ALBERTA: Provincial Elections!

[Barrister]

And here I was blaming BB all these years.

What did you do when Chretian broke his promise and did not remove the GST?

Refoooorm.

[crazy canuck]

OMG, you people are still talking about your politics?

We dont have Fox news to do the talking for us.

[HVC]

OMG, you people are still talking about your politics?

most of our teams are out of the playoffs. there's little left for us to talk about

[Camerus]

Is this a Prime Minister?

Yes.  Canada's best post-war Prime Minister, in fact.

[Neil]

Is this a Prime Minister?

Yes.  Canada's best post-war Prime Minister, in fact.

Nope.

[Josephus]

OMG, you people are still talking about your politics?

We dont have Fox news to do the talking for us.

Do you get Sun TV out there in B.C. Land, CC?

[Barrister]

Is this a Prime Minister?

Yes.  Canada's best post-war Prime Minister, in fact.

*cough*



Dief disagrees.

[Neil]

As does Harper.

[Sheilbh]

Would Wildrose ever try to go national?  If not, why not?

No.  Too closely aligned with the Conservatives.

So they wouldn't even go like a CSU to the Tories CDU?  Would this be a threat they have over the Tories if they got weak or too liberal?

[Sheilbh]

FWIW, there is definitely some sharing of advice and stategies between political professionals in US, UK and Canada.  At least on the right.

Definitely.  Though from a UK perspective I think there's more Tory-Tory love because there's a Democrat in the White House and Republicans are probably too extreme.  I think Major's relations with Clinton were always hugely damaged because the Tories were seen as far too close to the Bush campaign and though the Tories had McCain address conference a few years back and, officially, backed him they were generally terrified of Palin.  I think most Tories backed Obama.

By contrast they admire Harper and the right-wing of the Tory party really like him and hold him (and Tony Abbott) up as examples of what Cameron should have been.  They have a point.

I think there's less cooperation on the left because the Canadian left is in disarray and the Tories are in power in both countries.  The Administration, to the best of my knowledge, gets on with Cameron and Harper so they don't want to help the opposition, like Clinton did with Blair.  That could change if it becomes very likely that the Tories in either country would lose.

One interesting thing is that I think in Britain we're stuck politically.  We've still got post-92 style spin doctors pushing a strict media line and pictures of Ministers or Shadow Ministers visiting factories etc.  But I think the voters have outgrown it.  I think they are now very adept at sniffing out a politician who's just pushing the line.  I think, as Iain Martin argues, voters can see the wiring now.  It's why I think the most popular politicians are the 'authentic' ones like Boris, Ken Clarke, Alastair Darling and, until recently, Ken.  Here's an article on it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/iainmartin/9220239/Voters-have-lost-patience-with-the-culture-of-spin-and-fakery.html

[crazy canuck]

I think there's less cooperation on the left because the Canadian left is in disarray

The left in this country is as strong as it has ever been.

The Liberals are not the left.  They are the once great goo that tried to be both.

[Sheilbh]

The left in this country is as strong as it has ever been.

The Liberals are not the left.  They are the once great goo that tried to be both.

That may be so but, as your post indicates, the Democrats and the Liberals have ties.  Until the last election it was also Labour and the Liberals who cooperated.  So the Liberals may not be left but they were your example when you answered Oex because in this context they were.  They may not have been members of Socialist International but they were the left-wing party of government who cooperated with other lefty parties of government like the Democrats and Labour.

That's changed from a British perspective because the Labour Party are now considering working with the NDP instead, but I don't think anything's actually happened yet.  I imagine the relationship between the Liberals and Democrats has also weakened.

Edit:  Apparently the NDP's had meetings with the Democrats who are thinking of shifting their international colleagues.  The Australian Labour Party already have.

[Barrister]

Would Wildrose ever try to go national?  If not, why not?

No.  Too closely aligned with the Conservatives.

So they wouldn't even go like a CSU to the Tories CDU?  Would this be a threat they have over the Tories if they got weak or too liberal?

No.

Remember 25 years ago the one and only right-wing party in Canada was the Progressive Conservative Party.  It was perceived as being too centrist (and various other things) which led to the rise of the Reform Party, which ultimately merged with the federal PC Party.  But it wasn't a merger of equals.  Reform had the much larger membership and donorship base, and a former Reform MP (Harper) ultimately leads the party.  So the federal Conservative Party took the name and colour (blue) from the old PC Party, but behind the scenes are mostly Reformers.  There are still several old-school PCs who have nothing to do with the Conservative Party (former PMs Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney most notably).

Back in Alberta things were different.  It's always been the PC Party, which historically under guys like Lougheed was in tune with the federal PC Party.  Back in the early 90s when Reform really got going there were lots of rumbling about getting a similar party going on the provincial scene.  That was averted when the Alberta PC Party elected a very right-wing leader, Ralph Klein.  Klein was very popular with the wider electorate, but a portion of his own membership base wasn't always thrilled with him.

Klein is gone.  Last leader (Stelmach) was just ineffectual.  Current leader Redford is very much in the Red Tory mold.  That's what led to the rise of Wildrose.

But it might not be obvious from overseas, but Wildrose is very deliberately making itself out to be Reform Alberta.  A number of their policies are cut-and-paste jobs from Reform.  I recognized several names of people who had been involved in Reform.  Their signs and campaign material are in Reform coloured Green.

So this isn't a new movement - it's the same old movement under a new label.  It would be impossible for them to try and challenge the federal Conservative Party because so many of them are Conservative Party members.  Why do you think they were able to organize so effectively?  Because they got support from federal Conservatives.  Not formally of course.

[Barrister]

The left in this country is as strong as it has ever been.

The Liberals are not the left.  They are the once great goo that tried to be both.

That may be so but, as your post indicates, the Democrats and the Liberals have ties.  Until the last election it was also Labour and the Liberals who cooperated.  So the Liberals may not be left but they were your example when you answered Oex because in this context they were.  They may not have been members of Socialist International but they were the left-wing party of government who cooperated with other lefty parties of government like the Democrats and Labour.

That's changed from a British perspective because the Labour Party are now considering working with the NDP instead, but I don't think anything's actually happened yet.  I imagine the relationship between the Liberals and Democrats has also weakened.

Edit:  Apparently the NDP's had meetings with the Democrats who are thinking of shifting their international colleagues.  The Australian Labour Party already have.

I think you're focusing too much on formal ties between parties.

Instead it's the behind the scenes networks of political lobby groups and think tanks.  Just as my own example in university I came out to Calgary to receive a few days training from a US-based conservative think-tank.  It was the early 90s so there was a very uneasy mixture of PCs and Reformers, and I think one loon from Christian Heritage.  In order to preserve right-wing unity we decided that we would all be BC SoCred members for the weekend (BC SoCred had been defeated and was clearly waning, but had a few delegates as well).

I understand the national Conservative Party has hired political consultants from the US from time to time.  Various Canadians have been hired in the US for political positions, then returned to Canada.  David Frum is the poster child for this phenomenon.

[crazy canuck]

That may be so but, as your post indicates, the Democrats and the Liberals have ties.  Until the last election it was also Labour and the Liberals who cooperated.  So the Liberals may not be left but they were your example when you answered Oex because in this context they were.  They may not have been members of Socialist International but they were the left-wing party of government who cooperated with other lefty parties of government like the Democrats and Labour.

That's changed from a British perspective because the Labour Party are now considering working with the NDP instead, but I don't think anything's actually happened yet.  I imagine the relationship between the Liberals and Democrats has also weakened.

Edit:  Apparently the NDP's had meetings with the Democrats who are thinking of shifting their international colleagues.  The Australian Labour Party already have.

Interesting, I assumed that there had always been ties between the Canadian NDP and British Labour.  A quick google search shows me that while the Federal NDP rejected The Third Way in 1999 it was embraced by the provincial wing of the party in at least BC and Saskatchewan and probably elsewhere - but I didnt spend much time looking for that. Despite the formal rejection the Federal NDP moved in that direction in any event. Although I concede they may have been forced to it given the political culture of the day and it may have had little to do with formal or informal ties with British Labour at that time.

Here is a good editorial about the Federal moves written shortly after the last leadership debate - and touches a bit on what you posted in your thread.

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/the-eternal-leavening-of-the-canadian-left/article2396431/?service=mobile

It also appears that the NDP Socialist Caucus has extensive links to socialist movement internationally.  A good reminder that the old enemy still lurks.