Thursday, November 16, 2006

Fair Vote Alberta


What is missing from the current boooooring campaign for the Guy Who Will Replace Ralph is any discussion on the deficit. The democratic deficit in Alberta. Nothing about open government, lobbyist legislation, referendums or heck even proportional representation. In the One Party State such debate is not needed apparently. Tory candidates talk gov’t accountability


According to Daveberta here is what the candidates had to say about reforming government in Alberta at the Edmonton Leadership debate;

Topic: Open and Accountable Government
Dave Hancock – Open up the Legislature, make the policy process more public.
Ted Morton – Federal Liberals are evil. I love Stephen Harper.
Mark Norris – I released my campaign contributions! (-5 points for being off topic).
Jim Dinning – Listen to what the people want and report back in six months (what?).
Lyle Oberg – Term-limits.



While in Ontario a Citizens Assembly has been called to look at reforming the government to be more open and accessible. Fair Vote Canada has created a campaign for PR in Ontario. Sigh when will Fair Vote come to Alberta? This is not even on the agenda in this race to the bottom by the men who would be Ralph.

This is not a new system; in fact, it’s an old Alberta idea.
In 1921, the United Farmers of Alberta party implemented a campaign promise to bring electoral reform to the province. The transferable vote system was first used in a provincial referendum on liquor sales; because there were more than two options available to voters (total prohibition, allowed private sales of liquor, liquor only to be sold through government outlets), they were asked to rank their choices rather than choose one option. In the pursuant provincial election, Calgary, Medicine Hat and Edmonton voters selected five MLAs each from their cities (there were no ridings within the cities’ boundaries) using the vote-ranking system.

Also See:

Conservative Leadership Race

Alberta

One Party State

Democratic Deficit

Dinning

Morton

Oberg

Klein




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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:45 PM

    Interesting how a party leadership race is being couched as a provincial election. I guess we won't need one of those after this -- all the choice a person needs is already neatly packaged in a narrow political left/right spectrum tight there isndie the PC party itself, without the hassles of introducing real issues, and all for a paltry 5 bucks. In the mean time policy remains the same, no messy debates involving real issues. Wow. Now all we need is the Stasi, and it's back to the fifties, just like T. Byfield said back in 2000 on CBC Tapestry... hey, how did *he* know what was going to happen?

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