Category: Edmonton

Strathcona all-candidates forum rematch

I attended another candidate’s forum tonight – this one hosted by King’s University College in a more Eastern end of the riding (and more Christian / Conservative). Also, this time Kevin Hunter, the Marxist-Leninist candidate, wasn’t in attendance, so we can’t technically call it an “all-candidate’s forum.” It was fun to watch Hunter, however without him we got through more questions from the leading candidates (who doesn’t want to see Jaffer vs. Duncan one on one?).

So, super quick summaries, who won?

  1. Linda Duncan: a stronger showing. One Conservative voter did criticize her after for “rolling her eyes” too much; however, it did emphasize when she thought crazy things were being said.
  2. Rahim Jaffer: he was a lot better tonight. He didn’t use the word “streamline” and cut down on talk about “balance” though.
  3. Jane Thrall: she had lots of good one-liners again, but in general she stumbled on more questions, and doesn’t seem to have a greater knowledge of Green Party platform.
  4. Claudette Roy: she still read from her sheets, dodged answers, and tried to appeal to the idea that the Liberals are the natural ruling party of Canada.

Stronger (most to least): Jaffer, Duncan

Weaker: Thrall, Roy

Final quick highlight: Jane Thrall “believes life begins at conception but is not anti-abortion.”

Here’s some highlights (I don’t have as detailed a summary, only 3 written pages instead of 7):

Continue reading Strathcona all-candidates forum rematch

Rae, Dion, Layton but no more Harper

Apparently Dion’s slightly more articulate campaign buddy Bob Rae was mere blocks from my home while I was in Calgary on Saturday. He stopped at the Arts Barn to blast Harper’s ignorant anti-arts comments and policies (rightly so). He attracted a crowd of 100, but judging from the article it was mainly die-hard Liberal party supporters from around Edmonton. Linda Duncan gets a nod as having come a close second in the last election while Claudette Roy isn’t even mentioned!

Many sitting in the small auditorium were artists themselves, or red-wearing members of local Liberal candidates’ teams.

“There are two parties that can form the next government in Canada,” he said.

“You must vote for your Liberal candidate.”

The Edmonton-Strathcona riding is currently held by Rahim Jaffer. In 2006, he beat NDP candidate Linda Duncan by 5,000 votes. The Liberal candidate came in third place.

You do not have to vote Liberal – you can actually vote for change. Linda is so close and the fact the Journal doesn’t mention her Liberal opponent is a tacit acknowledgement of what this riding is about.

The article ends with a claim that we should expect to see Mr. Dion himself in this province again by the end of this week. The last time he was here was just prior to the election call for a talk at the University of Alberta (I couldn’t make it out to that event).

Next, in a move that shows that Jack Layton actually cares about the entire country, it turns out that he’ll be in town on Wednesday morning for a special breakfast at City Hall to further support Linda Duncan’s (and the Alberta NDP candidate’s) campaign.

Finally, I highly doubt that Harper will be making an appearance in Edmonton before the election, but he has announced he’ll spend Thanksgiving in his home riding in Calgary.

Federal Leaders Debate

So the debate is done. The commentary is vast and all over the web.

The general consensus (from different stripes of blogs) is that Harper did okay, and likely didn’t hurt his image (much), Layton did good to awesome, Dion was okay, but not impressive, May did great (but didn’t add any message about the Green Party that was really much different than the Liberals or NDP), and Duceppe was there to stir stuff up.
Continue reading Federal Leaders Debate

Here’s to Brian LaBelle

In an age of elections when Harper hides in a press bubble, it shouldn’t be surprising that some towns (Sherwood Park), would think they can get away with charging politicians to debate.

Imagine the galls it takes to say, “yes, we’re for open democracy, but the only candidates you should be able to hear are the ones who can pay $220 to show up.”

Continue reading Here’s to Brian LaBelle

So close to change

Things are starting to look really close in Edmonton-Strathcona.

I mean, early in the election, all the major pundits painted all of Alberta off as a Tory landslide, but most seemed to ignore the fact that Jaffer here won by around 5,000 votes – a mere half of what the Liberals got.

Now we’re seeing sites like DemocraticSpace predict a virtual tie (pdf) of 35-38% of the vote to Jaffer and Linda, and that site doesn’t take into account Liberals (check this one out, Liberals for Linda) or Greens who plan on strategic voting. Another site, Vote for Environment, predicts Linda to lose by a mere 398 votes, but it also doesn’t take into account strategic voting! (Both projections in this paragraph were taken from 2 Oct. – pre-leaders debate).

It’s overwhelming to see the support coming behind Linda Duncan, and makes this campaign actually exciting. Keep up the good work, and we can win this election.

Edmonton Strathcona All Candidates Forum

In the past provincial election I intensely covered the Edmonton-Strathcona and Riverview (provincial) ridings all-candidates forums at the University of Alberta.  For this election, the boundaries of Strathcona are a bit different (larger) and include a diverse liberal, New Democrat and Conservative support base (often leading to vote splitting in the past).

So who’s running. From left to right on the stage (not the spectrum) we have (the letter at the end is how I’ll refer to them when I get to the question-by-question breakdown):

  • Linda Duncan (NDP – N)
  • Kevin Hunter (Marxist-Leninist – M)
  • Rahim Jaffer (Conservative – C)
  • Claudette Roy (Liberal – L)
  • Jane Thrall (Greens – G)

I’d just like to point out that before I got in I wasn’t allowed my popcorn or pop, a dissapointment.

The format was opening statements (1 min each), then prepared questions (1 min response and 30 s rebuttals), then audience questions (30 s responses), then closing remarks (1 min each). Also, as you can see in the top corner, I’ve already endorsed Linda Duncan officially, but I did go for quotes for all and to see how they all stand on their own merits.  In the Riverview forum last election, the Wildrose Alliance candidate appreciated my fairness / objectivity, despite us having almost polar opposite economic views.

Here we go:

Continue reading Edmonton Strathcona All Candidates Forum

Continuing responses

Today’s Gateway features another in the continuing letter arguments over my now 9 day old op-ed. Hopefully every piece I write can stir this much discussion.

This piece comes from Sheila Kwasek:

I suppose there is really no nice way to say this, so I’ll just come out and say it: Ian Bushfield, in his article (re: “There’s no ‘God’ in Graduation,” 16 September), is being hypocritical.

I can understand that removal of the reference to God may be needed, since it’s true that many people don’t believe in God, and their beliefs should be respected as much as anyone else’s. Yet, while saying that keeping the reference to God is discriminatory, he freely bandies about such notions as religious people living “in fear” of a God, and referring to the religious aspects of the university’s history as its “dark-aged roots.” How can one be think [sic] he truly favours tolerance and equality when he can’t even show respect for religious beliefs?

He also shows very little understanding about the workings of Canadian society. Unlike America, we don’t have a “separation of church and state” as such, we have more of a notion that one religion should not be given preference or predominance in a public institution. Secularism is merely the simplest way to make sure no one religion is predominant in the public sphere.

Though this isn’t always the case in practice, as forcing secular ideals on everyone is surely no better than forcing religious ideals. Yet – as Bushfield’s outspoken disdain for religion shows – the beliefs and values of religious people are rarely given as much consideration as secular values.

Perhaps if Bushfield is concerned about equality, he should start with himself. He probably wouldn’t like the Bible reference, but I think Jesus’ advice stands in this case – “you need to take the plank out of your own eye before you can get the speck out of someone else’s.”

Sheila Kwasek
Arts II

Now this letter is interesting. Shelia agrees with my argument (somewhat), but likely was pissed at the rhetoric I used (remember, I wrote this for the Gateway, not the New York Times).

She calls me a hypocrite for claiming discrimination while disrespecting religion (note: tolerance and respect are not equivalent).

She claims Canada doesn’t have “separation of church and state” (we technically don’t have it in Canada), which I didn’t technically claim, but then admits that we “have more of a notion that one religion should not be given a preference or predominance in a public institution.” But I’m not sure what she thinks the difference between the two phrasings is.

She then seems to think “secular values” can be imposed upon religious people. And that religious values are given less consideration than secular values. I hope she realizes that secularism is not a religion, and there are in fact many secular religious people.

And as for “he probably wouldn’t like the Bible reference”, in fact, Sheila, there are many Bible references I do enjoy.

Harper to upstage UofA debate

Update: It appears the UofA’s Candidates forum has been postponed to Monday. I guess Jaffer made his priorities known.

It looks like Harper accepted Jack Layton’s challenge and is coming to Edmonton – this Thursday (at the Ramada Inn on Kingsway).

Unfortunately, this is also the day of the Edmonton-Strathcona all-candidates forum.

It will be quite telling to see if Jaffer values his party or his constituents more.