Comments on: ANDP: Dying, AB Libs: Stalled

By: ANDP = Alberta Norwegian Democratic Party? | Terahertz

ANDP = Alberta Norwegian Democratic Party? | Terahertz — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:06:44 +0000

[...] mentioned earlier how I consider the Alberta New Democrat to be a dying breed. So I thought I’d give some suggestions I have that could either take them to the top or [...]

]]>

By: Denny

Denny — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:40:43 +0000

Conventions are a hard thing to use to gauge popularity of the party. They really depend a lot on location, timing and other factors.
That 2004 convention was also a leadership convention, and leadership conventions, even uncontested ones tend to attract more delegates/media/observers than run of the mill annual policy conventions. The article doesn’t say “500 party members in attendance” or “500 delegates in attendance” it says “500 in attendance.” It also occurred immediately prior to what many thought would be a hotly contested election, and there hasn’t been an Alberta NDP convention since then that happened immediately prior to an election since the 2007 election was cancelled because there was an election scare that would have put it right in the middle of when it was thought there would be an election.
I’ve been to the 2006, 2008 and 2009 conventions. The 2006 convention was a rather small policy convention. It was at the midpoint between elections, so that doesn’t really surprise me. The 2008 convention was significantly larger, with over 200 delegates in attendance, which is impressive considering it was just after a major election defeat, and in Calgary rather than Edmonton. This last one in Edmonton was slightly smaller, but that largely due to a boycott by one of the larger union affiliates (I still don’t really understand the reasons for the boycott) but I think if it hadn’t been for that it would have been larger.

]]>

By: ADHR

ADHR — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:39:22 +0000

I’m starting to wonder if Alberta needs to fall off the cliff into something seriously nasty before Albertans will realize how bad the Conservative dynasty has been. Of course, at that point, the remaining alternatives might be even worse.

PR might help, at least in terms of getting the other three players a bit of a profile, but Stelmach would still have a clear majority.

]]>