believe Kenny will cut spending? I do but I believe it will be at the expense of some public service. People will cry foul without realizing that in life, you can't afford everything you want and the same goes in government.

How much spending can he cut before services are affected? See above... I believe services do get hit.
How much service cuts are you comfortable with? I will leave this to the experts. I have long thought a minimum $20 charge to visit any dr or hospital unless listed as low income should be a reality. The NDP would claim this is heading in the direction of americanized healthcare. I would say it is listening to the medical professionals who see countless patients each day who did not need to be seen.

Do you trust Kenny? To fight for Alberta and our main industry? Yes. Comfortable nothing is happening behind the scenes with people elected in certain position or "thank you" gifts? No

Do you think Kenny will do what’s best for Alberta or what’s best for his donors or what is best to keep him in power or follow his ideaology? I think what is best for AB is also what is best for staying in power. I could see some NDP support lean his direction if he fights like mad and gets things done but I don''t see him losing support from UCP supporters by fighting like mad. As mentioned in the previous question, I do believe some backscratching behind the scenes will take place but I am willing to turn a blind eye to it if the greater good of AB is top priority.

Do you think Kenny when faced with data that conflicts with his ideaology will choose to follow the data? (Essentially Notley and the Royalty review or Harper on Income Trusts) Great question... I actually have no idea what would happen.


I see a UCP AB as getting a seat at the adults table and being included in some of the big discussions and fights taking place across the country towards the federal government.

Right now I feel like we are at the kids table with little recognition from provinces not named BC and BC is just the sibling we fight with but nothing ever happens.


We don't see eye to eye on a lot of CP topics but I appreciate a response that allows the conversation to carry and not some beat your wife, homophobic or virgin remark.

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Uhhh....

https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-candida...AdQ5P5zRBu-tZs

Anonymously leaked and it's not being picked up by any other outlet than "Press Progress"? I'm going to need a bit more than that.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Anonymously leaked and it's not being picked up by any other outlet than "Press Progress"? I'm going to need a bit more than that.

I know one of the editors at PP personally, and while I'll be the first to admit they 100% have a hard left bias and slant, they have never reported false claims.

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I know one of the editors at PP personally, and while I'll be the first to admit they 100% have a hard left bias and slant, they have never reported false claims.

Again though, with someone's career and reputation on the line, these allegations need a whole lot more than an anonymous source at an obviously biased outlet.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I know one of the editors at PP personally, and while I'll be the first to admit they 100% have a hard left bias and slant, they have never reported false claims.

Where is the entire unaltered exchange. She has one bad dog whistle with the whole “replacement” part. The other sections quoted seem like a debate she was having that we are missing the arguments being responded to. Also the way press progress parses the sections of the posts is awful. It removes all context and nuance.

Ford is a fighter for social justice in China so doesn’t have your typical white nationalist resume.

[Dion]

OPINION: Alberta NDP might hold off on election to let UCP investigation conclude

Trying to figure out exactly when Notley will call the election isn’t merely an existential debate over political angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Whether Notley calls the election next week or waits, and has a spring sitting of the legislature, will tell us much about the NDP election strategy.

The NDP began working on Bill 1 as a way to reinforce the government’s commitment to health care (and the public sector union workers who deliver that care) as well as setting something of a trap for Kenney. The NDP is hoping Kenney will fight the bill, thus making himself into an enemy of public health care.

If only it was that easy.

Kenney might very well vote in favour of the bill.

But there is another reason for the NDP to introduce legislation and have a spring sitting before calling an election: to buy time.

Not time for the economy to recover and/or a pipeline to get built (that might take years) but for Alberta’s Election Commissioner to dig further into the UCP’s 2017 leadership race.

The NDP now appears to be contemplating introduction of a Bill 1 and holding a legislative session to buy time, hoping the Election Commissioner finds more answers, before calling the election.

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/03/13/albe...tion-conclude/

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Dion

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/03/13/albe...tion-conclude/

To be clear, this article is speculative in nature and really frames the writer's opinion and hypothesis as NDP strategy - whether it is true or not. Nothing the NDP has said or done has confirmed this.

The title would be better framed as: "Opinion: NDP is holding off on an election to let UCP investigation conclude".

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Travis Munroe

Do you trust Kenny? To fight for Alberta and our main industry? Yes. Comfortable nothing is happening behind the scenes with people elected in certain position or "thank you" gifts? No

Do you think Kenny will do what’s best for Alberta or what’s best for his donors or what is best to keep him in power or follow his ideaology? I think what is best for AB is also what is best for staying in power. I could see some NDP support lean his direction if he fights like mad and gets things done but I don''t see him losing support from UCP supporters by fighting like mad. As mentioned in the previous question, I do believe some backscratching behind the scenes will take place but I am willing to turn a blind eye to it if the greater good of AB is top priority.

Do you think Kenny when faced with data that conflicts with his ideaology will choose to follow the data? (Essentially Notley and the Royalty review or Harper on Income Trusts) Great question... I actually have no idea what would happen.
.

I think this last point is my number 1 criteria for voting for someone right now. I want a party that will take the data in front of them make a decision and evaluate the results. I’m not sure I really care anymore what the actual policy is if there is data and reasoning behind it and it will be evaluated for success.

My fear with Kenny is that he is driven by ideaology and will follow that in the face of data. His opposition to the rail car deal seems to follow those lines as he has opposed it without seeing the details of the plan.

I also think he will cut revenue based of ideaology rather than sense. While I can understand the rational to reduce the Corporate Tax as there is good evidence that in certain environments a lower corporate tax can stimulate investment. (I don’t think the difference between 10-12 does this at a greater rate than revenue lost but it’s a reasonable position). If he eliminates the Carbon Tax without replacing the revenues that is just a waste of the heavy lifting done by the NDP.

So that’s where I get stuck with Kenny. I think he will be a think tank conservative in the real world and won’t change when faced with data that conflicts with dogma.

Then Kenny reinforces all of his negatives with this leadership stuff. He had the thing won yet still felt the need to control how he won. To me this just sets up the expectation of scandal and cronyism even if no law was broken. It’s not disqualifying yet but it almost is.

I don’t think Notley will hold the line on spending to allow us to inflate back to balance so that’s not a good option either.

Question for the conservatives here. Does anyone actually like Kenny?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

To be clear, this article is speculative in nature and really frames the writer's opinion and hypothesis as NDP strategy - whether it is true or not. Nothing the NDP has said or done has confirmed this.

The title would be better framed as: "Opinion: NDP is holding off on an election to let UCP investigation conclude".

Done!

That said, why would the NDP introduce Bill 1 so close to an election without having a sitting to discuss it and vote on it? The timing seems so odd considering they 4 years to introduce a bill like that.

[Ozy_Flame]

I was referring to the actual article title lol.

It could be because they want to delay. Just as the same that Kenney could vote in favor of the bill, in which the author is connecting his own dots on that one for dramatic effect. It's all speculation at this point.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by GGG

My fear with Kenny is that he is driven by ideaology and will follow that in the face of data. His opposition to the rail car deal seems to follow those lines as he has opposed it without seeing the details of the plan.

I remember Kenney saying he talked to someone in the industry who told him the NDP paid too much.

[Joborule]

Kenney is yet another example of how incredibly stupid politicians can be.

He could've won by doing nothing. Just show up, keep a low profile, and let the votes roll in. But in typical political fashion, the arrogance wouldn't allow them to just let things pan out, and they have to step offsides to manipulate the field in their favour. And as per usual, he gets caught.

The risk very, very rarely ever matches, or is outweighed by the reward.

What an idiot. Notley couldn't be happier right now. Kenny threw the NDP a lifejacket.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I was referring to the actual article title lol.

It could be because they want to delay. Just as the same that Kenney could vote in favor of the bill, in which the author is connecting his own dots on that one for dramatic effect. It's all speculation at this point.

I know you were.

Just threw in that question to see what response you might have. That's all

[CaptainCrunch]

https://twitter.com/user/status/https://twitter.com/KikkiPlanet/status/1107822886494961664

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by GGG

My fear with Kenny is that he is driven by ideaology and will follow that in the face of data. His opposition to the rail car deal seems to follow those lines as he has opposed it without seeing the details of the plan.

This 100x over. Kenney - as any politician - make judgements based on ideology all the time. It's what governing parties do to represent their constituents, science and data be damned. We have the biggest example of this just south of the border.

If decisions were actually made using metrics, numbers, and huge samples of data, then we wouldn't even need to debate human rights or LGBTQ issues, which continually dog politics. To a computer, a number is a number is a number - who cares what their sexual preferences of the sample are.

Looking forward to the day when the governing party are simply stewards of publicly-available, open-sourced data where algorithms direct the economy and decisions are reviewed by a panel of Alberta's brightest community, business and educational leaders.

As simple as this is, I wish decisions followed the "2+2=4" example and not that "what color of shirt do I like the best" one we seem to currently employ for many decisions.

Until then, the human component will generally continue to handicap democracies based on naive and self-serving ideologies that don't represent everyone.

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Uhhh....

https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-candida...AdQ5P5zRBu-tZs

Yeah - the candidate’s response - “who gave you that?” sort of belies the truth. Handpicked candidate from Ottawa by Kenney.

Anybody genuinely worried about white replacement is, well, bad.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Again though, with someone's career and reputation on the line, these allegations need a whole lot more than an anonymous source at an obviously biased outlet.

Of course they need more than that to cost a career/reputation, but did you read the article?

What i’ve found in looking into Press Progress is that their writing and focus shows their bias, but they’ve been very very accurate and very good at verifying their sources. The messages are in the article, and read very closely to Ford’s own twitter feed in terms of how they’re written.

They were well ahead of almost everyone on this Callaway/Kenney scandal. They’ve been reporting this stuff for months and have broken several developments.