left_alberta

Yes, we've already had the Saudis reassuring us that they won't cut off oil sales to Canada, and Morneau saying that there won't be any economic sanctions against the Saudis. And even Jagmeet Singh, who is calling for Canada to buy oil from other nations besides the KSA, hasn't actually suggested any possibilities. It's not so much that Canada is standing alone on this, but that Canada isn't really standing at all.

I agree legalization is not likely before the next election. And I'm wondering what's gonna happen to these companies who are planning things like "marijuana tours" for when "weed is legalized in less than a year"(as the papers are all saying, taking Liberal promises at face value for some strange reason). I think some of these investors are gonna get burned pretty badly. And I don't think it's just pandering to conservatives that's the problem. There's also the Liberals wanting marijuana to be a provincial responsibility, while still maintaining some sort of federal control. Since it's going to be the provinces regulating it, why even bother having these hearings in Ottawa? The Liberals should just say "Okay, in a year, marijuana will be out of the criminal code, and we're washing our hands of this. The provinces can do whatever they want." Any hearings between now and then should be held by the respective provinces, not the federal government. But of course it's obvious the Liberals want to dodge the responsibility of regulation, while still being able to collect taxes on weed as well as maintain some influence over what the provinces do. So we've got all these hearings and debates at the federal level, complicating what would otherwise be a pretty simple process.

taxme: In regards to "democratic appointed judges", the majority in Texas Vs. Johnson(the flag burning case) was Brennan(Eisenhower appointment), Marshall(Johnson), Blackmun(Nixon), Scalia(Reagan), and Kennedy(Reagan). In other words, four Republican appointments and one Democrat. It might be more accurate to say that it was liberal judges who allowed flag burning, but even then, Scalia was NEVER considered liberal.

My understanding is that all that McGuinty ever considered was giving Muslim domestic tribunals the same jurisdiction as were at that time enjoyed by Catholic and Jewish tribunals. Facing backlash, he then nixed the proposal, along with the Muslim and Jewish bodies. Long and the short, Muslims weren't asking for anything that hadn't already been given to other interested faiths.

Thanks, I've just been reading up on gay bashings in Montreal over the last few years, most of which I wasn't familiar with, so I guess that some of this stuff does indeed go under-reported in the national news.

Citizen: When did this mass gay-bashing in Montreal take place? Not that I'm doubting you, but I'm just kind of surprised that it wasn't reported in the media, at least not that I noticed.

I don't think the Wildrose has much interest in forgiving Danielle. According to media reports, when it was announced at their convention that she had lost her nomination battle, the crowd cheered. As for Manning, well, I'd imagine there is some unofficial taboo on the right about openly disparaging him, even if you ridicule the people who take his advice, since he is such a venerable figure. But his talents as a political operator have always been seriously exaggerated. He has always overestimated the desire among Canadians, even western Canadians, for the brand of conservativism that he is selling.

I seem to recall that Prentice did make some token endorsement of Smith, in one way or another. As for him supposedly pulling one over on her, I suspected he probably didn't make any ironclad promises, but just allowed her to think that she was a shoe-in for the Tory nomination. And maybe he even believed that himself. Right after Smith, Bikman, and Fox lost their nominations, Prentice intervened to ensure that Bruce McAllister's nomination went unchallenged. Possibly a sign that Prentice was unhappy about the other crossovers losing.

The thing is, she is now pushing the line that she was essentially chased out of WIldrose by the social-conservative faction, who voted down the inclusive, pro-GLBQT language, in addition to other alleged harassment tactics, at the Red Deer convention. Which, if true, might paint her actions in a more sympathetic light, since a leader can't very well be expected to stay on if a huge faction of the party is fundamentally opposed to her stance on issues like that. Problem is, her narrative doesn't really harmonize with some other known and implied facts of the matter, ie. Prentice says that they'd been negotiating since September, she wanted to merge the two parties(why, if she hates Wildrose's social views), etc.

Yes, your description is more accurate, and detailed, than mine was. In any case, my main point was that, contrary to the notion that it lines up as Tory Tolerance Vs. Wildrose Homophobia, there were actually more WIldrosers casting a vote in favour of GSAs than Tories. With the caveat that things might be different if it was a free-vote with a Wildrose majority in the legislature.

There was that Wilson guy in BC in the 90s, who quit the Liberals and started his own party. He crossed over to the NDP. But he was the only MLA representing that party, so it wasn't quite as earth-shattering as this WIldrose-Tory stuff is.

The funny thing about that is, Alberta has the second-highest percentage of people who list "No religion" on the census. I think BC is the first.

When Prentice introduced Bill 10, gutting the Liberal bill that protected GSAs, there were two Wildrosers voting against it(including Smith, who made a speech defending the clubs), and one Tory. That's right. More Wildrosers that Tories. Mind you, it might be a different story if WIldrose had a majority, and Smith called a free vote. She may very well vote for GSAs herself, while most of her caucus goes the other way.

And it is an increasingly small home, the walls are closing in. My prediction is that they'll hold onto most of what they've got in the south, but make few if any inroads in the cities or the non-southern rurals. They'll probably still be the official opposition after the next election, but no more a government-in-waiting than Ray Martin was between '86 and '93.

Well, as most of you probably know, this issue has been back in the news the last few days. Personally, I think the debacle boils down to Prentice being high on his own supply, and thinking "Hey, with Wildrose in free fall, I should cobble together some legislative dog-whistles and scoop up all those wayward SoCon votes." And of course, he threw in the thing about removing the parental override from sex ed classes etc, hoping the progressives would like that aspect of the bill and ignore the anti-GSA stuff. But, of course, the media, opposition, and public saw through it, and now Prentice has major egg on his face, and probably no clue about what his next move will be. But it probably won't hurt him in the long run, as Wildrose has likely reached peak growth, and the Liberals and NDP aren't seeing any action outside the big cities.

Interesting how the characterization of BC basically extrapolates from the lower mainland and Vancouver areas, as opposed to those parts of the province which have put either Socred or Socredish governments into power every election save three since 1952.

Yeah, I don't quite 100% buy the notion that Alberta is this bastion of ultra-conservativism. I think it's based partly on the fallacious assumption that because the Conservative party has been in power for decades, the government must be politically conservatiive. Whereas despite the nomenclature, the Alberta PC party has always been a fairly big tent. And really, counting Social Credit and the BC Liberals as one group, BC has basically had right-wing one-party rule for roughly 50 of the last 60 plus years.

One thing that should be taken into account on these kinda issues is that Alberta has a relatively high percentage of the population who identify on the census as holding no religion, second only to British Columbia, in fact. So that could possibly balance off the rural bible-belt influence.

I think he meant that, taking all issues into account, Alberta is overall the most conservative, but that hasn't stopped them from being liberal on the issue of abortion.

In this kind of debate, it's always hard to tell who is sincerely advancing a jurisidictional objection(ie. the government should not mandate what clubs get recognized by local schools), and who is using the issue as a dog-whistle for bigots. If it's unprecedented for the government to give orders to school boards on this kind of matter, then I could believe that some of the objection is about respecting local autonomy. But if it's not unprecedented, then I have to think that the people voting against the motion are just looking for an excuse to be seen slamming gays. For the record, the Alberta government does support, if not mandate, the establishment of GSAs. At least on their website. http://tinyurl.com/n86mqof One thing, the Tories should be careful how they tread here, because if the conventional wisdom is to be believed, they won the last election largely due to revulsion at the homophobia of Wildrose candidates. So it's debatable how far they can now go in alienating gay and gay-positive voters.

re: Stelmach being the stimulus for Wildrose. I would agree, though I think it had more to do with his heterodox royalty policies than with his place of origin. re: Redford's "North Korean" background. Possibly she is regarded as ideologically suspect by the old guard, but the ironic thing there is that she is actually to the right of Lougheed(who campaigned for her in 2012). Mind you, Lougheed probably wasn't perceived as left-wing in his day, since his policies were very much in keeping with what then was the Keynesian-influenced mainstream, and there was no one of any significance to the right of him in the legislature after 1975. Whereas Redford makes a stark contrast to Wildrose.

overthere: But do you really think that the Calgary-based cabinet dumped him simply because he wasn't from Calgary? It seems to me more likely that they dumped him because he lost a bunch of seats in 1986, failed to get them back in '89, and, as you say, showed signs of doing much worse in '93. If it had been a Calgarian losing all those seats, you think the cabinet would have been, like "Oh, no big deal, as long as you're from Calgary, it's all good"? Or if it had been an Edmontonian continuing with Lougheed's numbers, they would have said "Well, 75 out of 79 seats is alright and all, but it really ticks us off that you're from Edmonton, so get the hell outta here"?

Don Getty as well was not from Calgary. And he got run out out of office. BUT... That doesn't back up the theory that Calgary always turfs non-Calgarians. Because Don Getty was more popular in Calgary than he was in Edmonton.

Here is a quote, cut-and-pasted from the comments under a Star article about Tom Flanagan's child-pornography comments earlier this year... "May be time to inspect his personal computers" Could this be construed as libel? Even if you want to argue that Flanagan opened himself up for the speculation by entertaining the legalization of child-porn, the quote is still suggesting that he might have been commiting criminal acts, an allegation for which there was and still is no evidence. http://tinyurl.com/nzraluj