So.. I’m not a Liberal now? Every single time someone takes a potshot at Raj Sherman for his political past it’s an affront to me. He was a federal Liberal first in his political career… as was I. When I was in high school I was an engaged youth helping out in Calgary Centre-North, fought the Liberal [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: So.. I’m Not A Liberal Now?
September 30, 2011 by
CalgaryLiberal: There Are Liberals in Rural Alberta: Lets Build With Them, a guest post by Zack Siezmagraff
September 26, 2011 by
Zack Siezmagraff, past federal candidate and long time Albertan Liberal, has written the below letter to Ralph Goodale, member of parliament for Wascana, on the issue of building a western fortress of support for Liberals. You can follow Zack on twitter here at @ZackSiezmagraff. I really like the post below because it hits on three core [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Lets Raj and Roll: I’m Excited
September 18, 2011 by
Last Saturday Raj Sherman was elected as Alberta Liberal Leader. On Monday he was brought in, officially, to the Alberta Liberal caucus. A quick media scan: [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] Curiously, on the Saturday night the reporters surrounding the second and third place contenders pressed for an answer to the question of [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: WANTED: A Liberal Leader
September 8, 2011 by
Wanted: A Leader Must be willing to travel across the country, sleep 5 hours a night, and be willing to shake hands of more than a half a million Canadians. French and English are mandatory.There is no on the job training and you are expected to start at least ten years ago. Must have at [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Leadership Survey: Bill Harvey
September 5, 2011 by
Introduce Yourself (Part I) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] Leadership (Part II) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] Issues: (Part III) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Liberals need to support liberals
September 4, 2011 by
Liberals need to support liberals, across divisions in government and separation by geography. The silo-ing of liberalism has been one of the worst trends in the last quarter century, where people focus on being one type of liberal rather than another type. The levels of government are fundamentally arbitrary and the people, split between all three, [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Leadership Survey: Bruce Payne
September 2, 2011 by
Introduce Yourself (Part I) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] Leadership (Part II) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] Issues (Part III) [[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]] …
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CalgaryLiberal: (4) The Challenge: Learning to repeat ourselves: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
September 2, 2011 by
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (4) The Challenge: Learning to repeat ourselves. (Or, alternatively, ‘message control’) The Problem: We’re not targetting the issues and controlling the [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Leadership Survey: Raj Sherman
August 29, 2011 by
Two months ago I sent out a leadership survey (other surveys can be found at this link) to the leadership candidates of the Alberta Liberal Party. Raj Sherman has responded with the answers below. None of it has been edited, all of it’s Dr. Raj, and it’s all Liberal. Introduce Yourself (Part I) [[Visit blog to check [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: A Post-Jack NDP: If the NDP were a stock I’d be shorting them
August 25, 2011 by
Jack Layton, long time NDP leader, died on August 22nd. He brought the NDP from 13 seats and 8.9% of the vote under Alexa McDonough to his stupendous 2011 results of 103 seats and 30.63% of the vote. He pulled the party from a million Canadians voting for him to four-and-a-half million. And it was [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: (3) The Challenge: The Media Hates Us: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
August 24, 2011 by
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (3) The Challenge: The Media Hates Us. The Problem: The media hates us. The media hates us. The media hates us. Shall I repeat [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: (2) The Challenge: To be seen as having a plan: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
August 23, 2011 by
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (2) The Challenge: To be seen as having a plan. The Problem: We have a communication problem about communication. The Story: The [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: (1) The Challenge: Liberals are everywhere in Alberta–just not all with us: The Four Challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party
August 10, 2011 by
There are challenges to the Alberta Liberal Party forming government in Alberta. In this series of posts I’ll write about some of the challenges that Liberals face in this province and some solutions to them. (1) The Challenge: Liberals are everywhere in Alberta–just not all with us The Problem: Forget about uniting the left or [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Youtube: Bob Rae and Joan Bourassa Roundtables July 16, 2011 in Calgary, Alberta
July 21, 2011 by
CalgaryLiberal: Globe and Mail: “Alberta’s Liberals see signs of hope on long road back to viability”
July 20, 2011 by
In turn, Alberta’s official opposition Liberals tossed open the doors to a failing party, hoping to re-invigorate it at a time of both challenge and opportunity – a run for their money down the centre of the spectrum from the upstart Alberta Party (a party long on potential but short on cash or organizational infrastructure), [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Usage Based Billing and the Liberal Approach: Andrew Moore’s Appearance at the CRTC 2011-77 Public Consultation
July 15, 2011 by
Rarely does one hear politeness, somber, and well versed folks speak in politics. This–this here–is a video of a talented person that encapsulates the need for change in the CRTC and the regulations that can make our information systems the best of the world. As someone who has spoken about the internet and the need [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Lessons in Organization in the Calgary Region: Three Things We’re Doing Right
July 11, 2011 by
As per rule #9 of my 10 Rules for Liberal Debate, I’m going to spend this post complimenting and bragging about what Calgary is doing on the federal Liberal scene. Here are just three of the many things that the Liberal Party of Canada is doing right in Calgary: (1) Regional events. I firmly believe [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Survey: Laurie Blakeman
July 1, 2011 by
Last week I sent a survey to every Alberta Liberal leadership candidate currently announced. Ms Blakeman was the first to send in the survey (and, might I add, the only one to do so on time) and she’ll be the first to have her answers posted. Below is a link to Scribd.com and beneath that [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: VSP’s Ten Rules for Liberal Debate
June 28, 2011 by
When I first joined the Liberals in ’08 I didn’t know what I was getting myself into–I didn’t know the culture, the debate customs, or many rules of order. I just wanted to contribute. I didn’t know how to deal with some of the things that came up. Many others probably either would give up [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: A Message to Every Alberta Liberal: End the Writing off of People
June 25, 2011 by
I was reading one comment made over on Calgarygrit’s blog made by a fellow by the name of “Frank.” I felt this sinking, sickening feeling as I read it. Every single time I hear someone saying we shouldn’t attempt to bring in a group of people into our camp I am sickened. Every time I [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Leadership Race: An Open Game
June 22, 2011 by
As I took a step back at the convention in May for the Alberta Liberals I recognized something key: it was an open field for anyone to enter and try to win support. The ‘inner party’ folks–the ones who organize, are in the know on things, and who are on a first name basis with [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Alberta Liberal Leadership Contest Questionnaire
June 22, 2011 by
Last Friday I sent out a 50-question survey to the four current leadership candidates who are gunning for the leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party. Since then I have heard back from two of the leadership camps (the Payne campaign and the Sherman campaign) with commitments that they’ll be filling it out and sending it [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Bruce Payne: Why I’m an Alberta Liberal
June 22, 2011 by
Bruce Payne, leadership candidate for the Alberta Liberal Party, talks about why he’s an Alberta Liberal. …
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CalgaryLiberal: David Swann: Why I’m an Albertan Liberal
June 21, 2011 by
David Swann, Alberta Liberal Party leader, talks about why he’s an Albertan Liberal. …
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CalgaryLiberal: Three arguments for a Liberal think tank
June 18, 2011 by
If you haven’t already heard, Ed Broadbent has stated he’ll be starting a think tank (named after himself, even) in the fall. It’s a smart move–a move that the conservatives amongst many different parties have been doing for almost thirty years. It’s smart because it builds their coalitions of support (see my previous blog post [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Something to Watch: Federal Liberals in Calgary
June 10, 2011 by
With the new seats coming federally in the House of Commons to the economic seat of Canada–Alberta–the province will finally get a more reasonable level of representation. No longer will each of our votes matter less than Ontario or Quebec and the seismic changes of the last ten years will finally be recognized. Gargantuan growths [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Leaked Ad: Minimum Wage
June 9, 2011 by
This is the second ad in a set of three. The first ad was on education and this one is on the minimum wage (which is pertinent because of it being in the news recently). Again, as I’ve written before on the set of ads, it’s a set that is now for the most part [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Mark Holland: “We Have To Be A National Party Again” (Alberta Liberal Party AGM, May 28th)
June 7, 2011 by
Politics Reimagined: Mark Holland from Corey Hogan on Vimeo. (Reposted from NewLiberal.ca) I had the pleasure of sitting just offside to Mr. Holland while he made his speech. Just watch it: it’s quite the speech. It talks about pulling the party together based on a national vision and open sourcing our discourse. …
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CalgaryLiberal: New Liberals: Alberta Liberals Convention recap
May 30, 2011 by
As I left the Alberta Liberal Party convention yesterday I was exhausted. Between doing a panel on social media, attending almost 24 hours of straight training and politics, and then being at the Bruce Payne suite until 3 am in the morning with a bunch of young Liberals yacking it up about what needed to [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Leaked Attack Ad: Education
May 26, 2011 by
So two people have passed me CDs with attack ads. I now have, in my possession, three attack ads blasting the Progressive Conservatives and then the Wildrose-. They’re well written, short, and made to be shared. What I really like about this set of ads is that not only do they attack the Progressive Conservative [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Building the Iceberg — New Liberals, Clear Grits, and Phoenixes
May 23, 2011 by
Almost two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the challenges that face the Liberal Party of Canada. It received a small bit of media attention and more. In particular, I wrote about building the party outside of it (or, in fact, ‘behind’ it), where I used an iceberg metaphor to show how the [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: “Don’t worry, it’s legal.”
May 19, 2011 by
“Don’t worry,” said the woman, “It’s legal.” This lass (same one as this post, actually) was commenting on the Conservative bypassing the spending limit on their 2008 campaign. Don’t worry, she said, it’s legal. Let that sink in for a moment. Don’t worry about Bev Oda and her ^NOT escapade–it’s illegal by House of Commons [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Why “Centrism” doesn’t quite work for us and needs to be adjusted for
May 10, 2011 by
Over the last week I have gotten a lot of rather angry emails and notes speaking in opposition to my thoughts written about in my blog post last week on the Liberal Party of Canada. It has to do with the issue of centrism in Canadian politics and I do not believe I have been [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: So, I’m in the Toronto Star…
May 9, 2011 by
Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star has quoted my blog post. What is a political party anyway? Given that there are so many ways for politicians to connect directly with citizens, many wonder why people need the brokerage role of political parties in the modern age. Besides electoral machines, what are they? Vincent St. Pierre [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: Oil Spills: The beavers do it better.
May 5, 2011 by
Media scan: David Suzuki - Alberta’s biggest oil spill in 30 years is a call to action for Canadians BBC - Oil spill in Canada’s Alberta ‘biggest in 35 years’ Sun – Spill making kids sick Market Wire - Lubicon Lake Nation Still Standing in Face of Environmental Crisis: Oil Spill Has Leaked 4.5 Million Litres Onto Their [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: The wider spirit of Liberal reform
May 5, 2011 by
I think I may have struck a chord. In the last day or so I have receive 1,200 pageviews (this is a lot for me) on my blog posting and numerous outlets have broached the topic of reforming the Liberals, and with particular reference is the creation of arms length, the “bottom of the iceberg,” [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: The Liberals need to reform themselves. I think I know how.
May 3, 2011 by
Last month I attended an event hosted by the Conservative Party of Canada’s University of Calgary club that had Preston Manning come in and talk about democracy, coalition building, and his history with his involvement in the conservative movement. As per usual I was the lone Liberal there. There might be an ideological divide but there is [...] …
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CalgaryLiberal: The Trials of Youth
April 24, 2011 by
I have some competing demands in my life. I have a full course load at the University of Calgary, I represent 7,200 Arts students with the same university’s Students’ Union, my mother being off in Mexico when an employee walks off the job at the family business forcing me to pull triple shifts in the [...] …
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