Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has long been thought of as the 'accidental Premier' in reference to the way in which he came to sit in the Big Chair.  His up-the-middle victory in his party's leadership race - he was everyone's second choice - surprised everyone, perhaps even Stelmach himself.

I've often given my opinion that his victory was the result of a flawed voting system used by his P.C. party, and that, if one were to ask each and every party member with the assurance of anonymity if Stelmach was in hindsight the best choice, the result would be less than flattering for the current premier.

I stand by my assertion that a Jim Dinning victory would not only have solidified the Tory hold on power in the province but would have kept the Wildrose and Alberta Alliance parties where they were - on the fringe, instead of creating the conditions for a coalition which now has formed into the Danielle Smith-led government-in-waiting, the Wildrose Alliance.

Stelmach's time at the top has seen public support for the once-invincible P.C.s free-fall.  The era of Ed has already been marked with bad policy for which his government seems forever backtracking (can you say 'Royalty scheme?'). 

Mistake after mistake seems to be the norm for the current regime.  And the debt.  Don't forget the debt.

After several years of this, the question that comes to mind is: If Ed Stelmach is the benefactor of circumstantial error, if he has found himself in a job for which he does not possess the skills, who then is calling the plays?

I suggest that the Alberta government is being run not by Ed Stelmach, but by a handful of Caucus members, namely Ron Liepert and, to a lesser degree, Ted Morton.

Morton has enjoyed more power in the government since losing the P.C. leadership race than he ever enjoyed as just an M.L.A.  The appeasement of Morton (and the valuable support of his faction of party members) has insured a healthy career for the otherwise-sleepy politician.

The real issue surrounds Liepert.  As the Minister of Health and Wellness, he moved to de-list some services, including some pharmaceutical, from provincial coverage.  A term riddled with embarrassing missteps, perhaps his biggest gaffe was the creation of a provincial Health 'superboard', which has become little more than a bureaucratic monster.

Ron Liepert left the Health and Wellness portfolio in shambles to the point that Stelmach had to replace Liepert with Mr. Fix-it, Gene Zwozdesky (one of the few astute and capable members of the Tories).

When Zwozdesky takes over, that is as good as an admission of fault.

So, what does Stelmach do with Liepert?  Relegate him to the back-benches?  Shuffle him off to some forgotten corner of the Legislature?

Not our Eddie.  Liepert screwed up the Health department so severely, Stelmach naturally gave Liepert control over the province's Energy portfolio!

How has he been doing so far? The inside joke is, if you want to see what Liepert's plan for our energy sector is, just read the Wildrose Alliance policy paper.  Stelmach's gang has been lifting it almost verbatim.

We are now seeing a governing party in full damage-control mode.  The poll numbers have been too consistently bad to be an illusion.

The Alberta Progressive Conservatives are exactly where many of us knew they would be at this point.  Common sense dictates that a ship without a trained captain will eventually run into trouble.

The alarm has been sounded, the iceberg is dead-ahead.

The question is: who is at the helm?

My ongoing criticism of films our public schools choose to expose our children to have generated an interesting spectrum of responses.
Most of the comments are in agreement with my assertion that there is an agenda at play, with leftwing ideology being presented as society’s norm. Repeated viewings of movies such as Al Gore’s self-serving PowerPoint presentation ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and Michael Moore’s factually-inaccurate ‘Sicko’ are just a convenient way to spread the message.

A few responses from the U.S. were incredulous. They simply could not believe that such one-sided movies would be shown in the classroom – in taxpayer funded public schools, no less.

One email in particular tweaked my interest above all others. A response was from a reader in Quebec (I won’t hold that against her) who pulled a ‘put up or shut up’ out of her trick bag.

Pointing out that I have made no secret about films I have issues with, she asked what films I would consider ‘acceptable’ for classroom viewing.

I thought you’d never ask…


THX 1138 (1971)

George Lucas’s first feature-length film (developed from his own university student film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB) is a stylish-yet-bleak look at a future dystopian society. Humanity is suppressed by the overpowering government who keeps its citizens controlled by the use of a devotion to a God (‘OMM’) and mandatory narcotics.

This is a brilliant interpretation of too much government control over its people, and the instinctual desire for freedom and individuality as portrayed by the main character (Robert Duvall). Essentially a cautionary tale against people giving up too much power to their government, so there is no surprise that union teachers won’t show this.


1984 (1984)

This is one of the better interpretations of the George Orwell classic. Written not long after the conclusion of World War II, with the reality of the evils of fascism still vivid, Orwell penned this incredible work that has become almost Nostradamus-like in its forecasting of the future.

The world is divided into three main sections, all of whom are perpetually at war. Reality is what the government – led by Big Brother – determines it to be, which changes on a regular basis.

This film version is true to the book, in its bleakness and feel. You hope for the protagonist to reach his goal all the while fully aware of the inevitable futility of the effort.

26 years after the film, there still no actor who would have been able to so perfectly capture the angst, hopelessness, and desire to escape of Winston Smith than John Hurt.


Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Another dystopian film like the above two, this film based on the Ray Bradbury novel feels somewhat dated, but the meaning is clear.

Firemen of the future have a slightly different job description. Instead of water, their fire hoses spray kerosene. Their job is to burn banned books.

This film in unique in that it transcends political ideology while warning of the dangers of censorship. In our history, we have experienced the literal and figurative burning of books by far-left communists, far-right fascists, radical religious factions of all stripes including Christians and Muslims, etc.

Fahrenheit 451 again has the protagonist fighting against those who suppress, this time in the name of free speech. This film, if not the book, should be required for all students.


FITNA (2008)

Radical Islam in its own words. Dutch politician/filmmaker Geert Wilder’s provocative visual collage of Islamic terror attacks interwoven with video snippets of the psychotic rantings of some scary Imams and passages lifted straight from the Quran riles the left, who reject it as ‘racist’. The fact that none of the content is fictitious – all the content is straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak – is conveniently forgotten by the apologists.

If not shown as an example of extremism today, FITNA will surely be shown as a lesson in failed warnings to our future generations.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Can too much ‘free will’ be a bad thing?

Society has unwound like a cheap sweater. Lawlessness rules the streets. Alex is the leader of band of Droogs who enjoy nights filled with a bit of the ultraviolent.

Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of the Anthony Burgess novel was controversial when first released. I doubt it would have been made at all today, given its graphic scenes of rape and violence. It is, however, a masterpiece.

Even though the main character is genuinely bad, he draws sympathy as he becomes nothing but a pawn for a government which vowed to solve the crime problem, even by drastic means. The ‘cure’ for criminal behavior must be found.

Anarchy run amok.



Star Wars (1977)

Like you no doubt just did, I snickered when I learned that I would be ‘studying’ Star Wars in my high school English class. Star Wars? Cool! But what could the Greatest Sci-fi Movie Ever have to do with English class?

Plenty, as it turned out. We were beginning a section on ‘romance’.

Consider that Star Wars has: Good vs. Evil; the Dark Knight who captures the Princess and keeps her in the castle; the White Knight who, with the help of his motley crew of loyal followers, rescues the Princess and duels the Evil Knight in the denouement.

It is the ultimate example of a Fairy Tale, and ended up being the perfect movie to show.

In a show of solidarity and support of free speech - and to give a nifty little F**K YOU! to those maniacs who wish to take away that right - I proudly join others in celebrating Draw Mohammed Day.  Since my talents are far removed from anything considered 'art', I submit a few of the famous cartoons that started it all, plus a few others:

At this past weekend's Alberta Liberal convention (no danger of fire code violations there), federal Liberal guru Warren Kinsella advised his provincial brethren to undertake the desperate and tired strategy of painting the emerging Wildrose Alliance party, and their leader Danielle Smith, as '...new and scary.'

I guess the thinking there is, what's good for Reform is good for any new party that isn't leftwing.  Welcome to Alberta, Warren.  That 'scary' stuff doesn't fly too well out here.

So, what do liberals find so frightening? I've done some digging, and found enough to make a Top Ten list of Things Alberta Liberals Find Scary About the Wildrose Alliance:

10. Albertans can actually name the Wildrose Alliance leader.

9. The Wildrose Alliance doesn't need to bribe voters to vote for them.

8. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith could beat the crap out of Liberal leader David Swann(dive).

7. Two words: Link Byfield.

6. The Wildrose Alliance isn't full of economy-killing enviroNazis.

5. The Wildrose Alliance doesn't need to team up with socialists just to stay afloat.

4. The ghosts of Trudeau, the N.E.P., Adscam, and Nancy MacBeth don't live in the Wildrose house.

3. Low taxes? Small government? Property rights? Scary!

2. A Wildrose Alliance election victory will mean another century of futility for the Libs in Alberta.

1. There are Liberals in Alberta?

The initial idea for this article was to do an evaluation of Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance party; to do some sort of categorical grade piece either on policy, individual members, issues, leadership, or some other criteria.

But it quickly occurred to me that people would see it as farce or satirical comment, not as a serious work given my obvious bias. I mean, me – a known card-carrying member of the Wildrose Alliance – doing a critical analysis of the political party I have supported from their creation?

A blog writer known for his outspoken support for leader Danielle Smith from the early days of the leadership race on, who has enjoyed several chats over Tim Horton’s best java with the party leader (access that is rare for an online pundit) trusted to be fair in an investigation?

No one believes in the fairness of self-investigation, do they?

Oh.

Never mind.

Forget all that.



Here’s my take on the Wildrose Alliance – the good and the could-be-better:


The Party Overall

Growth rate continues to be unbelievable. Fair showing in the Legislature plus some positive buzz worthy P.R. events – including Paul Hinman’s by-election victory in the Tory stronghold of Calgary-Glenmore, Smith’s leadership win, and the floor-crossing of a couple of Progressive Conservative M.L.A.’s. – resulted in an increased level of credibility to Albertans.

The upcoming AGM will solidify the policy direction for the Wildrose, and should result in a clear image of what the party will offer Alberta.

If there is one potential problem, it is in the number of former executive P.C. members assuming similar positions with the W.A.P.

If the party brain-trust is wondering why they are hitting a wall in Edmonton while their numbers are high everywhere else, I suggest they take that into account.

Conservatives can see the difference between the P.C.s and the Wildrose Alliance. To us, the proof is in the policies.

But what a centrist or soft left voter sees is a new party with some not so new names. If the W.A.P. wants to take Capital City, the answer isn’t to move to the left as P.C.’s tend to do; instead they will have to illuminate the chasm between themselves and the Stelmach Tories.  Spotlight the differences.


The Policies

I really cannot submit an accurate judgment on this one. Their positions are stated and well-known to party members. They must be well-known to Stelmach’s gang of P.C. idiots as well, as they have been lifting them and claiming them as their own for months now.

Watch for some interesting proposals at the AGM.


Public Image

The tired, old ‘scary rightwing’ grenade was defused before the other parties could pull the pin with the election of libertarian Danielle Smith as party leader. Following that, the icing on the cake – the rapid solidification of the coalition that is the Wildrose Alliance – effectively buried the bomb forever.

Paul Hinman had an effective session in the Legislature. To anyone paying attention, every question of the government by Hinman was met with ridicule and derision. Serious questions were always met with P.C.-flavored mockery.

We are still waiting for a government M.L.A. to answer one of Mr. Hinman’s questions. Any one, really. It doesn’t matter which one. Waiting….

And before I forget, the W.A.P. needs to re-design their website. Quickly. It looks horrible.


The Leader

Okay, this is where the calls of bias will be the loudest. Tough. She’s good. She’s the best choice for Premier of any party leader. Danielle Smith has the attention of the voters and the media, and she knows how to address both effectively.

Smith knows her stuff on the issues that matter most to Albertans. She has surrounded herself with a quality core of advisors and has managed to take the Wildrose message to the steps of the Legislature.

Perhaps most importantly, Smith has managed to only improve on her growing reputation as the Premier-In-Waiting.

If there is any advice I would give Danielle Smith, it would be this: take off the gloves more. Albertans have already learned how bright and professional you are. They know you are the best choice to lead the province – far better than our current embarrassment.

The others have now taken notice of the new threat to their comfort and power. The P.C.s are now focusing their attacks on you and the party, and that will only escalate through an election campaign.

You can bite back and still be nice. This is Alberta, after all.


Overall

The Wildrose Alliance should soon have the policies, constituency associations, and candidates to win an election.

For some of us, that election cannot come soon enough.

Last year I wrote about how my daughter’s teacher was planning to show Michael Moore’s propaganda film ‘Sicko’ to her students and my subsequent refusal to let my daughter be (once more) exposed to such a film.

The decision was a tough one, given my strong pro-free speech leanings.

The main problem with this – apart from the teacher apparently announcing to her class at the beginning of the year that she was an unabashed leftwing socialist – is that there appears to be no balance.

There is no film shown to the kids that shows the truth about the Canadian health care system. There is no video shown to the students which shows the wait times, the ‘brain drain’ of our best and brightest medical minds to the evil U.S., no mention of the litany of problems that come with a universal system.

Hell, did no one answer the phone at the Fraser Institute? Did they even bother to try to get representation from the other side of the issue?

Even the most glaring truth - that the more money that is put into the Canadian health care system, the longer the wait times for surgery - is ignored.

You’d think that would be an important point to include.

Fast forward to this past week: the same daughter informed me that the same teacher is once again planning to show Sicko, this time as part of a unit comparison of health care systems between Canada and the United States.

Where to begin…

As inaccurate as the film was when it was first made, now it has to be considered pointless. ObamaCare is in full swing, meaning many of the claims made by Moore are now, or quickly becoming, moot.

Whether or not he does a sequel showing how bad the American system is/will become under Obama…

The film has proven to be full of inaccuracies to the point that Moore himself has long since refused to label the flick as a ‘documentary’. As is the case with any Michael Moore film, the information he attempts to spread folds under the slightest of critical exposure. Some claims are blurred, some are half-truths, some just outright false.

Mostly, it is swift editing that creates his message. Like an Al Gore movie, only the weak-minded fall for the claims.

It is pure propaganda.

But that doesn’t stop this teacher – or the school, for that matter – from showing it to the students with the assumption that it is an accurate portrayal of the American, Canadian, and Cuban systems.

This is a school which has also proudly, repeatedly exposed students to such factually-absent ‘docs’ like ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ and ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.

Since when did this become part of the school curriculum? Since when did my kid’s Canadian junior high school suddenly transplant to Berkeley?

Why doesn’t the educator be honest about the intentions and admit that showing this and these other one-sided movies has little to do with health care or the environment, and more to do with instilling good, old fashion, typical left-wing anti-Americanism into a new generation of Canadian youth?

The good news is, my kid isn’t the only one to be pulled from that class. It seems word got out about what I had done, and now a handful of other parents have followed suit by not letting their children become further indoctrinated. They have refused to let their children be submerged into the leftwing bath.

This does expose a troubling trend, however. In my day, it was not uncommon to hear of parents who would not allow their children to attend classes that conflicted with their religious beliefs. Understandable, given the multi-cultural, multi-faith society we live in.

Now, parents have to be vigilant to protect their children from leftwing political indoctrination in the classroom.

As the concept of being environmentally responsible or ‘green’ became deeply entrenched in our society, our focus was on buzzwords like carbon emissions, ozone holes, and melting icecaps.
So effective was the means by which the message was conveyed – everyone from United Nation-backed scientists to Hollywood celebrities to PR-hungry multinational corporations to failed Presidential candidates telling the average person that the sky was falling – that eventually the matter reached the unique level of ‘not debatable’.

Anyone who was silly enough to actually question this ‘fact’ was ridiculed. Redneck, rightwing nut, climate change ‘denier’…

See, that’s where they went too far. As is often the case with movements that are unexpectedly accepted in a fad-like fashion, the environmental movement got greedy. They announced the matter closed, dealt with. End of discussion. Global warming…er, we mean climate change is real. No question.

Listen to us, buy our message (and our products) or we will all burn.

Even those who exposed Al Gore and his factually-questionable film An Inconvenient Truth as something inconveniently less than the truth, including several thousand of the planets leading scientists, were ignored or were portrayed as ignorant fools or sinister slimeballs working from a corporate agenda.

So complacent were the enviroNazis that when they met their Waterloo, namely the fraud-exposing Smoking Gun the tree-huggers hoped the world would never see called Climategate, they initially played it off as a non-issue.

Only after those same Sheeple on the Street who were counted on for their minds and their wallets started asking questions about climate change did the Greens start to panic.

People who once suffered the symptoms of the Eco-guilt virus and believed the sermons of the experts, who claimed that the cure was to be found in a Toyota Prius or a CFL lightbulb or in an international wealth distribution agenda presented as an emissions treaty like the Kyoto accord, are now asking to see the evidence.

We know the books were cooked. We know Al Gore has a history of talking the talk while his walk leaves much to be desired. We know Gore just purchased his fourth – fourth! – home.

The average citizen of the free world is now listening to those scientists who dare submit alternative theories. We are open to hearing their opinions, even if they differ from the accepted line.

We want to know, if Climategate is proof that this has all been a swindle, who is responsible and who has profited.

Many of those who are at the forefront of the propaganda machine are also those who are in industries created by the global warming scare, such as those who sell so-called ‘carbon credits’.

Who has cashed in?

Who exactly are the fear merchants?

My apologies for taking so long to write but things have been quite busy up here in the Great White North.

The ruling Conservatives – yes, contrary to popular belief, rightwing governments do get elected in Canada from time to time – are celebrating their fourth year of minority rule. Some of our finest past and present Members of Parliament on the government side are celebrating more *sniff* than others, it *sniff* would seem…

We are also getting close to our self-imposed Afghanistan withdrawal date of 2011, which I am more than sad to say is supported by a majority of my fellow citizens, according to some polls. I know what you’re thinking: who puts a time-limit on a war? Who gives the enemy such a free slice of inspiration?

What country would send its troops (an ongoing debate, given how we have painted ourselves as ‘peace-keepers, not warriors’ over the past half-century) to a foreign land and take on the new global threat on the front lines, only to call ‘time’s up’?

What nation would allow its military men and women – one of the highest per-capita as far as Allied nations participating in the War on Terror goes – to die in the name of fighting terror and saving the future of a foreign culture, only to have their sacrifice ultimately mean nothing after a certain day?

Oh, right. Iraq. Sorry.

Still on Afghanistan, a story that really isn’t is playing out. The government has refused to release classified documents regarding the possibility that some prisoners who were transferred from Canadian to Afghani custody were tortured, and allegations that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Tory government were aware, to members of the opposition parties.

By now the buzz is such that if Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff does get to see them behind closed doors, he must claim some sort of malfeasance on the part of the Tories, or he will go down in our political history as the Former Harvard Professor Who Cried Wolf.

By the way, after he loses the next election, feel free to take Ignatieff back.

Anyway, even with all of this going on, some of us have been watching your scene with interest.

So, how’s that Change thing going for you? Jeez, we can only imagine the odd sound when millions of Americans slapped foreheads in a collective ‘whoops!’

Look, we dig the whole ‘first’ this and ‘first’ that. You folks thought it would be cool to have a Black president. We’ve had a woman P.M. (Don’t ask how that went.)

But has America become so politically polarized since 2000 that quality as a requirement has been lost on both sides of the fence? It seems to be but one of the many divisive issues down there.

I see the after-effects of the Slick Willie years are there for all to see. Clinton’s ability to strip the Oval Office of morals, his success in lowering the bar of standards you (and the world) forever see in the Office of the President of the United States of America was on display with Obama’s flippant ‘tea-baggers’ comment.

To see a president of your country so openly and willingly turn up his nose at millions of his own citizens is quite unique. What’s more, for that group of people to consist not of radicals or overtly subversive anti-American elements but of your senior citizens, clergy, youth, small business owners, and other so-called ‘average Americans’ whose message is nothing more outrageous than your own Constitution, well…that does make some of us wonder what is going on.

Regarding your government’s new habit of becoming business owners, it makes some of us wonder if the warnings that we have been shouting for decades were all for naught.

Canadians have a long history of being owners of our own television station, rail lines, etc. So-called federal government-owned Crown Corporations have been the high-tax wolf in ‘it’s our culture’ clothing for a long time, and no good has come from it.

I don’t want to tell you folks how to live, and I never thought that I, a Canadian, would have to inform America of this, but: SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK. Stop what you’re doing. Don’t do it. Halt!

Take it from someone who knows: once you go down that path, the best you can hope for is a Conservative/Republican government that must rule from the left just to stay in power.

And that ain’t pretty, my friends.

More random snippets, thoughts, and opinions on issues of varying significance…..




…..a friendly heads-up to my conservative American friends: don’t believe the bullcrap that is constantly being spewed by the leftist elite about how ‘evil’ Alberta’s oilsands are. Do believe, however, that Albertans are growing tired of the slams against its economic crown jewel coming from South of the border. We may be known as the most pro-U.S. Canadians, but if you don’t want our oil, there are plenty of other countries who do…..I trust you will all join me in support of free speech on May 20th by celebrating ‘Everyone Draw Mohammed Day’….. I received my invite to this year’s Wildrose Alliance AGM, and had a wild idea: if I show up in Red Deer for the June meeting, I wonder how much support I would draw if I were to submit a policy proposal for an Alberta equivalent to Quebec’s Bill 101? A provincial English-only law would make a point, wouldn’t it? I can sense my friend Danielle (Smith, WAP leader) rolling her eyes…..speaking of the WAP, scooping Hal Walker as interim President is a positive, but again I must caution against too many more ‘…disgruntled former Progressive Conservative…’ taglines in the newspaper when describing new additions. The WAP must continue to expose the differences between the two parties, and that is becoming more and more difficult when the public sees a party of ‘new and fresh ideas’, but with the same old faces…..most underrated Quentin Tarantino movie: Jackie Brown. The more I watch it, the better it gets. Forget the Bride in Kill Bill – Pam Grier is who you don’t want to cross…..for all their complaining that blogs aren’t real news compared to their ‘unbiased and professional journalism’, newspapers seem to have no problem utilizing their own online weblog as a way to promote unfettered, unabashed bias. There is no greater local example than the Edmonton Journal’s Liberal …oops! Capital Notebook. The normally just annoyingly left of centre Notebook nearly had an orgasm over Justin (son of Pierre) Trudeau’s recent tour of Alberta. A full page spread on the do-nothing M.P. read like something out of Teen Beat, full of giggly praise but lacking in any useful information about the man whose father was, in one of his more destructive policies, responsible for devastating Alberta’s provincial economy…..best Irish proverb ever: ‘An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold on to a blade of grass and not fall off the face of the Earth’…..who’s the idiot who thought Jay Behar needed more face time on the t.v.?.....Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff supports the idea that our Supreme Court Judges must be bi-lingual, refuting critics by telling English Canadians to ‘…study more French.’ Here’s a better idea: end the discriminatory policy of Official bilingualism, elect our judges, and send Iggy back to Harvard. Three birds, one stone…..the Tea Party movement has now spilled over the border into Canada. First it was Ann Coulter, now it’s the average American who is teaching Canadians that it is okay to stray from the leftist status quo…..I normally don’t promote products, but I’ve just spent the past week enjoying the new Nero Multimedia Suite 10, a media editor and burner that is very user friendly. Simply outstanding…..Best chant overheard on from a British political rally: ‘Gordon Brown is Going Down’…..the Republicans are one good candidate away from stopping Obama-mania at one term. The question is who?.....the new Canadian political drinking game: watch any session of Question Period from Parliament and take a shot every time a Bloc Quebecois MP claims Quebec is getting shafted. Zero to blotto in 5 minutes flat…..