Trust - Cornerstone of Democracy

Democracy in Alberta

Individuals of voting age in Alberta face a conundrum in the coming election.  The issue, as always, is trust.  To whom do you entrust that part of your quality of life enabled and enhanced by government action?

Situation

The New Democrats were elected in 2015.  Many individuals were fed up with the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wild Rose Party when they were seen to be in politics only for themselves. 

The WRP was formed to hold the long standing PCs to account for not paying attention to primacy of the individual and mostly following their own group think.  The PCs were seen as dogs in the manger, keeping government for themselves.  Most of the WRP MLAs had chosen to cross the floor and join the PCs in what was seen as a cynical move to get cozy with the levers of power and control of the economy.  There was clearly a mood to “throw the bums out”.

The NDs were organized and ready in every constituency with candidates nominated and ready to go. 

The Alberta Liberal Party and the Alberta Party were not as well organized and were not ready to form government.

The PCs and WRs were likewise ready with a slate of candidates.  After the ND were elected, the United Conservative Party was formed out of the grafting of the former Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta onto the Wild Rose Party. 

The Prospective Trustees

ND
The ND were for many people not knocking on doors and hearing the people talk, the surprise winners of the election.  People at the doors were expressing pure displeasure with the PCs and WR’s and looking for whoever could plausibly replace them.  With the NDs being the only obvious alternative in every constituency, they had to win.

The ND government now has a record for governance.  I don’t think even their opponents can justly say they have not overcome the terribly steep learning curve they faced and done so admirably well.  The are a known quantity.

UCP
The UCP then held its leadership election.  The process was contentious.  There were members who complained their eligibility to vote had been wrongfully denied.  It was reported the UCP had attempted an examination of the situation which they subsequently abandoned as it was decided there would not be enough challengeable votes to change the declared outcome.  This may well have been so.  Interestingly, voters deemed most likely to support the UCP were also deemed most likely to press for primacy of the individual.

ALP
The Alberta Liberal Party held a leadership election in 2017 to replace their interim leader. The vote count was also contentious.  Both candidates had members denied eligibility to vote, the declared winner reportedly had some eighty such and the declared loser reportedly had some two hundred such.  The Party never did engage in an outreach program respecting each and every individual member, whether that person was deemed eligible to vote and voted or not. 

The total number of votes counted was 1,671.  The total registered as vote turnout members 2,258.  The stories of eligible members being denied the right to vote is certainly plausible.  It’s also plausible that the declared winner did not actually win.  The reported percentages for each were 54.8 and 46.2, the difference then being 8.6.  8.6% of 1,671 is 144.  Thus the number of winning votes is not clear.  Reportedly an intra-party appeal was attempted, but it was denied.

AP
The Alberta Party has struggled to come up with a “manifesto” to define their philosophical principles.  I know they define themselves as centrist, between the ND and the UCP.  I know they are against whatever the UCP stands for and see themselves as the long term solution to political governance in Alberta. I know that in the main AP membership has come from the old PCs, former ALPs and others.

That group’s growing pains were made evident when five candidates were not allowed to participate in the Alberta election by virtue of late filing of their annual returns with Elections Alberta.  Unfortunately this number includes their leader.  That group’s handle on the process of governance is in question.

My Real Issue
However, believe it or not, I do not think the vote count question is per se the most important issue for both the UCP and ALP.  My most important issue was some apparently arbitrary eligibility determination, disrespecting the individual member attempting to exercise the democratic right to vote.  Additionally, as far as I am aware neither party has reached out to all their members, not only those disallowed from voting, but to others who might be wondering what kind of democratic organization they belong to.

My Political Stance
All four of these parties and the other even smaller political parties have yet to demonstrate their willingness to engage with individual Albertans as one of their founding principles.  None of these have produced any methodological process for gathering and transparently processing input from individuals in Alberta.

Alberta people are often proud of their belief in the primacy of the individual.  That any Alberta political party would deny this in practice does not fit.

Conclusion
The incumbent ND have a record of government that does demonstrate how they like to govern our society. 

The PCAA-WRP alliance in the guise of the UCP has a record of governance which was roundly rejected by Alberta voters in 2015.  One would think that would not be a good record to recommend to people and people might wonder what has changed. 

The UCP, ALP and AP have only their respective records of how they conduct their own affairs and how they include the interests of their own members to indicate how they might operate government.

Each of us in Alberta faces an interesting opportunity to define trust for ourselves and to exercise that trust at the ballot box.

Michael Klein, February 25, 2019