Additional Thoughts After Encounters with Mulcair, Ashton, and Dewar

First of all, thanks so much to everyone who read my last post and gave me feedback. It's exciting that party members are so engaged in and passionate about this leadership race. Since my last post, I've had the chance to attend events in Edmonton with Thomas Mulcair, Niki Ashton, and Paul Dewar. In my last post, I ranked Mulcair in last place, Ashton in 2nd, and Dewar in 1st. After encounters with all three of them, none of those rankings have changed. These are my thoughts on each of the candidates as they have changed or been refined by the events I attended.

Thomas Mulcair:

Thomas Mulcair's event in Edmonton had the largest turnout of any of them so far (and the only candidates who haven't given a talk here are Singh and Saganash - it appears that neither of them will be making it). I don't know that it was the result of his popularity here, but likely do to the increased media hype around him over the past while. He is employing what seems like a smart strategy of portraying himself as the only candidate who can retain the NDP's stronghold in Quebec, a question that resonates with New Democrats across the country.

As much as retaining our seats in Quebec is immensely important, so is growing the party in other places. I love that Mulcair is setting his sights high on membership recruitment in Quebec because I think it's important for the entire party. I'm happy Mulcair is running in the same way that I was happy Robert Chisolm was running. Regional candidates focusing on their home bases and building the party there will benefit everyone no matter who is elected leader. I think Mulcair gave himself the "regional candidate" designation early in the campaign when he complained that he was at a disadvantage in the leadership race because the party hadn't done enough membership recruitment in Quebec. As true as that may be, if we process the implications of that statement, it was really Mulcair himself saying he didn't have much for support in the existing membership. That may be starting to change now that he is getting around the country to meet with members. However, he doesn't seem to be getting around the country nearly as much as some of the other candidates. I assume that's because he still sees his road to winning going primarily through Quebec.

Anyway, on to my experience at Mulcair's event. I had expected that the criticisms I had of Mulcair would be neatly covered up and that his visit would be nearly flawless. He is a seasoned politician, possibly more than any of the other candidates.

He started off impressively. His opening talk was good. He even paused for a second before talking about the "oilsands" and explained that his campaign team was hammering into his head that he was no longer to use the term "tar sands", which he used in the first televised leadership debate. It was one of the issues I mentioned in my last blog that put him at the bottom of my list (http://theleftistlens.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-rankings-and-thoughts-on-ndp.html).

But it was all downhill from there. Once he started taking questions from the audience, Mulcair the Grizzly Bear came out. There were a couple of questioners, one a youth and one not, who asked Mulcair about what he thought about state ownership, citing examples from the days of party giants Tommy Douglas and David Lewis. He told the questioners (I'm paraphrasing now) that they were delusional if they thought the NDP could become government while espousing a traditional leftist ideology that included expansion of state ownership of resources or industries. He said if people want to go back to being a party with 9 seats like we did under Broadbent, Douglas, and Lewis, they can start their own party. And it wasn't even the substance of Mulcair's response that put me off. He could have given an answer with the same substance but completely changed the rhetoric, and I would have found it acceptable. However, the disrespect he showed not only to the questioners, but also to the historical giants of our party, was appalling. The NDP is a party where many of its most active members, both young and old, have a deep attachment to its history and party icons. We have a rich tradition of advancing social democratic values in Canada. Sure, we express those very differently than we did 30, 40, or 50 years ago, and most of us are okay with that. But we have a HUGE respect for our leaders, going back to the CCF leaders J. S. Woodsworth and M. J. Coldwell, and carrying through the NDP years with Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Ed Broadbent, and of course, Jack Layton. I wish there was video people could see so everyone could get an accurate first-hand view of what was said, but unfortunately I don't think any exists. However, I am one of many who felt the same way coming out of the event (another explanation of the event has been written by Lou Arab, who was the head of the Alberta section of the 2011 election campaign for the NDP; it can be read here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10151130586060082).

Another statement Mulcair made that turned many members off was in response to a question about how high of a priority proportional representation would be for him if he became Prime Minister. His response was that implementing proportional representation would require a constitutional amendment and therefore would be virtually impossible. Many in the audience were shocked. None of us had ever heard anyone take that view. Even a fellow staffer, who also is a National Council member of Fair Vote Canada, found it "bizarre". I was even more confused when I started to hear reports from Eastern Canada a couple weeks later that Mulcair was talking about proportional representation as a top priority for him. Whatever his real story is on PR, it doesn't look good.

My last point on Mulcair is about his stance on Israel-Palestine. He is the least popular of any of the candidates on this topic for reasons I detailed in my previous post. I wanted to ask him a question in a way that I could get a straight answer, so I chose to ask it in a very clear way. I asked him how Canada should vote when the Palestinians statehood bid comes up in the UN, as it soon will. He began his answer by stating, almost verbatim, the official NDP policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He said he agreed with that position (found here in section 6.3: http://www.ndp.ca/platform/leadership-on-world-stage). That was all. I spoke up and told him he didn't answer my question about how Canada should vote on the Palestinian statehood bid. He repeated that he agreed with the official NDP position on Israel-Palestine. The response was akin to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toR3Tt9fS2E&t=4m42s. I wanted a simple answer: yes or no (or abstain, I suppose). No other candidate has refused to answer my questions. On this specific question, Paul Dewar, Niki Ashton, and Brian Topp have all said very clearly that Canada should vote "yes" on the statehood bid. I would have had a lot more respect for Mulcair if he had answered the question, even if I disagreed with his answer.

In conclusion, I'm sure no one is surprised after this experience that Thomas Mulcair is still last on my list. He is BY FAR, in my view, the most divisive candidate in the race. I won't be surprised if he gets a lot of first ballot votes but far fewer than others on subsequent ballots.

Niki Ashton:

Niki Ashton's event was much less polarizing. There were few disagreements in the crowd. Coming only a few days after Mulcair's visit, it was refreshing to have a visitor who didn't offend anyone. This blog is getting a bit long, so I'm not going to write extensive thoughts about Ashton's visit, but I will certainly do that in another post if people are curious (let me know). I will, however, offer some brief thoughts and impressions.

Ashton seems to know the issues as well as many of the other candidates. For a candidate who is only 29 years old (she's only a year and a half older than me!), she was VERY impressive. Her opening talk was very articulate. I feel like she has her priorities right with her focus on how the focus for the NDP needs to be on a fair economy. She handed out a 10-point (if I remember right) plan on how we can achieve that.

When she was answering questions, she tended not to answer them very directly, which I know put some people off. It wasn't so much that you didn't get an answer to your question. It was more that she explained everything in kind of a round-about way. She was also quite a bit less articulate when answering questions than she was in her speech. Either way, I think her core principles, her policy depth, and her passion are all huge assets to the party. If she needs to brush up on the way she delivers a message, that can come through further training. She impressed me enough to stay at number two on my list.

Paul Dewar:

I'm not going to go into much more than I have previously on Dewar. I laid out my thoughts pretty thoroughly in my last blog. Dewar stopped in Edmonton again recently to make a policy announcement on clean energy and to announce an endorsement from Alberta's only opposition MP, Linda Duncan (announcement here: http://pauldewar.ca/content/linda-duncan-albertas-only-opposition-mp-endorses-dewar-leader-ndp). The visit included an afternoon meet and greet event with both Dewar and Duncan hosted by the University of Alberta Campus NDP, which I attended.

The visit was what I've come to expect from Dewar. He is very comfortable fielding questions of all sorts. He was even asked a similar question by the same person Mulcair had rudely dismissed, so no one can say the other candidates would have handled it in the same way. Although Dewar didn't completely agree with the questioner, he treated him with respect. I heard the next day that the questioner has decided to support Dewar. After a more formal Q & A session with the whole room listening, the end of the official event was announced, and Dewar sat down around a table with about 10 very engaged people for a discussion for 20 minutes or more before heading out.

This was Dewar's third visit to Edmonton since the leadership campaign started - more than any other candidate so far. It's no accident that the Ontario MP feels like the most Albertan of all the candidates (at least in my view). He was paying visits to Edmonton long before the leadership race when Jack Layton was still leader. When I was leading the U of A Campus NDP in the fall of 2010, we hosted him for a large public event on foreign affairs. A year or two ago, he was in town again as the guest speaker at an event in support of Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason. Both times, he met with a number of civil society organizations in the city. He spent time building our grassroots in Edmonton well before he was running for leadership of the party.

What was more significant than what was said at the event itself was the endorsement. There are currently only three elected NDP politicians in Alberta: MP Linda Duncan, and MLAs Rachel Notley and Brian Mason. Notley and Mason are both going to stay neutral in the federal leadership race at least until after Alberta's election is over. It looks almost certain now that election day will be after the leadership race is over. That means Duncan is the only elected New Democrat in Alberta who will be endorsing anyone. I've already heard from a number of fellow members that Duncan's endorsement has swayed their vote to Dewar. It will certainly be a powerful tool for Dewar volunteers to use when trying to convince other Alberta members to vote for him.

That's about all I have to say for now. Perhaps I'll do another post after we've seen another leadership debate or two. I didn't watch the Toronto debate the other night, but I'll definitely be watching the one next weekend, and the rest of the official debates. Please feel free to give me more feedback!

Cheers.

My Rankings and Thoughts on the NDP Leadership Race

Sorry it has been forever since I have written on this blog. I have been quite busy over the past while and also haven’t found enough motivation to write on here. I do intend to write more in the new year (I suppose I could call that a resolution, huh?). I’ve noticed in the past that people seem to really like my posts on religion and politics, so I’ll look to explore that more in the future. Please send me any suggestions for what you’d like me to cover, and I’ll take them into consideration.

I have been asked a number of times since the beginning of the federal NDP leadership race to give my thoughts on the various candidates. I have attempted to do that a few times, but Facebook comments and Twitter are not as conducive to fully explaining thoughts as is sometimes necessary.

First, I will go through each of the candidates and explain my impression of them. I do have a current ranking in mind that represents how I would vote if the leadership convention were held today. That said, my rankings are not final and will likely shift before March 24^th. I hope to actually be at the leadership convention in Toronto at the end of March, but that depends on whether or not we’re in the middle of an election here in Alberta at the time (damn you, Premier Redford, for not picking a fixed election date!). Second, I will elaborate on what I have said in my explanations of my rankings by giving some thoughts generally on what we are or should be looking for, in my opinion, when we are choosing the next leader. If there are areas I fail to cover in this post or points that are not clear, please let me know, and I will do my best to fill those areas in.

I also want to say before I start that I’m going to be very candid in this post. While I don’t think we, as a party, want the leadership race to be divisive, we do need to talk about the differences between the candidates if we’re going to choose the best leader. I hope I don’t offend anyone with my criticisms. That is not my intention. I think all of these candidates are or will make great MPs and/or cabinet ministers. I also want to say that I’ve been making my best effort to see each of the candidates as they come to Edmonton for the Edmonton-Strathcona NDP’s “Kitchen Table Talks” series. So far I’ve made it to the talks with Nathan Cullen, Paul Dewar, Robert Chisolm, and Brian Topp. Unfortunately, I missed the one with Peggy Nash. I’ll be attending the talks with Thomas Mulcair (event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/353200658030089/) and Niki Ashton (event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/260405770688407/) in the coming week or so and hopefully to Romeo Saganash and Martin Singh once they’re confirmed. Happy reading!

I will start my rankings from last to first, since I think it’s easier for me to talk about my top pick while contrasting him with the others.

8. Thomas Mulcair

Mulcair is one of two candidates at the bottom of my list because there are things about him that make me believe his leadership of the party would be disastrous. He is the only candidate who would cause me to question my party affiliation if he were leader of the party. For some New Democrats, it is enough that he was once a Liberal for him to be placed at the bottom of their lists. For me, that isn’t a factor. As a former Liberal myself, I can’t level that criticism at anyone. I do think we should be welcoming former Liberals into our party.

There are a number of other things that put Mulcair firmly at the bottom of my list. The first is the way he treated NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies after she was caught in a “gotcha” interview speaking in favour of boycotts of Israel and saying the occupation of Palestine goes back to 1948. Instead of treating Davies like a fellow party member, Mulcair decided to publicly denounce her. I have been told on at least one occasion by a federal party insider that Mulcair is one of the reasons why the NDP has such a nuanced position on Israel-Palestine. A Google search of “Mulcair Israel” will bring up many of the concerns about his position on the conflict. His public denunciation of Davies was not his only divisive statement in the media. Since before he formally entered the leadership race, he has repeatedly made unnecessary public statements complaining either about the party generally (low membership levels in Quebec, union ties) or specific candidates (his ongoing public questioning of the character of fellow candidate Brian Topp).

Lastly, Mulcair’s inability to understand Alberta or to make the province a priority (not sure if it’s one of those or both) cements his position in last place for me. Although it seems like he’s getting better, Mulcair was still calling Alberta’s oilsands the “tar sands” when he got to the first official NDP leadership debate. I’ll never forget the day in the 2011 election campaign that Jack Layton uttered those two words in Montreal during a policy announcement on the environment. It set off a storm across Alberta, most acutely for the NDP in the campaign offices for Edmonton-Strathcona, Edmonton East, and Edmonton Centre. After a few days of damage control, we did manage to get back on our game, but it was an unnecessary mistake. Mulcair seems not to have learned from it. He seems to be developing a little better understanding of policy when it comes to the oilsands, but he has already isolated himself in the minds of many Albertans because of his statement in the first debate. It’ll be interesting to see if he speaks any differently when he arrives in Edmonton on Friday.

In sum, the problem with Mulcair is that there are too many problems with Mulcair, and these are not major problems. An NDP under his leadership will not be a united NDP, and I think it’s difficult to argue with that. A Mulcair win would divide the party. Either the face of the party would change to the point where it is no longer recognizable, or it would simply fade into irrelevance as many of those who supported Jack Layton’s NDP look for other alternatives.

7. Nathan Cullen

I had a good conversation with Nathan Cullen very shortly after he announced he was running for leader. He, along with all the other candidates declared at the time, visited Edmonton for the Alberta NDP’s annual Leader’s Levee fundraiser. I was extremely impressed with him. A few of my fellow Alberta New Democrat activists had already declared their support for him. He listened intently as a couple of us explained to him how sensitive an issue the oilsands is for Albertans of all political stripes. At that point, Cullen moved to number two on my list, behind Paul Dewar (oh no, I just gave away the ending!).

A few days later, Cullen announced his policy for “cooperation” with other “progressive parties” in Canada. I put “cooperation” in quotes because I don’t Cullen acts like his proposal is the only form of cooperation that fits the definition of the word. In fact, the NDP already does cooperate with other parties, including the Conservatives from time to time. We had minority Parliaments from 2004 to 2011. No law could be passed without at least one party cooperating with the Conservatives. The NDP also cooperated most significantly in the aftermath of the 2008 election with the Liberals and the Bloc, when we attempted to form a coalition government with the Liberal Party. That was cooperation.

Cullen’s proposal can also be defined as cooperation, but I think a more accurate term would be “non-competition”. His proposal is for the NDP, Liberals, and Greens to not compete with each other in some Conservative-held ridings. The problems with the proposal are many. Many concerns were raised when Cullen visited Edmonton for his Kitchen Table Talk earlier this winter. When asked what New Democrats would do in ridings where there is no NDP candidate, Cullen would not give a straight answer. He instead told the audience that the NDP would out-organize the other parties in his proposed joint nomination meetings. To me, that says this isn’t really about cooperating. It’s about trying to find clever ways to get more Liberals and Greens to support our candidates. If Cullen said that out front (or if he would say that at all), the policy would be a non-starter for many who see him as the uniter of all things not Conservative. Further, we should not be so arrogant as to think we can out-organize the Liberals EVERYWHERE. In Edmonton, and maybe all of Alberta, sure, I can see it. But I know other parts of the country are different. And maybe in a place like Edmonton Centre, where the Liberals held the seat with former Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan until 2006, the Liberals would out-organize us, even though we placed second to the Conservatives with Lewis Cardinal’s campaign in 2011. If Cardinal lost a joint nomination meeting for the next election, would he line up all of his supporters and volunteers behind a Liberal? Would party members be okay with giving up the 60% election expense rebate candidates get if they receive over 10% of the vote? Assuming Cardinal’s campaign spends the same it did in last year’s election (approximately $71,000), the party would be giving up over $42,000 in that riding alone. Granted, we don’t spend that much money in every Conservative-held riding, but we did qualify for the rebate in 305 out of 308 ridings. And does that also mean we don’t build up any supporter lists in ridings where we don’t run candidates? Probably. I can’t imagine a Liberal campaign handing a list of supporters over to us. Which brings up another point. Are the Greens or Liberals interested in this proposal? If it were to work as Cullen says it will, both of those parties would need to pass resolutions at their own federal conventions to put the policy in place. Not to mention that the NDP would have to pass such a resolution. From my experiences at two federal NDP conventions, I can’t see the party membership passing such a resolution, even if we did elect Cullen leader.

None of the concerns I have listed were, in my view, addressed in a satisfactory way when Cullen visited Edmonton. If we are looking for ways to demotivate our volunteers, members, and supporters, the Cullen plan is a great way to do that. I don’t think that’s what party members want.

I apologize for how lengthy I have been with Cullen’s proposal, but I feel that it should be discussed without the rhetoric and judged on its merits. When it is looked at closely, it becomes very difficult for people committed to making our country more progressive to embrace. I won’t discuss the idea of the Liberals and Greens as “progressive”, other than to say I think that’s false. The records of both parties do not bear that out, in my view. That discussion is a whole other blog post if people are interested.

Needless to say, Cullen’s “cooperation” proposal immediately plunged him to the bottom of my list with Mulcair. Some of my fellow New Democrats in Edmonton who had declared their support for him when he first announced immediately switched their allegiances. Whether Cullen likes it or not, he has made the proposal the sole issue on which his candidacy will be judged. Though he has significant depth on other issues, in members’ minds, most will place Cullen on their ballot in a place that shows how much they agree or disagree with the proposal. For me, that place is at the bottom.

6. Martin Singh

I’ll say only a few things about Singh. First I think his presentation in the first debate was very impressive. He is a terrific speaker. I’ve met him a couple of times briefly at the past two federal NDP conventions through the NDP’s Faith and Social Justice Commission of which he and I are both members (he is currently a Co-chair). I am very happy he has committed to running for Parliament in the next election regardless of how he fares in the leadership race.

His shortfalls are obvious. He has never been in elected office before. He had no national profile prior to entering the leadership race. Most party members didn’t even know who he was. And he has made himself a single-issue candidate. Almost everything that comes out of his mouth relates to his owning small businesses and how pro-business he is. While I think that’s terrific and I do think our party needs to talk about business more and how government can work with businesses to grow our economy and create jobs, we need more depth than that. Based on Singh’s focus on this single issue and lack of other credentials, I can only assume that the purpose of his candidacy in his mind is to give business issues a more prominent place in the leadership race. I think that’s a good thing, so I’m glad he is in the race. But I do hope he diversifies his talking points in future debates.

5. Romeo Saganash

Before I get into my views on Saganash’s candidacy, I want to say that my preferences can be divided into two categories: those I don’t believe are fit to lead the party, at least at this time, and those I would enthusiastically support if they won the race. My bottom three choices are in the former category, and my top five choices are in the latter category (making Saganash the first acceptable choice in my list so far). That said, here are my thoughts on his candidacy.

I met Saganash briefly at the 2011 federal NDP convention in Vancouver last summer. He was very impressive in person. He also gave an address to the main convention floor. His speech was very inspiring. He speaks fluently in English, French, and Cree.

He has not been to Edmonton yet for a Kitchen Table Talk, so I don’t know much about him in detail. I have followed his campaign from the beginning and haven’t seen as much activity as I have seen from a number of other candidates. He is also very new to Parliament, being recently elected in the 2011 campaign. He does have an impressive resume, but in my view, Parliamentary experience is essential. Another concern I have with him is that he seemed nervous and somewhat uncomfortable on stage during the first debate. And during his visit to Edmonton for the Leader’s Levee event, his presence didn’t draw people in from around the room like other candidates did.

Saganash, barring any major changes, will not go down on my list. He may go up on my list, depending on how he is when he does make it to Edmonton again and how he fares in the remaining national debates. He seems to be an amazing MP and maybe he’ll be ready for leadership of the party sometime down the road. However, I don’t think he’s ready quite yet.

4. Peggy Nash

Nash, for me, is the biggest question mark right now. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to attend her Kitchen Table Talk. There is still much I don’t know about her. From what I can tell, I do like her politics. The biggest complaint I’ve heard about her is that she isn’t as engaging as some of the other candidates. Some say she doesn’t inspire them. Does a leader need to be engaging and inspiring? That’s a big question and is one worth asking, but it is beyond the scope of this post. ;)

I’ve received Nash’s regular campaign updates via her e-mail list. I saw her in the national debate. I supported her in 2009 when she ran to be the President of the federal NDP and won. I was also at the 2011 convention where there was a controversy about whether or not her President’s report to the convention would be followed by a Q and A period. The convention eventually voted to force her to take questions on the report. That event, though important to some, wasn’t a defining event for me. I can get over that. In fact, I had forgotten it even happened until another Alberta New Democrat raised it when considering her candidacy for leader.

Nash has focused almost solely on the economy through her campaign so far. Part of that may be that the only official debate that has been held was focused on the subject. Another part of that is likely that the economy is where she feels she has the best credentials, relative to the other candidates. She was, after all, Jack Layton’s pick as Finance Critic when the NDP became the Official Opposition. I have been very impressed with her focus on the economy. Unlike Singh, I don’t get the sense that it is her only issue. She does seem to have more depth than that, and I look forward to hearing her views on more issues.

The two main things that put her further down my list are her lack of charisma and her lack of focus on the West. The first is something that is important to me personally, but is not something a party leader or Prime Minister must necessarily have. The second is the main reason she isn’t further up on my list. I recently had a conversation with a prominent Alberta New Democrat who had a personal meeting with Nash in which the person asked her what she saw as growth potential for the party. Nash’s answer did not include any mention of Alberta. I think it’s telling that when being asked in Alberta (where we have 27 Conservative MPs and 1 new Democrat) by an Alberta New Democrat about growth for the party, her answer doesn’t include Alberta. I find that even more telling when I consider that there are two seats besides the one in Alberta we currently hold that were priorities for the party in the last election, both of which saw enormous growth in support. It’s terrific if Nash can grow the party in the area around Toronto, in the Greater Vancouver area, and around Winnipeg. But I’m an Alberta New Democrat, so I want to know what she is going to do to grow the party here. If that’s not a priority, then she’ll likely stay where she is on my list. I do wish I had been at her Kitchen Table Talk. Maybe there is something I missed. I hope that she makes a point of putting some focus on the West over the next couple of months. If she does that, she may move up a spot or two.

3. Brian Topp

When Topp announced his run for leader, it brought up more questions for me than any of the other candidates. And I probably wouldn’t have taken much note of him, like Martin Singh, if he didn’t have the support of such party stalwarts as Ed Broadbent, Libby Davies, and Roy Romanow. He has never had a seat in any public office. I only know who he is because I’m a hyper-engaged partisan who read the articles he wrote in the Globe & Mail, read his book on the 2008 coalition negotiations, and voted for him when he became Peggy Nash’s successor as President of the federal NDP at the party’s 2011 convention.

On the day Topp announced, flanked by former party leader Ed Broadbent and prominent Quebec MP Francoise Boivin, what caught my attention, besides his company, was the first question he was asked by a reporter. He was asked what Canada should do about Palestine’s bid for statehood in the United Nations. Topp answered, unflinchingly, that Canada should support the bid. Ever since, he has been in the upper half of my list, and I’ve paid close attention to his campaign. When he visited Edmonton in December for his Kitchen Table Talk, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. Topp was very engaging. He was charismatic. He spoke at length with substance when he answered each question. He even spoke with a relatively high degree of knowledge about the oilsands. He talked about ensuring more value is added to Canada’s natural resources, so that we’re not just shipping raw products out of the country. The issue is one of the biggest ones in Alberta and is a big concern of many who traditionally vote Conservative. I think it’s his experience working in different parts of the country that make him quick to recognize the uniqueness of our province, even though Alberta is not on his job history.

But there have been a couple of negatives, in my view, since his campaign began. I was disappointed during the first leadership debate to see the way Topp attempted to get a scuffle going between himself and Paul Dewar. It was not, for me, anything to do with my support for Dewar. To me, it was about the substance. Topp’s attempt at “debate” was based on rhetoric, not policy. It was the most unnecessary part of the entire debate. Topp, as a long-time party strategist, should know better than to act that way on national television.

The other negative, for me, came up during his Kitchen Table Talk. Topp has said he would abolish Canada’s Senate (a good thing, in my view) but that he would use the money saved to add an additional 100 seats to Parliament which would be elected proportionally. I do believe it’s the right thing to do to implement proportional representation. It’s deplorable that the NDP got 32% of the vote in Saskatchewan, yet not one NDP MP got elected from that province. It is equally deplorable that a 23% vote for the Bloc in Quebec won the party only 4 out of 75 seats. There are similar examples for the Liberal, Conservative, and Green voters through every election cycle. My first concern with 100 new MPs is that I don’t think we need 438 MPs in Parliament. The US House of Representatives has only 435 seats, and it represents almost 10 times as many people. I can’t imagine going into an election campaign trying to convince the electorate (particularly in Alberta) that we need to add another 100 seats to Parliament. Another concern arose when I shared my concerns with a Topp campaign activist after the event. I was told that each of the 10 provinces would receive 10 new seats under the Topp plan for proportional representation. To clarify, I asked if I was understanding it correctly that Prince Edward Island, currently the most over-represented province in the House of Commons (PEI has less than 35,000 people per seat, whereas Alberta has over 100,000 people per seat), would be given a total of 14 seats instead of the current 4. The answer was yes. I can’t imagine the country uniting under that proposal. Further, I can’t see Quebec, which has been so much the focus of Topp’s campaign so far, accepting representation of 1 MP per 85,000 people to PEI having 1 MP per 10,000 people (approximately the proportions that would result from adding 10 extra MPs to both provinces). I e-mailed the Topp campaign a few weeks ago to clarify the policy and have heard no response. There are only two things posted on Topp’s “On the Issues” section of his website, both to do with wealth inequality. I suppose I may just have to wait to get the full details of Topp’s proposal. For now, he sits at number three. With his method of implementing proportional representation, he likely won’t move any higher on my list. There is certainly a possibility he’ll move down if Nash and/or Saganash improve over the next few months.

2. Niki Ashton

I first met Niki Ashton a couple of years ago when we hosted her at the University of Alberta to give a talk as the NDP’s Post-Secondary Education Critic. She was very impressive. Executive members of the U of A Students’ Union, none of which were New Democrats, told me they were also very impressed with her. I experienced her public speaking skills most notably at the 2009 federal NDP convention in Halifax, where she was one of the weekend’s MCs. During the first NDP leadership debate, she was very comfortable and confident. She is engaging and charismatic. In addition to our country’s two official languages, she also speaks Cree. She has been in Parliament since she was first elected in 2008. Although I haven’t heard her focus specifically on Alberta yet, she has definitely made it clear that the West is one of her prioritieis. I look forward to hearing more about her thoughts on how she sees Alberta fitting into her vision of an NDP government. I still have much to learn about her, so I am excited to be attending the Kitchen Table Talk she is giving in just over a week (link above in the 4^th paragraph). If you live in the Edmonton area, it will be an event you won’t want to miss.

I do have a few reservations at this point about Ashton’s candidacy. I was going to say I haven’t heard much from her about policy, but after looking on her website, it looks like she has actually talked quite a bit of policy so far. I suppose many don’t see her as a viable candidate, so she isn’t garnering much media attention. However, I do still want to learn more about her ideas, particularly as they relate to Canada’s place in the world. Ashton’s sound bite phrase of “new politics” has started to get a bit annoying for me, so I’m hoping she doesn’t continue harping on that. It’s a fine idea, but the phrase doesn’t need to be repeated at every opportune moment. The other thing that makes me hesitate a bit is her age. And I’m not sure if that should matter. Ashton is only 29 years old right now. Her age itself isn’t a problem for me. But the question is if it would be a problem for Canadian voters. She’ll be 33 or so at the time of the next election. Would voters take her seriously? I think it’s tough to tell. What I am sure of is that if she doesn’t win this round, she has a very bright political career ahead of her. She will finish the leadership race having pleasantly surprised many people across the country, and she’ll have a greater public profile. Assuming she doesn’t win this race, my hope is that she’ll stay in Parliament for years to come and have the opportunity to focus on a number of different portfolios (in critic positions or, if things go well, cabinet positions). She can raise her public profile even more through a few sessions of Parliament and may end up one of the top contenders for the NDP leadership job the next time around. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll have a Prime Minister Ashton. I would not be completely shocked.

1. Paul Dewar

Dewar has been at the top of my list since before he announced his candidacy. In fact, I sent him an e-mail message before he declared to encourage him to put his name forward. He was first elected to Parliament in 2006 and had a teaching career before that. Since being elected, he has been one of the most high-profile NDP MPs in the country, serving as the party’s Foreign Affairs Critic from 2007 until he stepped aside to run for the NDP leadership in 2011. I have had the pleasure of getting to know Paul over the past couple years. I have talked with him extensively about foreign affairs and am always amazed at the depth of knowledge he has about the entire world. Foreign affairs, for me, is one of the most important policy areas to look at in choosing the next NDP leader. We are at the point where we are picking a potential Prime Minister. The only candidate to me who truly looks Prime Ministerial is Paul Dewar. He has a vision for the country and a vision for the world. During his visit to Edmonton for his Kitchen Table Talk, he spoke with depth on every issue that was raised. He is casual and comfortable in a room of strangers. He is confident and has charisma when he addresses a crowd. He was the first leadership candidate to really focus on the West and talk about it as one of the places the party needs to focus on. He understands Albertans’ issues. I have heard him talk a number of times about how we need to add value to our raw resources before we export them. He is a bridge-builder with broad appeal. He has made a point not to alienate any of the candidates in the leadership race, including those he has major disagreements with. I believe he’ll attract many Canadians who hesitate to look at the NDP. He is a likeable public persona.

The major criticism of Dewar, and really the only one I’ve heard, is that his French isn’t good enough. I do share some of that concern, however, I don’t think our criteria for picking the next Prime Minister should focus solely on language. He managed himself in the first bilingual leadership debate and according to a Francophone friend of mine, has improved immensely from even the beginning of the campaign. He has a French teacher who travels with him on his leadership campaign, and it is clearly working. It is extremely important that our next leader can speak French. But I think it’s naive to think that the candidate with the best French is automatically going to hold onto all of our seats in Quebec. Quebec voters are as much concerned about personality and policy as voters in the rest of the country. We need a leader who can speak French, who has progressive values and ideals, who can unite the party, and who has broad appeal across the country. Paul Dewar, for me, fits that description better than any of the other candidates.

Well, I suppose that brings us to a conclusion. For me, Mulcair, Cullen, and Singh are off the list. They are all numbered on this post, but the three of them will not be ranked on my ballot. They are the only candidate I believe would be bad for the party from the start. Saganash, Nash, Topp, and Ashton are all subject to change, and I anticipate their order on my ballot will change, though I’m not sure in what way yet. There is still much to happen before we cast our votes to decide who will be the next leader of the NDP and the Official Opposition. I’ll be trying to take in as much as possible from all of the candidates between now and the leadership convention, including the candidates I’ve ruled out. I still want to see them all as NDP MPs and cabinet ministers, inshalla. Paul Dewar is at the top of my list and will remain there when I cast my ballot, unless something drastically changes before then. His vision for Canada and the world is one that I can embrace without reservations.

My Recap of Canada's 41st General Election

Wow. What a long 37 days it was. I learned a lot and experienced a lot.

I took a leave from my regular job in the office of Brian Mason to work full-time on Ray Martin's campaign for the NDP in Edmonton East. Ray was running against incumbent Conservative MP Peter Goldring, one of the most obscure and absent (from Parliament and his own community) MPs on Parliament Hill. However, as Ray has said, whenever you decide to take on a Conservative in Alberta, you've got your hands full.

I was hoping my first post-election blog was going to detail the secrets of the NDP's stunning second success in Alberta. While it was a success in many ways - compared to 2008, we got almost 4,000 more votes, hundreds more sign locations, three times as many election day volunteers, and raised a lot more money - it was not in a success in the most crucial way; we didn't win. However, politics is not a short-term game. If you want to be effective in politics, you have to be in it for the long haul. Ray Martin knows that better than most. He was first elected to the Alberta Legislature in 1982. He remains the most successful Leader of Alberta's NDP to date, after he led our party to a 16-seat showing in the 1986 provincial election. He was out of politics from 1993 to 2001, when he was elected to the Edmonton Public School Board. He ran again in the 2004 Alberta election and won. In 2008, he ran for Parliament in Edmonton East and ran the 2nd-strongest NDP campaign in Alberta (next to Linda Duncan, of course).

The groundwork Ray laid for the NDP in Edmonton East in 2008, paired with Linda Duncan's win in Edmonton-Strathcona, set the stage for the riding to be a strong priority in the next election. In 2008, I was a Liberal. But I was living in Edmonton, and when I looked at the election results from 2006 and 2008, it appeared the Liberals were becoming less and less relevant, and my attempt to get involved with a Liberal campaign in 2008 did not happen due to the party's disorganization in its strongest riding in the province. Therefore, in the election aftermath, I began looking at the New Democrats to see who I could help win another non-Conservative seat in Alberta. That place was in Edmonton East.

I started getting to know Ray Martin about two years ago. I remember Ray saying in one of my first election planning meetings with him that he wouldn't be running if there was someone else who was ready to build on the strong showing he had in 2008 and really challenge the Conservatives in Edmonton East. He also told me that if he wasn't successful in his next run that this would be his lost try at it. He confirmed that on the night of May 2nd after the results came in. It is sad to see a fighter like Ray retire from politics, but I know he will still be around to help our team in Edmonton East build on his successes.

Though we didn't win in Edmonton East this election, I'd still like to tell the story that led to our successes in increasing the NDP's presence in every way in that area of Edmonton.

Ray is turning 70 years old this year, but he is still the strongest political fighter I know. He began knocking on doors to prepare for this past election about two years ago. He began his work by knocking on doors two or three days per week in the north end of the riding where the Conservatives get most of their support (in 2008, Ray won most of the areas in the souther half of the riding). Shortly thereafter, I started organizing teams of volunteers to drop leaflets in mailboxes. The issue the leaflets highlighted? Pensions. Not the most exciting issue for a 25-year-old student of international politics. However, over the next two years, I would learn that pensions are one of the most important issues to voters in Edmonton East, and in most, if not all, areas of the country. Our Canada Pension Plan (CPP) currently isn't enough for seniors to have a decent retirement. Instead Canadians are expected to come up with their own ways of saving money, at a time when most Canadians can't afford to or don't plan well enough to save anything (myself included). It's an issue I began hearing more about when it became my job to deal with the problems of marginalized Edmontonians in the provincial constituency of Edmonton Highlands-Norwood in the office of MLA Brian Mason. I also noticed when I started phoning voters in Edmonton East, that it was almost like a magic attention-grabber. When people on the other end of the phone asked what Ray Martin would do for them, I would tell them, "He is promising to strengthen your CPP." 90% of the time, that was exactly the kind of thing they wanted to hear. Political activists, particularly at the universities, like to talk about what we see as the huge issues of the day: Harper proroguing Parliament, the federal deficit at its largest in history, our country's foreign policy being taken so far where it was that the world is no longer interested in what Canada has to say. I include myself in those who like to focus on these issues. But the truth outside of the university bubble is that the large majority of voters don't care about any of those things, at least not to the extent that it would affect their vote. Rather, for most Canadians, the issues that determine their votes are health care, jobs, pensions, and crime.

If progressive activists want to start electing more progressive politicians in places like Edmonton, we need to start speaking the language of the average voter. That doesn't mean we need to stop caring about the issues that are the most important to us. In fact, connecting with other voters on issues they care about can start to open up opportunities to speak with them on issues you care about. If nothing else, speaking the language of the average voter can (as is obviously the goal) make them want to support a progressive politician, who in turn is more likely to share your goals of protecting our democratic institutions, handling our federal budget in a pragmatically progressive way, and working to strengthen Canada's role in the world. Most students don't know much and don't care much about health care or pensions, but what I have found is that they become more interesting when I talk to voters who care about these issues and who these issues affect on a day-to-day basis. When I talk to seniors who can barely afford to live in their own homes because they are living on fixed incomes and their cost-of-living continues to go up, it makes me care about pensions. When I hear from a constituent that he is burning through his savings and is on the verge of having to sell his home because he needs hip surgery and can't physically work a job until he gets it, but he has been waiting for the surgery for years, it makes me care about health care. These are social justice issues that people in Canada experience every day, and although we may not study them when we do a Political Science degree (in fact, I've always been frustrated that the "Politics of Health Care" class is always restricted to Health Sciences students), they are what our average voters care about, and they are the issues we need to focus on if we're going to win election campaigns.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. I think I've said pretty much all I really wanted to about Edmonton East anyway. So I'll move to a bit of the bigger picture.

On May 2nd, Canadians elected a majority Conservative government with the NDP as a strong Official Opposition (at least as strong as any opposition in a majority government can be). I was obviously happy that the NDP won over 100 seats and that the Liberals, who I now see as conservatives who imitate progressives, have been decimated across the country, and particularly here in Edmonton where the NDP placed ahead of them in every riding. Whose fault is it that we elected a Conservative majority? Well, we could talk about a few different answers to that question. The first answer would be that only 40% of Canadians who voted actually supported the Conservatives. Our system never gives us a Parliament that represents the political demographics of our country. That is true nationally, but is even more true regionally. Take, for example, my home province of Saskatchewan. The Conservatives won 93% of the seats there with only 56& of the vote. New Democrats won zero seats there with 32% of the vote. Although 1/3 of voters in SK voted for a New Democrat, Saskatchewan has no NDP voice in Ottawa. It's also true in Quebec, where New Democrats won 77% of the seats with only 43% of the vote. The Bloc Quebecois, love them or hate them, won only 5% of the seats there with 23% of the vote. Without going into any more examples, there are also regions of the country where Conservatives (Newfoundland) and Liberals (Ontario) are underrepresented. Regional representation is very important and is essential to keep voters engaged in our political system. When voters don't feel represented by their politicians, as the voters in these regions I named are not, I am positive they are more likely to feel disenchanted with our political process. Of course we will never be able to make everyone happy even in a democratic system. But we could certainly get a lot closer to having a Parliament that mirrored our population than we do now.

The second argument about who is to blame for the Conservative majority focuses on how the progressive vote was split between the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens. I could go through the arguments about how I don't see the Liberals and Greens as progressive, but that's not really the point I'm trying to make. Rather, the point I would make is that nobody splits any vote. It's a fallacy. Some candidates win and many others lose. There is not one type of Canadian voter who votes for the Conservatives and a completely different type of voter who chooses between the other three. I talked to way to many former Conservative voters this election who decided to vote NDP to believe that. The decisions of voters, in the general sense, are complex. We can't expect voters to follow the rules we would like to set for them. Parties do set priorities. It isn't often that three parties decide to make the same riding a priority. However, it does happen. In Edmonton Centre, I wouldn't be surprised if the Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats all spent close to the maximum legal amount on this past election campaign. However, there are many Liberals who would vote Conservative before they would ever vote NDP, and there are actually many Conservatives (especially in Alberta) who would vote NDP before they would ever vote Liberal. These types of voters, who are not uncommon, defy the theory that a New Democrat and a Liberal running in the same riding are "splitting" the progressive vote. The anti-Conservative "strategic voting" sites have been a massive failure. Alice Funke of punditsguide.ca (my favourite political geek site) detailed why in a blog post called "Why the Conservatives Love the 'Strategic' Voting Sites" (http://www.punditsguide.ca/2011/04/why-the-conservatives-love-the-strategic-voting-sites/). What I got out of her post is that the "anti" vote is much softer than the "pro" vote, meaning Canadians who have strong political opinions, rather than actually committing to what they believe in, largely stand back from the political process other than telling people to vote a certain way. They then focus on what one party has done wrong, rather than what another party may be doing right. It distorts the way our system was actually made to work. You vote for, and work to elect, the person you believe to be the best candidate. Furthermore, on election night the strategic voting sites got it all wrong. The first problem is that they don't have a lot of actual sway for most voters. The second problem is that they do sway some voters, and they can often sway them the wrong way for people who are actually looking to unseat Conservatives. We need look no further than Edmonton Centre to see why. I already mentioned how all three major parties ran strong campaigns in that riding. It used to be the Liberals' only real stronghold in the province (though Anne McLellan often won it by a slim margin). However, the Liberals in Edmonton have been trending downward in popularity for a few elections now, and the NDP has been trending upwards. The NDP also ran a candidate in Lewis Cardinal who already had a higher profile among people in that riding (especially since he ran a strong municipal campaign that overlapped much of the riding in 2007 that almost won him a seat on Edmonton City Council). All of the strategic voting sites told people to vote Liberal, primarily because of the results in the 2006 and 2008 elections, both of which went without a high-resource NDP competition. On May 2nd, Lewis Cardinal received almost 2,000 more votes than his Liberal competitor. I wonder how many people who actually lean more progressive voted Liberal to try to prevent Laurie Hawn from winning? Likely not enough to have changed the winner. However, I have no doubt that the election day results represent a somewhat distorted view of who the voters in Edmonton Centre believed their best candidate was. That may be particularly relevant if Lewis Cardinal decides to be the NDP candidate again. People who may have normally been supporters were identified as Liberal voters, lawns that may have otherwise taken Lewis Cardinal signs were dotted with Liberal signs, and volunteers who may have normally been in Lewis Cardinal's office were instead working on a Liberal campaign.

Understand this. Partisans will always use any argument they can to convince you to vote their way, no matter what. From that, I don't exempt myself. It is no secret that there is such thing as "the anti-Conservative vote" in all regions of our country. However, it is not as widespread as the strategic voting sites would have you think. I was working on the Ray Martin campaign this past election, where we could point to the 2008 results and say, "Hey, in 2008 this was a two-way race between the Conservatives and the NDP, and with us running the same strong candidate with a wealth of experience in this part of town, it is going to be a close two-way fight this time." We tried that line on every Green and every Liberal we found (to put it in context, the 2008 results were CPC 51%, NDP 32%, LPC 11%, GPC 6%). Sometimes it worked. It would have been difficult for the Liberal or the Green candidate to spin another way, so we found it effective. However, that sort of technique can be added to a long list of spin tactics that every political party uses to get more votes. It is not exceptional.

In this election, our team in Edmonton East did everything we could to win. It didn't happen. Yet. But we now have an even more cohesive team of progressive individuals who are committed to making change happen in that part of town. Many of us have already started talking about what the gameplan will be for 2015. A Conservative majority government is a scary thing. But it's a short-term thing. Four years does seem like a long time. And I won't disagree with those who say our country will undergo some terrible changes in that time. However, we are in that situation now, and we can't change it, so we have to deal with it. And we also have to make as much opportunity out of it as we can. The opportunity is in the fact that we now have four years to organize for the next election. Progressives no longer need to decide whether a "centrist" party is close enough to being progressive to earn their support. Every race in Edmonton had the New Democrats and Conservatives in first and second place (with the exception of Sherwood Park where there were two conservative candidates). So I'm going to spend the next four years (assuming I'm still in Edmonton) getting ready to take on Stephen Harper and the Conservatives again. And we'll be more ready than ever next time. I hope you'll join me.

My Thoughts on the Upcoming Federal Election

Today was a crazy day for me for many reasons, not the least of which was the confirmation of an upcoming federal election campaign, with election day being May 2nd or 9th. There are many takes on it being thrown around, so I wanted to make a few points and address a few others.

Many say an election will change nothing; the polls are at the same place they were on election day in 2008. While I completely understand the sentiment behind this, history does not support this statement. First, a lot happens an election campaign. With increased national attention on the political scene, new policy announcements by the various parties, and direct public debate at the national as well as the local level, things inevitably change. The 2006 federal election is a huge example of how our country's political landscape can change in the middle of a campaign. There was a Liberal minority government, and when the election was called, everyone assumed the election would produce the same thing; that's what the polls indicated. However, a lot changed throughout that campaign. Harper's Conservatives announced new policies throughout the campaign and garnered a lot of media attention. Paul Martin's Liberals never really did get their heads on their shoulders, and about halfway through the campaign, people began to predict that things were changing. Against what everyone predicted when the election was called, Harper's Conservatives formed government after election day.

Further re-enforcement can be found by simply looking at the statistics of the gaps between pre-election polls and election day results. The Globe & Mail did a great analysis of those statistics for elections dating back to 1980:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/why-election-campaigns-matter/article1922974/?from=1923371

The dice need to be rolled at some point. There was going to be an election sooner or later. Our first election scare after the 2008 election was only about a month later. It has now been 2 1/2 years since the last election. Sure, many Canadians wish we only had elections every 4 years, but this is how our system works. Was it wise for the parties to roll the dice now? There are a few factors that play into that questions. I suppose it can be taken party by party.

Conservatives: Stephen Harper has been a minority Prime Minister since January of 2006. That's 5 years in a minority. He is again attempting to gain a majority Parliament but hasn't been able to make any major gains between elections. If that majority if ever going to be won, it would have to come from a fairly significant shift, the kind that doesn't come too often but is much more likely if the wind blows his way during the campaign. If he still can't get his precious majority, we can expect Mr. Harper to make his exit from federal politics sometime relatively soon after the election.

Liberals: Michael Ignatieff is not the sort of leader many Liberals thought he might be. There were big hopes for him when he was a leadership prospect, but now that he has made it out into the spotlight, even the Liberal base is unsure of the future of their party. Though I don't claim to know whether Ignatieff will prove even less popular than Stephane Dion, it is quite possible. Unless the Liberals come out of the election with at least some growth in their seat count, it is likely that Ignatieff will be moving on as well. And if that's going to be the result of his leadership, his party would rather know sooner rather than later so they can move on to their last hope in the foreseeable future: Bob Rae.

Bloc: Duceppe has been the Bloc leader for quite some time too. He has been able to maintain his popularity but still hasn't attained the sweep of the province he had his eye on in 2006. However, his party remains popular and is stable. They may not gain much in an election, but they look like they'll be able to hold their ground and continue to hold their 2/3 of the 75 seats in Quebec without much trouble. So Duceppe has decided his party will continue to vote on principle and not play the "election or no election" game the other parties are forced to engage in. Election or no election, it's not a big deal to them.

NDP: It's difficult to see where the NDP will go from here. The upcoming campaign is definitely a gamble of which no one will know the result until it's over. Jack Layton has been the party's leader for 3 elections already. Win or lose, this one is likely to be his last as leader of the party. What I have found most interesting is the way the NDP has been playing the lead-up to the election. Without many really noticing, Jack Layton has stolen the opposition spotlight for the past week. He has had everyone talking in the NDP narrative. The media has been looking at the federal budget through the NDP frames due to Layton's "shopping list" of what he wanted in the budget: more money for new family doctors and nurses, strengthened CPP, tax removed from home heating oil, more money for low-income seniors, and renewal of the home energy retrofit program. Harper threw Layton of few crumbs of the loaf he had asked for and, not surprisingly, Layton didn't take it. The question many are not asking at this point is this: where are the Liberals and the Bloc? The answer is that by deciding long before the budget was released that they would oppose it, instead of putting forward their own ideas, they got lost in the debate. For the last while, it has been what does Layton want and what is Harper willing to give. They have been the only two players talking about the issues in a substantive way. The strategy might even be looked back on as a game-changer if the narrative continues this way. Only time will tell. Either way, the horses are out of the gate, and the crowd is currently watching only two participants: Layton and Harper.

The last thing I want to say a few things about before finishing up is what the election will look like in Edmonton, since I have a much better idea of what politics looks like here than anywhere else. There are 8 seats in the Edmonton area. There are only 3 of the 8 seats in which any challenger came within 35% of the Conservative candidate (with the exception of Jim Ford, Tim Uppal's independent conservative challenger in Edmonton-Sherwood Park) in either the 2006 or 2008 elections. Those seats are Edmonton-Strathcona, Edmonton Centre, and Edmonton East. Two of these are clear two-way races.

Edmonton-Strathcona is currently held by New Democrat, Linda Duncan, who is being challenged by young Conservative, Ryan Hastman. Hastman has been working hard with a young, energetic team to attempt to recapture the Conservatives' only blight in the province. However, he is inexperienced both in politics and in the general sense. He runs a small web business in Edmonton and has worked in Harper's office. His resume gets no more impressive than that. Running against a high-profile environmental lawyer who has vast experience in her field throughout the world and has built her local political reputation over the course of three consecutive election campaigns, Hastman will have a tough time matching her on his first try. Both campaigns will no doubt be spending up to the legal limit. Despite the seeming mismatch, many factors come into play during an election campaign, and it is difficult to predict the outcome.

I have to disclose before getting into Edmonton East that I will be staff on the NDP's campaign in the riding. That said, I'll offer only some very general observations. Edmonton East is currently held by Peter Goldring, who has represented the area (with some boundary changes) since 1997. There is regularly speculation that he will retire (he is 66 years of age). In fact, rumours are that there are many in his own Conservative riding association who would like to see that happen. The riding had the 13th-lowest voter turnout in the country in the 2008 election at about 45%. Goldring won with 51% of the vote with NDP candidate (and former Leader of Alberta's official opposition) Ray Martin coming in 2nd at 32%. Martin decided to run again and was re-nominated in the fall of 2009. Given much more preparation in this election, it will be interesting to see if another riding can be stolen away from the Conservatives in the city.

Lastly, Edmonton Centre is the only other riding in Edmonton (and the province of Alberta) where anyone came anywhere close to beating a Conservative in 2008. The seat was formerly held by Liberal Deputy Prime Minister, Anne McLellan. Since then, Liberal support has begun to evaporate in that riding and around the city. In what is still the strongest Liberal riding in the province, the party's vote share has gone from 43% to 39% to 27% over the past 3 elections. Given the riding's volatility and the evaporation of Liberal support, the NDP has decided to run a high-profile candidate, Lewis Cardinal, with the hope of taking away the Liberals' last hope in Edmonton and setting up a clear Conservative-NDP narrative across the city (ie. where the NDP is seen as the only viable alternative). The riding has been announced as one of the NDP's 3 target seats in Alberta (along with the 2 already mentioned). It will be interesting to see what Cardinal's campaign can do to edge out the Liberals and take on Laurie Hawn there.

Alright, this blog is long enough, and my mind is starting to run in circles. I will no doubt be sharing more thoughts throughout the election campaign. It will be my first time being this involved in an election, so I'm looking forward to it! I've just realized this is probably my least partisan blog so far (not that I claim to be objective anyway). So let's hope we can bring some more progressive voices to Ottawa from Edmonton in this upcoming election! ;)