[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Barrister]

I can say that Danielle Smith has not impressed me.

And using Beeb as a bellwether I'm guessing she's not landing particularly well more broadly speaking.

Well yeah.  Remember she won a vote of UCP members with 53% after 6 rounds.

Obviously there's a minority out there that believes in anti-vax, anti-restrictions very profoundly.  And, sadly, that is an important part of the UCP coalition, and the party has to keep those voters on board.  If they don't there are enough minor parties for them to vote for to cost the party an election win (not that their odds are looking very good right now anyways).

But just pandering to that minority is going to turn off the suburban voters in Edmonton and Calgary that are essential to a UCP majority.  And it's just bad policy.

[Barrister]

Actually their chances aren't quite as bad as I thought.

https://338canada.com/alberta/polls.htm

You can see that since the summer when Kenney stepped down support for the Western Independence Party has dropped, and seemingly returned to the UCP.  Putting the NDP and UCP in a veritable tie.  You can see why the UCP needs to keep it's conservative base in the fold.

But the last poll was a month ago.  And parties always get a bump during leadership races.  The risk now is more moderate UCP voters run to the NDP in face of Smith's leadership.

[Jacob]

But just pandering to that minority is going to turn off the suburban voters in Edmonton and Calgary that are essential to a UCP majority.  And it's just bad policy.

Yeah - I saw a thing on social media that said Smith had declared that her government would be predominantly rural and govern from a rural perspective. That was interpreted (by folks I'm guessing are not friendly towards Smith and possibly the UCP to begin with) to be an abandonment of voters in Edmonton and Calgary.

[Barrister]

Yeah - I saw a thing on social media that said Smith had declared that her government would be predominantly rural and govern from a rural perspective. That was interpreted (by folks I'm guessing are not friendly towards Smith and possibly the UCP to begin with) to be an abandonment of voters in Edmonton and Calgary.

Do you have a link to that?

I'll admit Edmonton is not always the most fertile ground for the UCP.  I remember hearing references to it being called "Redmonton".  But Calgary is.  Last election UCP won 23 seats in Calgary, versus only 3 for the NDP.  But if Calgary voters think your party isn't going to govern for you the margins in most of those ridings were not overly large.  (just looked it up, a lot of Calgary ridings were incredibly tight).

And Calgary was the margin of victory for the UCP last time.  If those ridings start flipping en masse then Notley will return as Premiere.  You can not win with only rural voters (and even then "rural" voters can be a misnomer.  Secondary cities like Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat are part urban, part rural).

[Valmy]

It is so weird how in Alberta it is the NDP that is the second party.

I wonder if that isn't like in Texas how we used to have a very conservative/moderate Democratic party and then around 1992 they all just jumped over to the Republican Party, just leaving the left-wing Democrats behind creating some legendary landslides in that era where the Republicans were winning with 30 and 40 percent margins. But over time the left-wing Democrats have been growing and now the more left-wing Democrats are only losing by 5 points. So maybe it is the same that once the Conservatives are recognized as the governing party challenging them from a conservative/moderate perspective doesn't gain much traction.

Or probably it is more some issue specific to Canada that the Liberals are just widely associated with federalism and are thus toxic in Alberta.

I don't know. I have a natural tendency to look at Alberta and see Texas' northern twin and wonder how our issues map on to theirs 

[Barrister]

It is so weird how in Alberta it is the NDP that is the second party.

I wonder if that isn't like in Texas how we used to have a very conservative/moderate Democratic party and then around 1992 they all just jumped over to the Republican Party, just leaving the left-wing Democrats behind creating some legendary landslides in that era where the Republicans were winning with 30 and 40 percent margins. But over time the left-wing Democrats have been growing and now the more left-wing Democrats are only losing by 5 points. So maybe it is the same that once the Conservatives are recognized as the governing party challenging them from a conservative/moderate perspective doesn't gain much traction.

Or probably it is more some issue specific to Canada that the Liberals are just widely associated with federalism and are thus toxic in Alberta.

I don't know. I have a natural tendency to look at Alberta and see Texas' northern twin and wonder how our issues map on to theirs 

So you have to remember that Alberta politics are... weird.  We had non-stop right-wing government from the 1930s up to 2015 (but that was with two separate parties, Social Credit and the Progressive Conservatives).

I don't want to go back too far but yes from at least the 1980s forward the Liberals were the main opposition party.  The NDP was much more aligned with the labour movement, so they would win a handful of seats in areas with lots of blue collar union-type jobs in Edmonton,  And yes, the Alberta Liberal Party was much more aligned with the Federal Liberal Party which always hurt them, even as they would try to distance themselves from time to time.

I think what has happened is the Liberals have faded, the NDP has lost some of its union votes to the right (same phenomenon we've seen in the US), but has maid it more of a typical left-of-centre party.  And in Alberta Rachel Notley has done a decent job at shutting down the looney left fringe, knowing you have to be more moderate to win in Alberta.

[Barrister]

Oh - Smith has promised to fire our Chief Medical Officer of Health and replace her.  Dr. Hinshaw, our CMOH, served ablely throughout the pandemic, but was always cognizant that her role was to advise, not fight the government.

So not sure who Smith will hire.  I checked the Public Health Act.  The CMOH does need to be a physician, so we're not going to get some homeopath quack doctor, but quite a few quack MDs out there...

[Barrister]

And I'll stop after this:  Danielle Smith seeks to "clarify" her comment about discrimination about vaccine status, saying she did not intend to trivialize discrimination faced by other groups.  Also says she'll reach out to various minority groups.

https://twitter.com/ABDanielleSmith/status/1580257060465541120

What she doesn't say is any version of "I'm sorry" or "badly worded".

[Jacob]

Do you have a link to that?

I don't have the social media stuff, but a google search got the Calgary Herald piece that it was based on (I'm pretty sure): https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-smith-says-her-government-will-be-rural-in-makeup-and-thinking-with-fewer-calgary-ministers

Braid: Smith says her government will be rural in makeup and thinking, with fewer Calgary ministers

...

Rural MLAs, get ready for big cabinet jobs and a dominant rural tone in government.

...

Calgary's dominance of cabinet is about to end. This was one of the weirdest features of premier Jason Kenney's government — a cabinet that at one point had 17 of 26 posts filled by Calgary MLAs. Some rural folks called the UCP the "United Calgary Party."

...

"We have a largely rural caucus because we have 39 of 41 seats that are not in Edmonton and Calgary, and yet the bulk of the cabinet was from Calgary," Smith said.

"And I think what happened is that those rural voices really felt like that couldn't get on the radar, that there was an inner circle and then an inner-inner circle."

She doesn't need to mention what happens when those rural members go into full rebellion. A premier loses his (her) job.

But she's comfortable with a much stronger rural voice and tone in Alberta government. "I think people know my style of conservatism is very rural-based, there should be no surprise at that," she said.

... which is where the quotes I saw were sourced, but provides more context.

So, I guess, there's a shift away from the heavy Calgary bias of Kenney's government - which makes sense. At the same time there'll be an attempt to frame that as going too far - which may or may not get traction. As Smith is quoted as saying "[her] style of conservatism is very rural-based." The question is how that will play out.

[Jacob]

Oh - Smith has promised to fire our Chief Medical Officer of Health and replace her.  Dr. Hinshaw, our CMOH, served ablely throughout the pandemic, but was always cognizant that her role was to advise, not fight the government.

So not sure who Smith will hire.  I checked the Public Health Act.  The CMOH does need to be a physician, so we're not going to get some homeopath quack doctor, but quite a few quack MDs out there...

Yeah, the Calgary Herald piece I linked also had bits with Smith saying:

"It's mostly AHS that is in my sights. We've been told time after time, leave it to the experts, we've got this, we know what we're doing.

"They don't know what they're doing. They made that very clear. COVID didn't break the system, it just revealed that the system was broken.

"But we want to make sure that we are staffing the front lines properly. If that means we're going to be reducing some of those bureaucratic layers of management, yep, they should be a little bit worried . . . We're going to change the management."

Later she promised front-line health workers: "Reinforcements are coming."

[Jacob]

... was the AHS revealed as being broken during Covid?

[Barrister]

... was the AHS revealed as being broken during Covid?

Like everywhere else it was extremely stressed.  Front line worker shortages, overcrowding during peaks, having to use "surge capacity".

And like the rest of the world, what we first thought we knew about Covid turned out to not be true.  It was airborne.  Vaccines, once available, did not completely stop the spread.

To some people that meant the medical system was broken, and caused them to listen to alternative sources.  For others it was just dealing with a unique situation as best they could.

[Jacob]

That makes it sound to me like Smith is going after AHS management for doing their best and following the science as it was available.

[Barrister]

That makes it sound to me like Smith is going after AHS management for doing their best and following the science as it was available.

That's my outside take.

Look - I've worked in government 18 years.  Government bureaucracies definitely have their issues!  (as do arms-length government bodies like AHS).  But I haven't heard Smith articulate a thoughtful critique of AHS management.

[Sheilbh]

Look - I've worked in government 18 years.  Government bureaucracies definitely have their issues!  (as do arms-length government bodies like AHS).  But I haven't heard Smith articulate a thoughtful critique of AHS management.

It's a permanent cycle in British politics of moaning about bloated administration in the public sector, cutting funding to them (sometimes with counter increased spending on the front-line), front-line workers spending more time doing admin, spending on separate administration to "free up" front-line staff to do what they're meant to

It's also one of the theories on some of the problems in the NHS that - from memory - it has an incredibly low level of spending on administration compared with other healthcare system. Because of that it's possibly not actually able to be very well run or do things like planning for the future