Herald Column: Alberta Needs a Passionate, Meaningful Election

Alberta's 2012 election campaign is now underway, and my latest Calgary Herald column looks at what we should expect and what we should hope for:

After weeks of posturing, Premier Alison Redford has now launched us into an official election campaign that will culminate with the vote on April 23.
With the Tories’ bizarre “fixed election period” legislation, we all knew an election was looming, but the specifics were still subject to the whims of the premier.
The uncertainty is over, and if the pre-campaign campaign is any indication, the actual campaign is bound to be a passionate, if not downright heated, affair.
Frankly, that’s a good thing.
The 2008 Alberta election would never be described as “heated,” let alone “nasty,” and perhaps the fact that it was such a mundane, pedestrian affair is one of the primary explanations as to why voter turnout was so pathetically low.
Mind you, that election turned out very well for the governing Tories, so of course they’d love to see the “tone” of 2008 repeated here in 2012. A low-key sleeper of a campaign is much less volatile – and therefore, safer – than a campaign bursting with emotion. For a sitting government, passion can be a dangerous thing.
Although, for as much as the Tories might like this campaign to have all the excitement and passion of a lazy stroll on the beach, don’t think they’re above kicking some sand in some faces.
Between the party leaders and the party strategists, there’s the opportunity to play good cop/bad cop, wherein the former can speak at great length about the need for a positive campaign and the latter can let loose with the negative ads targeting their opponents.
At some point, however, it becomes more than a little disingenuous to be capitalizing on negative ads while at the same time denouncing them.
Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with negative ads. Why shouldn’t the parties take aim at their opponents and challenge their record or their policies?
The Tories certainly didn’t see anything wrong with the radio ads they launched earlier this month targeting the Wildrose party and its leader, Danielle Smith.
One of the ads centred around the government’s controversial impaired driving legislation. The implication of the ad was that Redford, in championing the legislation, was interested in saving lives. Smith, in opposing the legislation, was not.
The ad exhorted supporters to “tell the Wildrose that real leadership is about making decisions to save lives.” If the message wasn’t clear enough, the warning at the end of the ad was even starker: “Danielle Smith and the Wildrose — not worth the risk.”
Aside from the fact that it appears to rely on a bogus figure (claiming 300 Albertans have been killed by drivers under .05 blood-alcohol content since 1998), the ad is hardly an atypical example of a rough and tumble political ad.
Presumably, though, as leader of the party responsible for the ad, Redford is aware of its existence. However, last week in addressing the media, you’d never know it.
Instead, Redford warned that in this campaign, “the tone from some political parties is not going to be very nice at all.” I suppose if “some political parties” included her own, then it would be an accurate statement.
I’m assuming, however, that’s not what she meant, since she later pledged to “do our very best to keep the tone of the election to one I think Albertans expect, which is an appropriate, dignified discussion with respect to policy.”
Of course, there was no denunciation forthcoming of the ads from her own party. “Not worth the risk” is hardly a dignified discussion of policy.
We shouldn’t want childish name calling or outlandish misrepresentations of opponents’ policies. We should, however, want passion – even anger.
There is much at stake in this election, and I think Albertans are looking for a reflection of that in those seeking to lead this province.
Therein lies the danger for those hoping for a repeat of the empty and tepid 2008 campaign: Albertans are restless, frustrated, and, yes, angry. Ignoring that could prove to be politically fatal.
So if a “nasty tone” means we have an emotional, passionate, meaningful election, then, by all means, bring it on. It’s about time we had an election that mattered.

"Convenient Stunt"? Yes, Please!

With mere days before an expected election call, the Redford Tories have suddenly found an appetite for convenient stunts.
It was March 12th in the Legislature when Premier Alison Redford took aim at the Opposition MLAs who announced they'd be repaying the money they received for sitting on a committee that hadn't met since 1998.
Redford declared that repaying the money was a , quote, "convenient stunt" meant to polarize the issue.

Now, suddenly, the Tories see some merit in the notion of paying back some of that money.
Of course, some opposition MLAs are paying back all the money - over $40,000 in some cases.
These Tory MLAs, however, will be paying back much, much less.
The announcement yesterday didn't even come from the Premier herself. Instead she sent out Tory whip Robin Campbell to inform reporters that they money would be repaid.
He didn't intially say how much. It wasn't until reporters prodded that Campbell revealed that the paybacks would only go as far back as October of last year.
That's six months ago, meaning that these MLAs will pay back $6000 each and keep the rest.
The Tories seemed to have convinced themselves that the public will accept this as something meaningful. In all likelihood, they're fooling themselves.
What's more likely, is that the Tories have reminded voters about this controversy, revealed their own hypocrisy, and offered nothing more than an empty gesture.
The Tories are running out of feet to shoot themselves in.

Herald Column: Tory Ad an Attack on the Facts

The Alberta Tories are targeting the Wildrose Party with this new attack ad:

However, my latest Calgary Herald column argues that the ad misrepresents the facts:

With a provincial election campaign nearly upon us, we should no doubt expect to be barraged by a torrent of political advertising — including, of course, so-called attack ads.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a political party seeking to define its opponents on its own terms. And while we should not expect nuance in such ads, we should ensure that debates over important public policy are informed by accurate information.
The Tories are targeting the Wildrose Party in two separate radio ads, one of which deals with Bill 26 – the government’s controversial impaired driving law.
While it’s hardly surprising or objectionable to see the governing party defending its record, it’s curious to see how they’re doing so on this issue.
After aggressively ramming the legislation through last fall, the government then agreed to delay the legislation (likely until after the election) and to hold consultations with industry.
Now they’re back to aggressively defending the legislation as an urgently needed tool for saving lives.
Mind you, the government has at times told us that this law did not mark a radical departure from the existing framework, undercutting the message that lives are at stake without the law.
The Tory ad claims that “since 1998, 300 Albertans have been killed by drivers who blew .08 or less,” and then implies that the Tories are eager to tackle the problem, whereas the Wildrose Party is somehow indifferent.
It’s a sobering statistic, but where does it come from?
When asked by QR77 radio’s Angela Kokott last week, Solicitor General Jonathan Denis replied that it “comes from an independent University of Western Ontario study that has been quoted by Robert Remington of the Calgary Herald many times.”
Indeed, in one blog post on the Herald website, Remington states “the estimate is my own.”
With all due respect to Remington, it’s rather embarrassing that with everything at its disposal, the government must rely on an analysis of a single report by a single newspaper columnist.
Mind you, if the analysis were correct, then it would be a moot point.
However, that University of Western Ontario study (PDF) is an examination of the blood-alcohol content of deceased motorists, and says nothing about those who may have died at the hands of impaired drivers.
Remington, though, also refers to statistics from Alberta Transportation, claiming, for example, that in 2008 in Alberta, 14 per cent of fatally injured drivers were below .08.
However, the Alberta traffic collision statistics for 2008 (PDF), available on the Alberta Transportation website, which Remington links to, show that 13.7 per cent of fatally injured drivers were “alcohol impaired” and 8.8 per cent “had been drinking.” There is no further breakdown — “had been drinking” could mean .06 or .02.
Once again, however, these statistics refer to fatally injured drivers. That’s not to minimize the tragedy of those lives lost, but there is a considerable difference between one’s stupidity taking his own life and one’s stupidity taking another’s life.
I realize the Tories see much more emotional impact in the latter, but they’ve opted for a claim that also would appear to have no basis at all.
If one is looking for a more detailed breakdown, it can be found in a lengthy report (PDF) released last November by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation.
It includes a detailed look at each province, and separates statistics for fatally injured drivers into more specific categories of .05 to .08 and those under .05.
When it comes to those between .05 and .08, the number is not 14 per cent or anything even approaching that. Just 1.4 per cent of fatally injured drivers fell into that category; 4.3 per cent were under the .05 threshold.
One could argue that these are still lives needlessly lost, but wouldn’t the same apply to the 4.3 per cent of drivers under .05?
Moreover, these statistics convey only correlation, not causation. Perhaps there’s a point at which the latter can be implied, but what point is that?
Regardless of one’s position on Bill 26, it represents an important issue worthy of informed discussion.
And while we can accept that reason may at times be lost in the discourse around an emotional issue, it’s no excuse for misinforming Albertans.