All posts tagged Lee Richardson

And the winner is … no one: everybody missed Monday’s biggest story

by David Climenhaga on November 28, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 7 Comments

Alberta families like this one just stayed home Monday and watched TV. Below: Pollster Janet Brown.

So who stayed home?

While poll analysts and pundits pontificated yesterday about what the somewhat-less-than-stellar victory of Conservative Joan Crockatt in the Calgary-Centre by-election might mean for the national political parties, the real story went largely unexamined – to wit, the wretched voter turnout.

With fewer than 30 per cent of the eligible voters in the inner-city Calgary riding able to bestir themselves to wander out and cast a ballot, it’s pretty obvious that a clear majority of electors truly didn’t give a hang about who governs them, or how. Indeed, given recent historical trends, the same thing can probably be said of all of Albertans.

“The big story from Monday night isn’t that Calgary Centre is leaning more left or more right,” observed the well-known Alberta pollster Janet Brown in a note she sent me. “It’s that the vast majority don’t care who represents them in Ottawa.”

“Although it got far more news coverage than the other two by-elections that were held Monday, Calgary Centre had the lowest voter turnout,” she observed, noting that 30 per cent isn’t all that unusual for a by-election, but it ought to be for this one.

“It was shockingly low for this particular by-election because the news coverage was so intense,” Ms. Brown said. “Every national public affairs program … covered the Calgary Centre by-election on multiple occasions.”

Well, maybe. Ms. Brown certainly speaks the truth about voter turnout. It was at 55 per cent in the riding in the 2011 general election, and at 29.4 per cent Monday it compared unfavourably to 35.8 per cent in Durham, Ont., and 43.9 per cent in Victoria, B.C., neither of which received quite the national publicity.

So what caused this truly pathetic turnout? We can only speculate.

It has been fair in the past to accuse the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Stephen Harper of engaging in Republican-style voter suppression tactics, especially in the last federal general election, but it is said here this likely did not pay much of a role in Monday night’s Cowtown tally.

True, the efforts by the Conservatives and the party’s Sun News Network auxiliary to dredge up old comments by prominent Liberal Party figures and spin them as anti-Alberta were an effort of sorts to persuade some Liberal voters to stay at home.

If nothing else, this suggests the private polls to which the Conservatives had access made it clear Liberal candidate Harvey Locke was not losing support to Green candidate Chris Turner, and that in their estimation he still had the potential for growth.

Still, with Ms. Crockatt seemingly languishing in voter enthusiasm, the Tory effort this time focused more on a desperate drive to get out their vote than an organized effort to keep anyone else from the polling booths. Anyway, there was no way the national neoconservative party would take the chance on creating a Pierre Poutine-style scandal in a low-stakes Alberta by-election when observers and opponents were sure to be on the alert for misbehaviour of just that sort.

They’ll save that for the big one in 2015 or whenever, and for more desperate circumstances than these.

So who stayed home, and why?

It’s doubtful New Democrat stay-at-homes had much impact, if only because there were so few of them. More likely, the majority of the small number of committed NDPers in the riding who voted strategically against Ms. Crockatt would have switched their votes to the Greens, although it sounds as if a fairly significant number held their noses and went Liberal too.

Mr. Locke seems to have held the Liberal vote, and Ms. Crockatt also held onto her always-motivated Alberta Wildrose Party base. Moreover, fringe candidates managed to collect only a fringe vote.

So, it is said here, the largest group of stay-at-home non-voters in Calgary Centre Monday were Redford Red Tories, the kind of people who supported former MP Lee Richardson in past elections without qualms and who, in the event, just couldn’t live with themselves if they voted for a Wildroser like Ms. Crockatt and at the same time couldn’t bear to vote for anyone who wasn’t a Conservative.

If this theory is correct, the split on the right played out relatively harmlessly from Ms. Crockatt’s perspective, while the split on the left meant Mr. Turner drained votes from Mr. Locke. Oh well, as said here last time, there’s no point moaning about this, it’s the way the system is designed to work and it’s not likely to be changed any time soon.

But Ms. Brown thinks I’m giving Alberta voters way too much credit. “I think people stayed home because they simply don’t care who represents them in Ottawa,” she argued “They feel so disconnected from their federal representatives on a day-to-day basis, that they don’t feel much of a stake in who wins.”

She holds out hope they’re likely to be more engaged in a general election, when there’s more attention on the personalities and the policies of the leaders.

Well, it’s all grist for the mill. Maybe someone will do some ex first-past-the-post facto research and find out for sure.

Regardless, if my speculation holds any water, it goes to an important point. Both New Democrats and Liberals, if they are to have any chance of success in the next federal general election, need to do more than just fight over their own split voters.

One or the other of them is going to have to find a way to persuade soft Conservative voters – those legendary Red Tories – to come across and vote for someone who isn’t a Conservative.

In most places, convincing them merely to stay at home won’t make the grade.

Well, Ms. Crockatt has already jetted off to Ottawa to be sworn in and this will be the last I will have to say on this topic for a little while.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

By-election watch: Calgary Centre Grits hope to benefit from Justin Trudeau’s reflected glow

by David Climenhaga on October 16, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics, Justin Trudeau with 3 Comments

Justin Trudeau passes through the Calgary Centre riding, as seen by the media. Actual Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidates may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Conservative Party candidate Joan Crockatt, still the front-runner in the by-election that hasn’t been called yet; Liberal candidate Harvey Locke looking outdoorsy; the real Mr. Trudeau.

With the federal Liberals suddenly looking as if they have a little momentum courtesy of the media’s incipient relapse of Trudeaumania, perhaps there’s the vaguest possibility of a horserace in the eventual Calgary Centre by-election.

At any rate, the Liberals have a respectable Calgary Centre candidate in the person of conservationist and lawyer Harvey Locke, who may not have the highest profile around but at least can reflect some of the glow of media ardour for Justin Trudeau as he passed through Cowtown just before announcing his own grab for the brass ring.

Mr. Trudeau’s high-profile Liberal Party leadership bid, in turn, has boosted his once-flagging Liberals’ popularity into and beyond the territory occupied by the NDP, at least according to poll results published yesterday by the National Post.

The Greens also have a reasonably appealing Calgary Centre candidate in author Chris Turner, who writes about sustainability issues.

Alert readers will be aware that all of this matters because Prime Minister Stephen Harper must soon call a by-election in the downtown Calgary riding where his Conservative Party of Canada in late August chose as its standard bearer market-fundamentalist on-air talking head Joan Crockatt.

Alas, while the New Democrats are finally getting around to trying to nominate a local candidate after a few higher-profile names declined their party’s proffered parachutes, it’s hard to see how the likes of Brent Macklinson, Scott Payne or Matthew McMillan can use the contest to do much to raise the profile of Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair in the West.

Well, maybe the NDP have stirred the entrails and written Calgary Centre off, which wouldn’t be unreasonable given the habits of that city’s voters. Or maybe a bigger name is still waiting in the wings.

The riding was vacated back in May by former Conservative MP Lee Richardson, who had a reputation as a slightly pinkish Tory. Mr. Richardson went to work as Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary, a position for which a meaningful job description seems to be lacking. A by-election must be called by Nov. 18 if the vote is to take place before Christmas.

Why this has been taking Mr. Harper so long is a mystery to everyone, since in the normal course of events the Conservative candidate in a Calgary riding, Ms. Crockatt, should be a shoo-in. The longer the PM waits, the greater the chances Ms. Crockatt will slip her foot into her mouth, creating opportunities for her opponents.

Which brings us back to the matter of the suddenly lustrous Mr. Trudeau – who is certain to adopt the standard and frequently effective Liberal practice of flashing left while preparing to turn right. Stating this axiom is all very well, but it would be a terrible mistake – as former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney suggested not so long ago – to underestimate Mr. Trudeau.

The main knock against the Liberal leadership contender seems to be that he lacks legislative experience. But legislative experience is a commodity that may in fact be the kiss of death for anyone campaigning nowadays on a claim they can reinvent politics – which is very likely exactly why Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae decided to pull the plug on his own ambitions.

From an Alberta perspective, anyone inclined to laugh off the 2012 beneficiary of the Trudeaumania phenomenon would do well to remember two other politicians with limited legislative experience – Alison Redford and Naheed Nenshi. The former is now the premier of Alberta and the latter the mayor of Calgary after each ran just the kind of “transformative” campaign Mr. Trudeau is bound to try.

Getting back to Calgary Centre, perhaps His Nibs the prime minister continues to temporize in hopes the Supreme Court will rule in his favour on the case of Etobicoke Centre and he’ll only have to call three by-elections.

In Etobicoke Centre, the Conservative MP is appealing a ruling of an Ontario court that his election day victory is null and void because of campaign shenanigans. The court, like the prime minister, is taking its time. Two additional vacant ridings, one in Ontario and the other in B.C., also await by-election calls.

Meanwhile, back in Cowtown, it is said the word has gone out to the city’s many Conservative MPs (and that would be all of them) that they are to behave themselves and campaign for Ms. Crockatt.

Calgary East MP Deepak Obrai obediently went door knocking with Ms. Crockatt last week, and other Calgary MPs can be expected to join her as their marching orders come through.

Mr. Harper, however, may want to make an exception of his neighbour, Calgary West MP Rob Anders, and demand instead that Mr. Anders stay home.

It’s not that Mr. Anders doesn’t support Ms. Crockatt – au contraire, he shares her enthusiasm for the sort of nutty neoconservative economic nostrums that are apparently still popular in Calgary. It’s just that, well, he is known to be Canada’s Most Embarrassing MP, and it’s entirely possible that he would not be a particular asset to Ms. Crockatt’s election bid.

Then again, no matter what you may have read about the supposed sophistication of the downtown riding, it is in Calgary, and we all know what Calgary always does at election time.

With or without Mr. Anders’ participation, it sounds as if Calgary Centre should brace for a Christmas by-election.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

‘Crowdsourcing our confidence’? Don’t bet on 1CalgaryCentre, whoever’s behind it, having much impact

by David Climenhaga on September 4, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 4 Comments

A crowd: They have wine and balloons, and they’re all dressed in white. Does this make them progressives? Have they been crowdsourced? Alberta Diary is not certain and you shouldn’t be either. Below: Calgary pollster Brian Singh, Calgary Centre Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt.

“Crowdsourcing our confidence” will get a progressive candidate elected in Calgary Centre? Just asking…

A few days ago a website appeared called 1CalgaryCentre.ca that asks voters in the central Calgary federal riding where there will soon be a by-election to take part in an “innovative and evolutionary approach to democracy.”

The by-election, whenever Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets around to calling it, is widely expected to be a coronation of Conservative nominee Joan Crockatt, the former journalist and right-wing commentator who is anything but progressive. Ms. Crockatt beat five other candidates on Aug. 24 for the federal Conservative nomination to replace department MP Lee Richardson, who quit in May to become Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary.

The goal of 1CalgaryCentre.ca, according to the man behind the website, is to select and then elect a progressive Member of Parliament for the riding, thereby changing the face of Calgary.

Well, so far, so good, but progressive voters – and especially those progressive voters who support the New Democratic Party – have good reasons to be suspicious of this effort, which is almost certain to end up with the endorsement of a non-New Democrat candidate as the “progressive choice” for Calgary Centre.

1CalgaryCentre.ca is saturated with the vague, feel-good rhetoric of several recent political efforts of varying success associated with the mooshy middle of Alberta politics – Re-Boot Alberta, the failed Alberta Party that grew out of the Re-Boot and Renew Alberta conferences, and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s successful 2010 campaign.

From this it would be reasonable to assume the same group of people involved in all those efforts may have something to do with this one. However, that’s quite hard to say for sure after talking with Brian Singh, the Calgary pollster whose company Zinc Research was associated with the Nenshi campaign and whose name is one of only two that actually appears on the website. (The other name belongs to the guy who developed the website, which makes sense because the site is pretty good.)

For his part, Mr. Singh isn’t saying who, other than himself, is involved in 1CalgaryCentre, other than to promise that, eventually, more will be revealed. (If you think this sounds a lot like the pre-election Alberta Party policy dance of the thousand veils, you’d be right.)

Mr. Singh sees himself, I have been told, as something of a political provocateur and social media guru, so it’s possible he’s doing this to be provocative and generate some media coverage.

“I know it sounds cryptic,” he told me, somewhat apologetically, “but as they come forward we’ll be putting them up on the website.” Whoever they are, he added, there are is core of about eight people currently involved in this effort at this point, but there has been input from many more, including supporters of all political parties.

Other than that, though, we are on our own for the time being – although there is plenty of speculation about who these people may be among the politically obsessed.

It’s safe to state categorically, for starters, that this effort has nothing to do with the Democratic Renewal Project, Athabasca University history professor Alvin Finkel’s longstanding campaign to get progressive Albertans to vote strategically against this province’s conservative juggernaut.

And it’s also reasonably safe to conclude that not much will come from it, since, Mr. Singh’s wide circle of friends notwithstanding, no one in any of the major political parties likely to run a candidate seems very interested in 1CalgaryCentre.ca.

From the New Democrat and Green perspectives in particular, I think it’s safe to conclude that whomever those parties nominate, their candidates will not be the choice of the participants in the 1CalgaryCentre process, whatever it may be and whoever they may be.

It is predicted here that 1CalgaryCentre will ultimately endorse someone with ties to Alberta Party/federal Liberal/Nenshi campaign circles – say, Calgary lawyer Chima Nkemdirim, Mayor Nenshi’s chief of staff and still a potential Liberal contender despite his best efforts to avoid that fate, or former Alberta Liberal/Independent/Alberta Party MLA Dave Taylor.

Beyond that, at least as things appear from here, it seems quite unlikely 1CalgaryCentre will have much impact at all on the outcome of the Calgary Centre by-election.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Hurricane Isaac makes landfall in New Orleans; Hurricane Joan hits Calgary

by David Climenhaga on August 29, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 1 Comment

A prophet laments the unwillingness of the people to heed warnings from on high. Alberta political bloggers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Nominated federal Tory candidate “Hurricane Joan” Crockatt.

At the risk of going all Old Testament on readers, when Hurricane Isaac slammed into New Orleans last night, it could be taken as a warning to North Americans on both sides of the 49th Parallel that You-Know-Who doesn’t want us electing any more far-right governments on this continent.

If this warning from on high is ignored, well, you’ve got to know what happens next, as surely as Lamentations follows Jeremiah or, more significantly, J follows I: Hurricane Joan.

Speaking of whom, while your blogger was enjoying a well-deserved vacation in the Storm-toss’d States of America, a microscopic minority of Conservative voters in Calgary Centre were behaving entirely as predicted and picking right-wing commentator Joan Crockatt as their standard bearer in the upcoming by-election to replace former MP Lee Richardson.

Ms. Crockatt, who must be thought of hereinafter as Hurricane Joan, was once a competitive figure skater and later managing editor of the Calgary Herald. She was quite capable of spinning like a tropical storm in either role, although she was in a position to do considerably more damage in the latter during the late Nineties and early Zeros. There, Hurricane Joan’s fierce determination to change stories in the final moments before deadline earned her the bitter sobriquet “drive-by editor” from her frustrated underlings, one of whom now writes this blog.

God only knows what might happen if the citizens of Calgary Centre ignore His hints and, as seems likely, march on to elect the tempestuous Ms. Crockatt to the House of Commons, where she is certain to be welcomed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a sympathetic neo-conservative, if not quite a social conservative in the Old Testament mold nowadays preferred in Ottawa. (She has stated she is in favour of gay marriage and pro-choice. Her economic views, however, are very hard edged.)

But with each moment that passes without a high-profile candidate capable of appealing to voters in this perpetually conservative riding being named by either of the principal opposition parties, the less likely it seems that anyone can successfully challenge Ms. Crockatt.

This is not necessarily because she is a terrific candidate, although she will surely campaign with characteristic energy, but because this is a riding in which non-Conservative candidates start the race with a significant handicap, no matter how much they outshine the anointed local Tory.

Yet so far there is little but silence from the New Democratic Official Opposition and only a couple of decent but uninspiring local candidates put forward by the Liberals. There’s no sign of someone like Dave Bronconnier, former Liberal mayor of Calgary, Chima Nkemdirim, chief of staff to the current one, Olympian Mark Tewksbury, or such well regarded former NDP Calgary aldermen as Bob Hawkseworth of Joe Ceci. Former provincial Liberal leader David Swann, touted here as a possible NDP candidate, has said, Nope, not me.

Much is made of the fact that Mr. Richardson, who quit as MP last May to serve as Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary, had a reputation as a Red Tory, as did former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who also once served as the riding’s MP. What’s more, a lot of people there are known to live in apartment buildings and talk on cellular telephones. But really, people, don’t forget that both the previous incumbents were conservatives nonetheless and too much can be made of progressive tendencies among an otherwise disengaged electorate.

Much is also made of the divisions among social conservatives, old-time Conservatives, neo-conservatives, Wildrose conservatives, and pinkishly Progressive Conservatives in the Calgary Centre nomination race, but it is also likely that most of these sub-species of conservative will heed Ms. Crockatt’s plea for Tory unity.

So anyone who is going to get out there and defeat Hurricane Joan needs to have started spinning themselves, like, yesterday! Oh well, we live in hope. There’s nothing more optimistic than an Alberta New Democrat, unless it’s an Alberta New Democrat who lives in Calgary. You need to be hardy to survive in this political climate!

And it is true, the numbers that nominated Ms. Crockatt were pathetically small – fewer than half the 1,956 eligible Conservative Party members managed to show up on Aug. 25 to vote!

It was really all over by the first ballot, in which Ms. Crockatt received about 350 votes to 225 for stock salesman Greg McLean, who had Mr. Richardson’s endorsement, 111 for former provincial politician Jon Lord, 90 for lawyer Richard Billington, about 50 for “Calgary Joe” Soares of Gatineau, Que., occupation not clearly defined, and 30 for Stefan Spargo, whose occupation escapes me at the moment but who was well known for flying an Alberta flag over his house.

Ms. Crockatt raised her vote by about 100 on the second ballot, although it took two more ballots for her to get the 51 per cent she required. According to the Calgary Herald, Ms. Crockatt had 445 votes on the fourth and final ballot, compared with 283 for Mr. McLean and 119 for Mr. Lord. The party has neither published nor confirmed the results.

Meanwhile, according to last night’s news reports, power cuts have been reported across low-lying parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, affecting more than 200,000 homes and business. U.S. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has declared an emergency in Louisiana and Mississippi, allowing federal funds to flow to local authorities.

Thus endeth the lesson.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Departed MP’s endorsement, big donations by candidate’s firm, complicate complicated Conservative nomination race

by David Climenhaga on August 18, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 2 Comments

Candidates for the Conservative Party’s nomination in the Calgary Centre constituency prepare for next Saturday’s vote. Below: Candidates Greg McLean, Joan Crockatt and Jon Lord.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to … get elected.

The contest to find a federal Conservative candidate to replace Calgary Centre MP Lee Richardson is turning snarly as the race grows tight enough among various species of Red, Blue and Wildrose Pink Tories to make it increasingly difficult to pick a frontrunner. The vote is scheduled to take place in one week.

Mr. Richardson’s endorsement on Friday of Greg McLean, a Calgary investment advisor and “venture capitalist” who joined the race at the last possible instant before nominations closed, complicates matters further.

And now, talk of substantial donations – to the tune of more than $30,000 – to the far-right Wildrose provincial party by companies with which Mr. McLean is associated promise to get things spinning even faster.

To understand all this, alas, we have to plow through quite a bit of backstory.

So see if you can stay with us here … and while you do, remember that there are only 1,850 eligible voters who signed Conservative Party of Canada membership cards in time to take part in the constituency association’s nomination vote. Remember also that in the normal course of affairs in Alberta, the winner of the Conservative nomination is automatically declared the winner of the seat – although we haven’t quite yet dispensed with the meaningless formality of actually holding an election. (Settle down. That was sarcasm.)

Also in the normal course of events, an endorsement by a departing Conservative MP in a Calgary riding would all but cinch it for the anointed candidate.

But alert readers will recall that when he pulled the plug in May, Mr. Richardson was one of the very few Red Tories still occupying a seat in the House of Commons. There can be little doubt that the last thing Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to replace him is another Red Tory, which his endorsement sort of suggests Mr. McLean might be.

Mr. Richardson, by the way, went to work as Principal Secretary to Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who is perceived within this province as being pretty Red for a Tory herself, so presumably any candidate her guy endorses is going to get the votes of any of her supporters who remain in the federal riding’s constituency association.

Meanwhile, the most credible seeming candidates for the Tory nomination up until Mr. McLean’s last-minute arrival on the scene appeared to be Calgary lawyer Richard Billington, a past party functionary, Joan Crockatt, a commentator known for her right-wing economic views, and Jon Lord, a former provincial and municipal politician with ties to the social conservative crowd.

Notwithstanding his protestations that he prides himself on his ability to work with anyone, Mr. Lord appears to have gathered up the support of the riding’s social conservatives. You know, basically the Lake of Fire crowd. Which, in fairness, doesn’t make Mr. Lord a Lake of Fire believer, his name notwithstanding.

For her part, Ms. Crockatt – who despite her conservative economic views professes to be very liberal on such social issues as abortion rights and gay marriage – clearly hoped to build a winning combination of votes from riding association members who are progressive on social issues and those who are in the Harper Neo-Con Camp on economics. Obviously, Mr. Richardson’s endorsement of Mr. McLean is a setback to her hopes.

Mr. Billington? Well, not being a Conservative or a riding resident, I’m not quite sure about him – but presumably he hoped to emerge as an acceptable compromise candidate between Mr. Lord and Ms. Crockatt. Mr. McLean will also be vying for that role.

Now, stay with us here … there are plenty of Wildrose supporters among both Mr. Lord’s followers (the Wildrose so-con faction) and among Ms. Crockatt’s (the Wildrose neo-con faction), so you can count on Ms. Redford and her provincial Tories (who just hired Mr. Richardson, remember) not to like either of them.

This is said to be especially true in the case of Ms. Crockatt, who is scorned in Redford circles for endorsing the Wildrose Party in the recent provincial campaign in which the premier received a bad fright, although emerged victorious just the same after a hard fight. That may explain why, just today, a Redford cabinet minister was said to be out door-knocking with Mr. McLean. (Christine Cusanelli, c’mon down!)

So does it help or hinder Mr. McLean’s chances that between 2009 and 2001, the company of which he was investment director – Cavendish Investing Ltd. – donated $32,000 to the Wildrose Party? This is a matter of public record, all it took was for someone to look – which, this being the kind of battle it is, someone naturally did.

The bulk of that donation came in two lumps of $15,000, one in 2009 and one during the 2012 provincial election campaign.

In fairness, Mr. McLean wasn’t the only senior executive at Cavendish Investing and the company also gave $5,000 to Ms. Redford’s campaign, but the connection certainly has tongues wagging.

Mr. McLean also received a Tweeted endorsement from Jeff Callaway, who is a former Wildrose Party president and was fund raising vice-president when the first $15,000 contribution from Cavendish came in.

All this makes it quite unclear to an observer just how these votes are going to split, not to mention those that start out with the other candidates in the race. At this point, it would seem, almost anything could happen.

Naturally, it is hoped here that this will result in the weakest possible Tory candidate to emerge on Aug. 25 – allowing the NDP to win the by-election, or at least make a strong credibility building second-place showing, whenever Mr. Harper gets around to calling the vote.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Distilled democracy: Tory 2% to vote on Aug. 25 in Calgary Centre nomination race

by David Climenhaga on August 11, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 1 Comment

Candidate Rick Billington serenades well-heeled Conservative residents of the Calgary Centre federal riding during Stampede week back in July. Actual Alberta politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Departed MP Lee Richardson and busy candidates Joan Crockatt and Jon Lord. I’d throw in a photo of the real Mr. Billington too, just to be fair, but there’s nary a one to be found bigger than a 2-cent postage stamp. Main Photo grabbed from the entertaining Old Picture of the Day blog.

You have to ask yourself: Is this all democracy in Alberta comes down to?

As even those of our compatriots who don’t reside here in Wild Rose Country know, the Conservative Party nomination meeting is generally the sole democratic moment here in this petroleum-rich third of the Canadian Great Plains.

With one or two noble exceptions, once the Tory candidate is chosen in an Alberta riding, the voters troop out and vote for him (or her) with metronomic predictability. We pay for this habit dearly, it is said here, in the often-appalling quality of our local representation in Ottawa.

So it is worth looking at this transitory democratic impulse through the lens of the as-yet-to-be-called by-election to replace departed Calgary Centre MP Lee Richardson, a rare Red Tory who announced back in May he was getting out of Dodge-City-Upon-the-Rideau to pursue a new career a lot like his old career, this time as “principal secretary” to Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

This is a riding, for heaven’s sake, where the local media treats the election of a Progressive Conservative former prime minister in 2000 as evidence of a dangerous tendency, mercifully rare, toward galloping liberality!

This flash in the democratic pan, then, must be the race for the nomination to carry the Conservative colours (black and blue?) in the by-election, whenever Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets around to calling it. (No hurry, natch, as he’s already got his comfy majority in the Houses o’ Parliament.)

The nomination contest was announced during the Calgary Stampede back in July, when the entire population of Cowtown was busy thinking about which faux cowpoke duds to pull out of the civic Tickle Trunk.

The riding association stopped accepting nomination papers late on the Thursday before the August long weekend. That event was followed by a full week of steely silence while, presumably, Calgary Centre Conservative Party (CCCP) officials pored over the nominees’ papers looking for hints of ideological irregularities or other inclinations toward market heresy. (This observation may be quite unfair. It’s also possible the constituency association merely wished to demonstrate its contempt for ordinary voters and the media.)

The announcement was finally made yesterday, on the Friday before another hot August weekend.

As was speculated earlier in this space, there will be six candidates:

  • Richard Billington, a well-connected Tory lawyer who has served as a party official
  • Joan Crockatt, a journalist and commentator known for her right-wing views
  • John Lord, a businessman successful in the past in municipal and provincial politics
  • Greg McLean, a former young Conservative leader, no longer so young
  • Joe Soares, a resident of Quebec with an ill-defined past connection to the Prime Minister’s Office
  • Stefan Spargo, who flies an Alberta flag over his house

This supreme moment of Alberta democracy will take place on Saturday, Aug. 25 – the second-to-last weekend before the onset of the school year. There will be a single all-candidates’ forum on Friday, Aug. 24.

The crucial nomination vote, we are told, will be conducted among 1,850 eligible party members. Remember, the riding has a population of close to 130,000 souls, of whom about 89,000 will be eligible to vote in the actual by-election. In other words, 2 per cent of the electorate will likely make the decision that counts.

So what does all this – other than the identities of the approved candidates – tell us about this vital moment of pure Alberta democracy?

That it’s pretty much an insider affair, that’s what.

Count on it that many of the small number of eligible party members – especially Tory-come-latelies among riding residents signed by the two most enthusiastic candidates, Ms. Crockatt and Mr. Lord – will be away for the weekend, especially if the sun is shining.

Not being a Conservative, I can’t really say, but this whole thing has a whiff of closed-door politics about it. On the face of it, Ms. Crockatt would still appear be the front-runner, with Mr. Lord right on her heels. Both have certainly been campaigning hard, selling memberships in the riding’s neighbourhoods.

But remember, Mr. Billington boasts he is a member of the Conservative Party’s National Policy Committee and a board member in Prime Minister Harper’s riding, so if anyone is likely to be a recipient of the insider edge, it would seem to be him – unless (very scary thought) it’s the intemperate Mr. Soares of Gatineau, the Candidate Who Most Hates the NDP.

Still, if that’s the insider plan, and if the sun don’t shine, a little spice is added to this race by the possibility either Ms. Crockatt or Mr. Lord may have sold enough memberships to upset Mr. Billington’s apple cart.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Problems with their papers? No word yet on Conservative candidates for Calgary Centre

by David Climenhaga on August 5, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Canadian Politics, Conservative Party of Canada with 1 Comment

Members of the Calgary Centre Conservative Constituency Association puzzle over nomination papers presented by would-be candidates. Alberta political insiders may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: CPC Candidates Joan Crockatt, Joe Soares, Jon Lord and Richard Billington.

Wherever are the Conservative Party of Canada’s Calgary Centre candidates?

Or, more to the point, whoever are they?

Nominations closed Thursday afternoon. According to a report published that day by the Calgary Herald, party officials indicated they expected their internal vetting process could take until this week to figure out who could officially join the race to replace former MP Lee Richardson, who quit in May to become principal Secretary to Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

Still, that long time frame was mainly fudge factor in case of complications, and party insiders had expected to know by now, after which the word would have leaked instantly to various sources in the blogosphere.

All we’re hearing, though, candidates and bloggers alike, is echoing silence.

The delay suggests some of the nomination papers filed are proving problematic.

Conventional wisdom at this point seems to be that there will be six candidates, listed here in alphabetical order:

Of those, it is said here, Mr. Billington, a lawyer and past riding insider, Ms. Crockatt, a former journalist and well-known conservative on-air personality, and Mr. Lord, a businessman and former municipal and provincial politician, all residents of Calgary, are serious contenders. All three continued selling party memberships on riding doorsteps while it mattered. (It doesn’t so much any more, because anyone who joined after last Friday won’t be able to vote.)

The others don’t sound all that serious to me, although Mr. Soares, who is said to live somewhere in Gatineau, Que., has entertainingly tried to define himself as the most Albertan candidate of all, at least in spirit, as well as the Conservative who hates Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair with the passion of a true right-wing Quebecker.

Mr. Soares (or someone) has obviously identified Ms. Crockatt as a frontrunner, devoting a page of his colourful website to attacking her for a mild criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper made seven years ago in a story about MP Belinda Stronach, who had not long before defected from the Conservatives to the Liberal government of prime minister Paul Martin. Oh well, just goes to show that in the digital age, information can be created, but it can never be destroyed…

Mr. Soares is repeatedly identified in the media as a former Quebec advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office, which must be true since nobody’s denied it. No one from his campaign, however, has responded to my queries about his role, whether he was paid for it, how long he advised the PM, what the nature of his advice was, and why he stopped providing it.

Mr. Spargo is best known for flying an Alberta flag over his Calgary house, and Mr. McLean, who is some species of investment advisor in Cowtown, was back in the day president of the federal Conservative youth wing.

Meanwhile, while everyone who is not a Conservative agrees it would be best if New Democrats, Liberals and Greens all supported a single candidate, that pretty clearly remains a political impossibility.

The Liberals are still holding with two approved candidates – conservationist Harvey Locke and teacher Rahim Sajan. Two others were considering running but decided not to, Liberal riding president Arthur McComish informed me last week. It was incorrectly reported here that they had not been given the green light by the party – whoops … sorry! The Liberal nomination vote is scheduled for Sept. 15.

The Greens too have a candidate, with Calgary author Chris Turner and communications consultant William Hamilton named as possibilities.

The only hope for any of the opposition parties would be to find a high-profile candidate that could appeal to supporters of the other two. It was speculated here that for the New Democrats that candidate might turn out to be former Alberta Liberal leader David Swann.

Alas, Dr. Swann, still sitting as an Alberta Liberal MLA for Calgary-Mountain View in the Alberta Legislature, appears to have scotched that suggestion, despite having turned up at a Calgary nursing picket line with a case of Orange Crush for the strikers.

This likely means that whoever wins the Conservative nomination some time during the last week of August is a shoo-in for the seat in the House of Commons, no matter how terrible a candidate that winner proves to be. Ah well, this is Alberta, after all.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Calgary Centre Conservative nomination fight takes a turn, but Joan Crockatt’s still the frontrunner

by David Climenhaga on July 30, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Canadian Politics with 4 Comments

Your blogger with Joan Crockatt: Remember, when the author of this blog appears in a picture with a politician, it does not imply endorsement – he just can’t help himself! Below: Nomination candidate Jon Lord and contest dropout John Mar.

The battle for the Conservative nomination in the Calgary Centre by-election, which was widely expected to be a race between an economic conservative and a Red Tory, seems to have turned into one between the economic conservative and a candidate backed by social conservatives.

This is seen to be an important contest because it’s generally assumed here in Alberta, and especially in Calgary, that thanks to a docile electorate whomever wins the Conservative nomination automatically becomes the Member of Parliament.

So, right from the start, the race to replace MP Lee Richardson was certain to be vigorously contested. Mr. Richardson, one of the last Red Tories in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s neoconservative-dominated caucus, announced on May 30 he was quitting to become Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary.

But early on, after a large crowd of potential candidates was quickly winnowed down to a serious few, the contest looked like it was going to be between Joan Crockatt, a former newspaper journalist and high-profile on-air commentator known for her market-fundamentalist economic views, and John Mar, a Calgary alderman and former RCMP beat cop who called Mr. Richardson his mentor.

That was then. Last week, just a week before nominations were scheduled to close, Mr. Mar suddenly pulled out of the race, saying his young family, which once supported the idea, didn’t support it any more.

Strange explanation, and who knows what was really behind it. Maybe it was his wife and kids – although, if you ask me, it was less than graceful to let them wear the last-minute decision. Maybe it was some sharp advice about time management from Stephen Carter, the political strategist behind Premier Redford’s April 23 victory, who is was reported to have signed on to help Mr. Mar’s campaign. Maybe his cousin Gary Mar, the recently unsuccessful provincial Tory leadership candidate, had something to say. Or maybe word came down from Ottawa that Mr. Harper was less than enthusiastic about having any more Red Tories in his hard-edged caucus.

Whatever it was, Mr. Mar’s decision clearly left Ms. Crockatt as the obvious frontrunner. And while she states unequivocally that she’s pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, she’s as conservative as they come on economic issues and in that regard would fit right in with Mr. Harper’s harsh neoconservative crowd in Ottawa.

Ms. Crockatt’s only potential problem, according to the Calgary newspaper she once worked for, is that she hasn’t held a Conservative Party card for more than six months as technically required by party rules. But as Ms. Crockatt told me, waivers are routine, and there’s “no reason to expect it wouldn’t be granted, based on my record.”

With Mr. Mar out of the race, though, Ms. Crockatt faces a surprisingly vigorous and well-organized challenge from Jon Lord, a former two-term Calgary alderman and Progressive Conservative MLA who clearly has strong support in social conservative circles. That said, it is very hard to know what Mr. Lord’s personal views are in areas such as women’s right to reproductive choice and same-sex marriage because he has said very little about them.

Despite an aggressive style and a varied political career, Mr. Lord cannot be called a strong candidate when it comes to appealing to the general public in the riding. In addition to his single term in the Alberta Legislature, humiliatingly ended by a Liberal, he ran for mayor of Calgary in 2010 and received just 0.4 per cent of the vote. He tried and failed to get a provincial PC nomination last year and was essentially told to get lost by the party, and none too politely either.

Worse, Mr. Lord’s campaign is being helped out by Craig Chandler, who is described on his Wikipedia pages as a “businessman, pundit, and political and religious activist.” (Emphasis added.) Mr. Chandler has a long and well-established history of activities with fringe political parties, frequent and unsuccessful bids for political office, and controversy surrounding his vociferously expressed anti-gay-rights views. He used to answer his telephone by barking “Happy Capitalism!” – really, I’m not making that up. In 2007, he was denied a PC nomination in a Calgary riding by the governing provincial party’s clearly horrified executive.

Mr. Chandler, in other words, can be fairly described as electoral poison. Guilt by association though this may be, on the grounds of his role in the Lord campaign alone, Mr. Lord seems unlikely to be able to successfully challenge Ms. Crockatt.

But it also makes Mr. Lord a dangerous challenger. After all, a nomination election isn’t the same thing as a regular election with real voters instead of party insiders and recruits just signed up by a candidate. Thoughts of busloads of fundamentalist church members being taken to nomination polls next Thursday to vote for Mr. Lord must surely keep Ms. Crockatt awake at night!

There are now three other known candidates in the race: riding executive and sometime car salesman Stefan Spargo, whose sole claim to fame seems to be that he flies an Alberta flag on his house, and former chef Jordan Katz, whom the media keep describing as a “political strategist” for some reason, and who once ran as a Tory candidate in southern Ontario, have been there for a while. It’s said here neither stands the chance of the proverbial snowball in Hades. In addition, on Thursday, political commentator Kady O’Malley reported on her CBC blog that she had been told by an anonymous tipster a former PMO Quebec advisor named Joe Soares had indicated he would also join the race. Ms. O’Malley says Mr. Soares lists only an Ottawa address. In fact, as of right now, though, only Ms. Crockatt has officially filed papers.

By any sensible measure, Ms. Crockatt remains the only credible candidate still standing in this nomination race, which should make her nomination in Calgary Centre likely, even easy.

(A disclaimer: I have known Ms. Crockatt for many years and, in fact, once worked under her direct supervision at the Calgary Herald. I was not enamoured of her managerial style, although I like her personally. I disagree profoundly with her economic views. However, I recognize her undoubted energy and talents as a campaigner.)

None of this means, however, that the actual election will be an automatic victory for the Conservatives – notwithstanding the fact that’s the way things often turn out in Alberta. Very soon, we’ll discuss how a candidate for another party could beat Ms. Crockatt in the by-election, and why that might just happen.

A date for the by-election has not yet been set.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.