Premier Alison Redford is a red-Tory. Once thought extinct, this political species truly represents the “Progressive Conservative” brand. Socially liberal but fiscally conservative, these politicians have no desire to restrict human rights, while also want to keep deficits small and let business operate more freely. Redford won her party’s leadership by promising to support teachers and doctors.

Danielle Smith is a pure libertarian, direct from the Fraser Institute, and seems to legitimately have no interest in legislating along morality. Unfortunately for her, her party comes from a combination of fringe far-right parties (Wildrose and the Alberta Alliance) which sought to push these socially regressive policies. Smith, believing that free speech means speech should have no consequences, refused to distance herself or her party from the racist and homophobic views that were all too common in a slate of fringe nutcases, and consequently her party was trounced in the city that recently elected a brown Muslim university professor as mayor and in the other city that has a popular Jewish mayor.

The Liberal Party of Alberta is cursed by their name, despite being entirely independent from their federal cousins who forever tarnished the big red brand in Alberta. Their leader, Raj Sherman, is a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, who was kicked (or quit, I forget) from caucus for openly criticizing the government over its handling of health care. He joined and then became the leader of the Liberals, but failed to make a break through. Many thought with a PC leader that the Liberals would curve right and attempt to bleed soft PC support from the left while the Wildrose tore in from the right. Instead, he released a platform to the left of the NDP, promising new taxes on the rich (Alberta currently has a flat income tax) and free university tuition.

The NDP doubled its caucus and nearly won in Lethbridge with a popular local candidate. Its leader, Brian Mason, was the only veteran leader, but he has yet to break through in quite the way that Jack Layton did for the federal NDP. They almost sadly consider getting 11% of the vote and 4 seats to be a rousing success.

Finally, the Alberta Party started basically through Twitter and Web 2.0 fads, focussed on “doing politics differently”, nominated and targeted only a few ridings, and failed to even make a dent in any. The Alberta Greens were de-registered after the previous election for failing to file their paperwork, and their former leader was just elected as a Wildrose MLA (basically the Greens were really big on property rights which aligned with the Wildrose). In place of the Greens was the EverGreen Party that failed to even register on the radar (can anyone name their leader?).

Party loyalty and tribalism being what they are, there is little to no chance that the Liberals, NDP, and other left or centre alternatives will make efforts to cooperate or merge. Therefore, under first-past-the-post, these parties will continue to split the vote in many ridings and the best hope for progressive policies in Alberta in this election was in many of the PC candidates.

Moderate, pragmatic, and relatively progressive ideas were starting to take hold. Plans were on the way to improve the Alberta School Act and mass transit was taking precedence over freeways.

But now polls are suggesting that Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Party are on track to a majority government. Of course, polls can be wrong, and things can still turn around for Redford (or for that matter for Brian Mason or Raj Sherman), but we’re sitting in dangerous territory.

Much ink is starting to spill on Smith’s dangerous flirtations with so-called conscience rights whereby marriage commissioners and physicians would be free to discriminate against gays, lesbians, interracial couples, and women. Dave Cournoyer took a closer look at some of the candidates carrying the Wildrose flag, showing that a Wildrose government could very easily put homophobes, Christian extremists, and bigots into cabinet.

I think the key to understanding Albertan politics is that it’s not so much about left or right, conservative or liberal, but about pure populist tribalism.

In over 100 years, the province has been represented by 4 different governments. The leaders change, but the governments are routinely re-elected, so long as they maintain the air of competence (actual competence is not required).

When government change occurs, it seems a bit like dominos falling. Once a certain threshold of legitimacy is crossed by the opposition – or perhaps illegitimacy by the current government – voters move en masse to the new choice.

This is why the federal Conservatives win with more than 60% of the vote in many Alberta ridings and arguably even how Linda Duncan increased her share of the vote in 2011. It also explains the quick rise of Naheed Nenshi, the rising support of Stephen Mandel, and the lasting strength of other mayors like Dave Bronconnier and Al Duerr.

It’s this key that also worries me most. With the Wildrose is seen as the alternative and the PCs looking like corrupt crooks, it could very well shift even more. Hence, my bets (and fears) for the final result are Wildrose – 50%, PCs – 19%, Liberals & NDP – 11% each, Alberta Party/EverGreens – 4% each, others – 1%.

Each candidate has their strengths and weaknesses, many of which were obvious at the start of the campaign, some have been exposed through the race, and a couple have tried to counter their weaknesses . To determine my ranking I compared each candidate to each of the other candidates, determining subjectively which I would rather see lead the party.

My key issues for leader are:

1. They must be able to grow the party in Western Canada. We need to win seats in Saskatchewan and Alberta and build on our strength in BC and Manitoba. We also have to break into Ontario. These are where the new seats are coming, and its where any future government will need its base. This means understanding rural and western issues and reaching those voters where they are.
2. Obviously we also need to hold Quebec. Polls are starting to show that wave of support simmer down. While we’re still competitive, we can’t slip much further. I want a leader who can hold 30-60 seats without costing ones in Western Canada. Nothing alienates Albertans more than extra deference to Eastern issues.
3. Our leader must be able to articulate a positive, progressive vision for Canada. We won’t beat Harper by going negative and we don’t need to be Liberals – there already is a party for the mushy middle. This includes reaching out to non-voters and those disaffected by the poisonous partisan rhetoric.
4. A strong commitment to keeping Canada secular.

Before I get to my rankings, here’s what I see as the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate:

Brian Topp

Strengths: Well developed progressive policy, establishment support, strategic experience, provincial government experience

Weakness: Lacks a seat

Improving: Charisma

Martin Singh

Strengths: Pharmacy, small business, and reaching new Canadians.

Weaknesses: Inexperience, his association with the Faith and Social Justice committee, and his willingness to use religious organizations for partisan purposes.

Peggy Nash

Strengths: Progressive and union bona fides, urban Ontario issues, social media reach

Weaknesses: A number of debate gaffs, not sure she understands Western or rural Canada, I didn’t find her very personable, most likely to take NDP back to the 90s

Thomas Mulcair

Strengths: Name recognition, Quebec organization, caucus support, environment, a shrewd politician, provincial cabinet experience

Weaknesses: Vague policy that mostly mirrors the 2011 platform, not clear how he will build Western strength by “repeating the success in Quebec” (the politics are quite different), most centrist, no commitment to electoral reform.

Paul Dewar

Strengths: Experience, intelligence, ability to connect with the grassroots, policy, support across Western Canada

Weaknesses: Weak French raises flags in Quebec,

Improving: French

Nathan Cullen

Strengths: Positive message, progressive values, definitely gets rural/Western Canada, best sense of humour, willing to question the monarchy

Weaknesses: the Cullen plan, lack of support in Quebec

Niki Ashton

Strengths: Positive and progressive message, cares and understands Western issues, appeals to young non-voters, intelligent

Weaknesses: campaign fundraising numbers point to organizational weakness,

Now, with no further ado my tentative Rankings

1. Niki Ashton
2. Brian Topp
3. Paul Dewar
4. Nathan Cullen
5. Thomas Mulcair
6. Peggy Nash
7. Martin Singh

Were I to fill in a ballot today, I would potentially reserve my right to omit Martin Singh and potentially Peggy Nash from the list. Singh singlehandedly knocked himself off my preferences on day one when he discussed his desire to use the leadership race as a platform for his Sikhism. While totally within his right, such a flagrant disregard for the unwritten secularism of Canadian politics causes him to lose my vote. Nash drops to the bottom from what might have been a much higher ranking because of her consistently poor showing through the entire race. Examples of her missteps are numerous including some serious concerns about her adamant support of the hated gun registry. She lacks passion and her Toronto-centric feel would drive alienated Western voters back to the Conservatives.

Niki Ashton on the other hand has a deep understanding of Western Canada as Canada’s only opposition MP from the rural prairies. She is smart, quick, and has demonstrated through this campaign that age should be no barrier to becoming leader of the Official Opposition. My few concerns about her are easily negated by the growing strength of the NDP and her demonstrated experience in her own constituency. While she is still a long shot in this contest, a strong showing will serve her well for the next leadership race when people may be more willing to grant her the respect she has already earned.

The rest of my rankings are fairly close and are subject to some shuffling up to and on the day of the convention. I see Mulcair as having slightly better than even odds of winning the race, but I remain concerned about his lacklustre policy announcements and his unclear plan to apply the success he (at least claims to have) crafted in Quebec to the rest of Canada. I also wonder about his previous stances on Israel and his curious doubts over photos of bin Laden’s death. While likely the best placed to hit the ground running toward an election, it bears remembering that with a majority government and the Liberals in interim leadership for another year, there is time for any of the candidates to craft their public image enough to be a strong contender against Harper in 2015.

So until the convention I will continue to watch for the subtle differences, announcements, and signs that could shift any of these candidates. I think any of my top 5 choices would be a strong contender and I would continue to support the party under the leadership of any of them. I’ll let you know if this ranking changes significantly (and will likely be on Twitter on convention day).

I noted that it didn’t seem like it violated any of the NDP or Canada Election rules, but one further recollection I realized that the rules being broken weren’t by Martin Singh’s campaign but by the Malton Gurdwara.

A Gurdwara is a Sikh Temple and the Malton Gurdwara is operated by a federally registered charity: Sri Guru Singh Sabha Canada. From its T3010 return we learn that its charitable mandate is 70% “Places of worship, congregations, parishes, dioceses, etc.” and 30% “Food or clothing banks, soup kitchens, hostels”. In its 2011 return it claimed to perform no “political activities during the fiscal period.”

From the Canada Revenue guidelines around charities and political/partisan activities:

149.1

(6.1) Charitable purposes

For the purposes of the definition “charitable foundation” in subsection (1), where a corporation or trust devotes substantially all of its resources to charitable purposes and

(a) it devotes part of its resources to political activities,
(b) those political activities are ancillary and incidental to its charitable purposes, and
(c) those political activities do not include the direct or indirect support of, or opposition to, any political party or candidate for public office,

the corporation or trust shall be considered to be constituted and operated for charitable purposes to the extent of that part of its resources so devoted.

(6.2) Charitable activities

For the purposes of the definition “charitable organization” in subsection (1), where an organization devotes substantially all of its resources to charitable activities carried on by it and

(a) it devotes part of its resources to political activities,
(b) those political activities are ancillary and incidental to its charitable activities, and
(c) those political activities do not include the direct or indirect support of, or opposition to, any political party or candidate for public office,

the organization shall be considered to be devoting that part of its resources to charitable activities carried on by it. [emphasis original]

Furthermore from that advisory:

A registered charity is prohibited from directly or indirectly supporting or opposing a candidate for public office as well as a political party. In deciding whether a charity is engaged in prohibited activity, we generally consider whether the activity can reasonably be construed as intending to influence the outcome of the election. [emphasis mine]

The rules get a bit murkier as “hosted a leadership poll for a single candidate” is not specifically outlined in the examples cited by the CRA but this feels like its crossing a line into a church endorsing a specific leadership candidate.

To contact the Canada Revenue Service call 1-800-267-2384. Let me know if you take this story farther.

In a typical election there is one or two days when you have to make your way to the local community centre, school, or (begrudgingly) church where officials check your identity, give you a ballot and a little cardboard cubicle to mark it in.

The NDP leadership contest, on the other hand, is done by mail-in or electronic ballot – or live at the convention.

So it’s very interesting to see this release from Martin Singh’s campaign about “easily accessible voter polling stations” in Ontario, which happen to be his Mississauga campaign office and a local Gurdwara.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing against this practice in the NDP Leadership rulebook [pdf here] or the Canada Election Act. In some ways it’s a creative way to ensure that every member gets a chance to vote.

Of course the timing for what might be considered a shady electoral process couldn’t be worse for Singh. But in a race where every last vote is likely to make the difference between an early ballot loss and a late ballot victory, I guess every candidate has to exhaust every option they have.

In which case, it becomes increasingly hard to justify that whoever wins will have a sweeping mandate to implement their personal platform. Perhaps in light of the attack ads during the last election, no candidates are talking about how they would view a late ballot win. What would will they compromise to attract voters from other camps?

For most candidates, I wouldn’t argue that this is an issue. There are (at least) two candidates though that I see this being an issue.

First, and most obvious, is Nathan Cullen and his plan for joint nominations. I’ve heard and read a number of people who really like Cullen and his approach to politics but are very wary of him winning and implementing a strategy that might compromise the party and throw the next year into wild media speculation.

There is currently little evidence that Cullen has the first-ballot support to win on the first or second ballot. In which case, if he manages to pull off a win, it seems most likely that it will come from other supporters who maintain some reservations about Cullen. This leads to the obvious question: Will Cullen claim to have the mandate to implement his plan if he wins on a late ballot?

On the other hand, there may be enough ballots remaining (in person and online) on convention day for Cullen to discuss what parts of his plan are negotiable to gain support for later ballots.

The second candidate facing a similar issue is Thomas Mulcair’s plan to “bring the middle to us.” His social democratic bona fides have been routinely brought into question during the race as many (I believe justifiably) fear he will move the party more to the mushy middle to win over soft Liberals.

The question for Mulcair at this stage is if he doesn’t win on the first or second ballot (and he is probably the only one with the chance to), what will he offer those remaining sceptics to join his camp?

I’ll try to offer up my final thoughts and endorsements in the next day or two, which will be subject to change until I get to voting (electronically) on election day. With luck the Vancouver Point Grey constituency association will be organizing a pub day viewing and voting session if you want to hang out (if we can ever get the schedule from the NDP). For now, I encourage you to check out Greg Fingas’ comments on his blog (which I mostly agree with).

Guelph staffer Michael Sona took that fall today, despite a lack of any “public evidence” that he was involved.

I doubt this will be enough to quiet the opposition, Elections Canada, or the RCMP. Let’s hope the pressure stays on – perhaps we can get a do-over in some of these ridings.

Finally, for all the flack thrown at Postmedia, I am quite impressed by the quality journalism done by the Ottawa Citizen here, as well as the rest of the media’s latching onto this story. A CTV piece on TV the other night even did the amazing thing of tying this scandal to the growing narrative of Conservative dirty election tricks – like the in and out scandal and the recent guilty plea.

If this were a scientific poll of public opinion, the results would be definitive.

Of course, it was not a scientific poll but rather a straw poll of the small subset of actively involved young progressive Canadians. Not exactly a representative sample. But I won’t quibble with the results other than to emphasize that all this shows is what Leadnow members think, not all progressives or Canadians.

Yet, this is still urging some to argue that Nathan Cullen’s plan is on the right track to unseat Harper and replace him with something better. A friend linked me to this post on Praxis Theatre by Michael Wheeler where he argues that we need to work outside partisan lines to defeat Harper. Specifically he uses the Leadnow poll and some comments by EKOS pollster Frank Graves to defend his position.

The Graves article is on iPolitics (which requires registration to view, so I can only quote the conclusions Wheeler posted) and claims several things:

• First that Canadians have strong negative views of political parties.
• Second, that only 44% of people disagree that political parties have outlived their usefulness, which means nothing when phrased as a double negative. Further, this number is isolated from the other options – how many people have no opinion or think parties are out-dated – which means that political party supporters may still be the plurality.
• Third, he concludes that NDP supporters are less supportive of the party system than Liberals and Conservatives. This doesn’t bode well for those hoping to get the Liberals to buy-in to any cooperation scheme though. It also likely reflects the fact that the NDP base has been only 10-15%, and it was only last year that Jack Layton brought the vote up to 30%. All this proves to me is that the NDP vote is softer than the (larger) Conservative vote or the (smaller) Liberal vote.
• Finally, Graves states that young, non-voting Canadians have less trust in the government. It’s not clear to me how joint nomination deals will improve trust in government, as this seems to be taken on faith.

Wheeler’s conclusion sounds noble too:

Moving beyond their own self-interest to that of the country may ironically be their best chance for electoral success. Increasingly, progressive Canadians seem to be demanding cooperation from their political opposition that will allow them to vote FOR and not AGAINST something, through  a serious and credible movement to form a government that represents the majority of Canadians.

Yet, as I said back in October when I first considered Cullen’s joint nomination suggestions, this amounts to little more than uniting AGAINST something. The only reason people seem to be suggesting any cooperation is so that they can vote against the Harper Conservatives. It makes absolutely no sense to me how joint nominations somehow present a candidate you can vote for when  each of those candidates could simply run in the general election.

Here’s a scenario: Imagine you get three progressive visions for Canada coming to the joint nomination meeting in a Conservative held riding. The first argues that inequality is the issue of the day and that we must raise taxes on the 1%, lift seniors out of poverty, and reduce tuition fees. The second argues that the environment is the biggest issue. We should review the Enbridge pipeline, invest in Green Energy, and offer more investment to green energy, while not hampering the economy with unnecessarily high taxes. The third candidate wants to see a balanced approach of fiscal responsibility with social liberties. The government should implement smarter solutions to today’s problems while also seeking to reduce the deficit. Each candidate agrees on electoral reform as the first priority and that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have done untold damage to our country.

Because of the supporters who show up to vote (or who cast their ballot online or by mail) one of these people becomes the riding’s “progressive” candidate. It turns out during the campaign though that this candidate is actually against abortion, leaving many progressive pro-choice voters in the riding with a dilemma. Do they support a candidate who may roll back women’s rights (imagine that the despite the electoral cooperation, Harper still wins another government and one of his MPs brings forward a private member’s bill against abortion) or do they stay home on election day and protest the situation?

While this example is extreme, there are a number of sitting Liberal MPs who are pro-life, and similar issues will be just as passionate for voters in any riding. Some right-Liberals strongly oppose the NDP as neo-Communists, while some New Democrats see the Liberals as Conservative-light. Some Greens have left-wing economics, while others are quite right-wing – the only thing truly uniting their party is a concern for the environment.

In every riding will exist partisans who will not vote for one party or another. Many will switch to the Conservatives before they vote for a different party as well. Progressive votes are not transferable.

By reducing the number of options on a ballot, we necessarily reduce our democracy, and force strategic voting against someone rather than for someone.

The implementation issues

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that joint nominations won’t work if they happen, let’s also recognize that they probably won’t even be able to happen. The entire idea rests on getting each party to agree to allow these meetings. While a local riding association may choose to hold this meeting with their rivals, there is no guarantee that the parties will respect this decision. Each party has the ability to parachute candidates, so unless there is agreement from the leadership of each party, this idea is dead before it lifts off. To date, only one NDP leadership candidate has expressed any support for this idea and no one from the Liberals has agreed to it.

And as Denny Holmwood points out, even if Cullen wins the NDP leadership, he may not be able to implement the policy in his own party. It may be necessary for him to actually ask the members of the party for a constitutional amendment for this. Whether such a motion would pass is an open question as delegates to last year’s convention defeated a resolution to “reject any proposals to merge with the Liberal Party.”

Finally, Alice at Pundit’s Guide dissected the nitty gritty of what would actually happen if there was buy in from the NDP and the Liberals. She remains very sceptical of the entire situation. I strongly suggest reading her post, as she does the most thorough take-down of the entire proposal.

Conclusions

This post is already too long at over 1000 words. In a coming post I’ll try to lay out a defense of partisanship and the role that political parties have in our democracy.

I want to see Harper lose but there are no shortcuts to progressive victory. We have to actually get ready to do some real work to earn people’s votes.

You can hear the audio and the Q&A below in MP3 format.

Cullen emphasizes the need to reach beyond partisan politics. Noting that more people are members of Mountain Equipment Coop than all political parties in Canada. He defends his joint nomination meeting as a way to work to rectify this issue and put progressive politics back on the agenda. His emphasis is on the local associations making the decision to enact this process and that it is a one-time offer to get electoral reform on the agenda.

He also warns that Harper will gerrymander the new seats - despite the fact that Canada's electoral boundaries are drawn by arm-lengths committees of Elections Canada.

He mentions that he is a secularist who "believes in the separation of church and state", while also a supporter of the progressive church run aid organization KAIROS. This follows his call for putting the monarchy to a vote.

He notes his tendency to commit "exager-Nathans" with regards to his tendency to inflate crowds while saying he did get over 100 new members for the NDP at his Northern Gateway meeting at the Roundhouse that attracted 500 people without pitching for memberships.

He also talks about how the Conservatives walked into the Ethics Committee and demanded that the CBC be their key investigation. He opposed the Conservatives call to drag a judge before the committee, breaking the unspoken separation between the judiciary and legislature. Cullen, as chair of the committee was forced to right the subpoena, but left an out for the judge.

He finishes with an interesting exercise in psychology to note how when we shift patterns things become uncomfortable but we slowly adapt until what was once awkward becomes the norm. He relates this to politics by noticing that we need to recognize the discomfort that shifts in thinking require, but that they are possible.

Overall, a good speech, up to par with the expectations he's been setting. I haven't finished listening to the Q&A yet, so I don't have any comments to add on that audio.

Nathan Cullen speech

Nathan Cullen Q&A (quieter)

Since every leadership candidate was in town for the town-hall, most were sure to be as ever-present at the convention as possible. Outside of the debate though, only BC MP Nathan Cullen had access to the convention floor (pictured on right).

I briefly dropped in on Brian Topp’s event at The Lion’s Pub on Friday (he held a second on Saturday). He said hi, was quite approachable, and seemed more genuine then the media portrait of the backroom operative. He mentioned how he hoped to push the NDP to adopt stronger policies like his tax-the-rich scheme. Overall I was impressed. Unfortunately he didn’t come off well to many during the town hall and many were unimpressed when he exceeded his intro time – which was only 30 seconds.

Nathan Cullen’s remarks and approachability throughout the convention really impressed me. He was one of the most sincere speakers during the town hall, making sure to reference his young twins and getting some memorable jabs in – Harper’s $100/month childcare program is a “slap in the face” and the “racist Indian Act” needs to be ripped up. I stopped him briefly on the floor and said I was glad he was willing to question the monarchy. He commented how striking it was that Canadians have never been asked if this is the system we want. On the joint nomination issue he reiterated that he would leave the decision of whether to run one to local constituency associations to decide. His commitment to democracy and grassroots was quite refreshing. Finally, he mentioned to me (without my prompting) how he “hates ideology”. He mentioned he was raised Irish-Catholic during the speeches but I’ll have to find out how well that upbringing stuck (I’ll try to probe each of the candidates beliefs before the vote).

The only other candidate I talked with was Niki Ashton. I first said hi at her both during the early part of the convention, but I also attended her hotel-room (all the bars were booked by other candidates and Christmas parties) “New Politics Pub” party until the hotel managers shut it down. Many are rightly noting how impressive of a speaker she when contrasted to the other candidates, a person sitting next to me commented how she was the only one to fit a bit of policy into her 30 second introduction. She also is one of the most friendly and approachable candidates. She is smart and open. She’s quickly working her way to the top of my ballot.

During the town hall I wasn’t really impressed with Robert Chisholm (other then the fact he kind of looked like he should be a James Bond actor). While his ideas were in the right place (they all are), he definitely didn’t stand out. Similarly, I found Romeo Saganash to be an impressive and intelligent person, but wasn’t won over on his speaking (although Twitter seemed to suggest he had a cold). I could see Saganash being a great diplomat or cabinet minister. Thomas Mulcair spoke pretty slowly – likely as a way to get his point across – but he still felt insincere to me.

Paul Dewar did fine at the speeches, again emphasizing support for the grassroots but also discussing the need to get away from a paternalistic view that women need protected and move toward building respect and rights for women. His latest promise is to restore the public party subsidy, but to tie the level of support to the number of women nominated for office.

Peggy Nash had the most vocal (almost to the point of being obnoxious) supporters, all wearing “Team Nash” t-shirts. She didn’t stand out during the town hall but she still held her own. She again emphasized the need for a strong, stable economy based on social justice and the environment. During the convention she also released her LGBTQ policy. I wasn’t overly impressed with her the first time I saw her but it’s good to see her releasing some substance.

FInally, Martin Singh actually really impressed me while on stage. He is a confident and commanding speaker. Unfortunately his position can be summed up by pharmacare and being business friendly. I also maintain a distance due to his involvement with the Faith and Social Justice Committee and his desire to use the race to showcase his religion.

So, based on some experience with most of the candidates, my potential ranking (in tiers, but roughly in order) is:

Tier One: Niki Ashton, Paul Dewar, Brian Topp

Tier Two: Peggy Nash, Nathan Cullen, Romeo Saganash

Tier Three: Thomas Mulcair, Martin Singh, Robert Chisholm