Alison Redford -Alberta premier

jjaycee98

Electoral Member
Jan 27, 2006
421
4
18
British Columbia
Political Parties have strange ways of picking their leaders. With a redistribution of the 3rd place Candidates votes, the front runner lost to the 2nd place Candidate. This is the way they ended up with Stelmack too!

Hard to say just where she will take the Party and the Province, with the strange way that elected politicians have to be on board with the leaders views. She was the Minister of Education-one of the main sources of discontent, so will she reverse the stand she took back then?
 

WLDB

Senate Member
Jun 24, 2011
6,182
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Ottawa
Thats the same way the speaker of the house is elected and its also the way politicians are elected in Australia. It ensures the winner gets a majority rather than a plurality.
 

earth_as_one

Time Out
Jan 5, 2006
7,933
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cool!


Related:

Alison Redford has overcome long odds to become Alberta’s new premier – the first woman to hold the post... The election of Ms. Redford – a 46-year-old bilingual human rights lawyer firmly on the party’s left flank – caps an eight-month campaign triggered by the resignation of embattled premier Ed Stelmach. Ms. Redford more than doubled her vote total from a first-ballot contest two weeks earlier.
“I know I’m leaving this province in very good hands,” Mr. Stelmach told party faithful.

However, his party faces a long road after a divisive leadership race – Mr. Mar left the conference hall during Ms. Redford’s speech, and none of the current cabinet backed her...

..Ms. Redford’s campaign was based on promising a series of expensive programs, including topping up salaries of non-profit sector workers; introducing family care clinics as a costly pillar of what is already Canada’s most expensive health system; immediately restoring $100-million in education cuts; and expanding payments to the severely disabled...

..“She has far more appeal for the party to go forward,” Ms. Fields said. “She’s not the same old, same old.” ...
Alberta to get first female premier - The Globe and Mail
 
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taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
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Vancouver Island
Look at it this way. She can not possibly do worse than the men that proceeded her and the two provinces that are driving the Canadian economy both have female Premiers that are at the left end of their parties.
 

jjaycee98

Electoral Member
Jan 27, 2006
421
4
18
British Columbia
Political Parties have strange ways of picking their leaders. With a redistribution of the 3rd place Candidates votes, the front runner lost to the 2nd place Candidate. This is the way they ended up with Stelmack too!

Hard to say just where she will take the Party and the Province, with the strange way that elected politicians have to be on board with the leaders views. She was the Minister of Education-one of the main sources of discontent, so will she reverse the stand she took back then?

Wrong! She was Justice Minister. Sorry!
 

Bar Sinister

Executive Branch Member
Jan 17, 2010
8,252
19
38
Edmonton
Political Parties have strange ways of picking their leaders. With a redistribution of the 3rd place Candidates votes, the front runner lost to the 2nd place Candidate. This is the way they ended up with Stelmack too.


It is not really so strange. All major political parties in North America have been picking their candidates that way for decades. It is far more democratic than the outmoded plurality system Canada has for choosing actual governments. France has had such a system for more than forty years and it works quite well, insuring that every elected candidate has more than 50% of the vote.
 

wulfie68

Council Member
Mar 29, 2009
2,014
24
38
Calgary, AB
Too soon to tell.

You're right, it is too soon to tell but Stelmach alienated a lot of the PC's base... who are moving to the Wild Rose Party. Its a much smaller scale than the federal PCs losing their western base to the Reform back in the day, and its not as cemented but unless Ms Redford can bring at least some of them back to the fold, the Wild Rose could conceivably do to the Tories what they did to the Social Credit. She's got a chance though, which is more than Kim Campbell did, when this type of scenario was unfolding in federal politics...

And before someone chimes in about the left parties (which always crops up), just remember this is Alberta: the conservative vote could be chopped in half and STILL win landslides over the combined votes of the NDP and Liberals...
 

earth_as_one

Time Out
Jan 5, 2006
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Times are a changin' Even in Alberta. Alberta is not the same place it was 20 years ago.

81% of Albertans live in cities. Many Albertan were not born in Alberta. 1/6 are immigrants to Canada. Probably about the same number of people immigrated to Alberta from another province.

Alberta has swung to the center. I expect the Wildrose party will have some success in the next election, but the new Premiere will attract enough Liberals and maybe even a few NDP'ers into the fold to offset their losses..
 

wulfie68

Council Member
Mar 29, 2009
2,014
24
38
Calgary, AB
Times are a changin' Even in Alberta. Alberta is not the same place it was 20 years ago.

No place is but the more things change, the more some things stay the same.

81% of Albertans live in cities. Many Albertan were not born in Alberta. 1/6 are immigrants to Canada. Probably about the same number of people immigrated to Alberta from another province.

Alberta has had a large "migrant" population for the last 40-50 years, whether they be from outside the country or within. Thats been a constant with the prosperity and resilience that has dominated its economy. Part of the reason that this has been maintained is that even newcomers don't want to mess with a formula that has been, for the most part, successful; people want to fit in, be comfortable, support their families and try to get ahead. Many current Albertans may not have been born there, but there is almost cultural or societal memory about what leftist federal politicians have tried to do the province (mainly Trudeau but later Chretien as well) and while some is exagerated to a degree, the resentment is real... thats why the Liberal Party name is such poison, and the NDP doesn't fare much better outside the bailiwicks of the provincial gov't unions (the only real organized labour in the province).

Alberta has swung to the center. I expect the Wildrose party will have some success in the next election, but the new Premiere will attract enough Liberals and maybe even a few NDP'ers into the fold to offset their losses..

I would contend not so much that Alberta has swung to the center, as much as other parts of the country that had swung farther left are coming back to the center. One thing people who don't live there don't understand is that while change isn't embraced for its own sake, its not the anathema that some non-Albertans think and are led to believe. Within reason, Albertans are pragmatists; that pragmatism doesn't extend to other regions telling it how it should govern itself (as the federal Liberals refused to learn).
 

Retired_Can_Soldier

The End of the Dog is Coming!
Mar 19, 2006
11,282
479
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59
Alberta
You're right, it is too soon to tell but Stelmach alienated a lot of the PC's base... who are moving to the Wild Rose Party. Its a much smaller scale than the federal PCs losing their western base to the Reform back in the day, and its not as cemented but unless Ms Redford can bring at least some of them back to the fold, the Wild Rose could conceivably do to the Tories what they did to the Social Credit. She's got a chance though, which is more than Kim Campbell did, when this type of scenario was unfolding in federal politics...

And before someone chimes in about the left parties (which always crops up), just remember this is Alberta: the conservative vote could be chopped in half and STILL win landslides over the combined votes of the NDP and Liberals...

I think she has an opportunity to unite her party, but she will need to work overtime to build bridges and undo the damage done by Stelmach. That was something that Stephen Harper was extremely good at when he took the reins from Stockwell Day. He managed to bring back disgruntled members like Chuck Strahl and Deborah Gray and reach across to Peter Mackay to in order unite the right.
 

JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
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I think she has an opportunity to unite her party, but she will need to work overtime to build bridges and undo the damage done by Stelmach. That was something that Stephen Harper was extremely good at when he took the reins from Stockwell Day. He managed to bring back disgruntled members like Chuck Strahl and Deborah Gray and reach across to Peter Mackay to in order unite the right.

Yeah, from what we've seen on the news getting MacKay was a real bonus.........................................or boner! :smile:
 

earth_as_one

Time Out
Jan 5, 2006
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While I don't live in Alberta, Calgary is my most frequent business destination outside of the Toronto area.

Changes to Calgary's size and demographics seem obvious to me. Although I travel to Edmonton far less often, I visit enough to notice it has also grown bigger and more diverse, similar to Calgary. .It doesn't matter that rural Alberta hasn't changed much. Most Albertan live in the major cities and they have far more in common with Canadians in other large cities who vote liberal/NDP, than with rural Albertans who vote overwhelmingly conservative. Alberta has shifted toward the center. I expect the Wild Rose party will enjoy widespread support by right wing conservatives and rural voters, but not enough to gain real power.