(no subject)

[frandroid]

Richard Gwyn sometimes spews out completely random garbage. He's got some insights but I refuse to read his column in the Star. I'm reading an article he published in Policy Options a few years back, before the Alliance/PC merger, positing Canada as a one-party state (not just post-1993, but since Confederation, although in a more acute form between 1993 and 2003). He spends a bit talking about how having a one-party state is not necessarily a bad thing, and there he goes:

"Perhaps our best-run province, Alberta, has been a one-party state for almost three quarters of a century, experiencng in that time just one political change, from right-of-centre Social Credit to centre-right Conservative. The Albertan style of democracy has also typically been chracterized by weak oppositions in the legislature and buy the absence of a tradition of press or public dissent, and yet Albertans don't seem to be living in an undemocratic society."

Now, can someone, maybe mrputter, explain to me how Albertan democracy works? If there's no dissent, no opposition, no nothing, and yet it's democratic? I can make some allowances, but I don't quite grasp where I'm supposed to make them.

Comments

[icecreamemperor.livejournal.com]

If everyone who doesn't agree with the decisions of a government refuses to participate in the government, and leaves the province, then perforce all decisions of the government are in accordance with the will of the people.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

RIGHT! :]

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

Had I the energy, the patience, and the contacts, I suspect I would have found it interesting to see what parallels, if any, there were between Alberta, Washington DC, and Singapore, and their respective implementations of systems approximating one party states.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

Hey I recall Art Hanger trundling off to Singapore to look into caning, in more forthright days...

One of the only times I ever wrote a politician a letter. He replied, by the way, and took up specific points in my letter. In an assholeish way, of course.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, caning, awesome. Too bad Harper is keeping them all under wraps these days. He's definitely stiffling much creative activity there... the Conservative Loonies Performance Art Collective

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

> no nothing, and yet it's

Dude!!!

We've had no fewer than three changes of government in the last... umm.... hundred and one... years......




Yeah!!

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

Also, and seriously this time, you'd never think it by looking at that graph, but some of the most progressive and forward-thinking (ok, not "lefty" but still) policies Alberta's ever had were brought in by the Lougheed gov't in 1976 - 1980.

Speaking from an environmental point of view, anyway.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

After which his life work became fighting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, am I correct?

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

He's got company there with René Lévesque... :]

That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part I

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

> explain to me how Albertan democracy

I've been waffling most of the evening, trying to decide whether this was a sarcastic quip or a serious question. In a bout of insomnia, I've finally decided on the latter. :-)


Al Bertah truly is a one-party state, in every way that really counts. As per the graph I posted above, there never really has been a provincial opposition worth speaking about; nor is there ever really any meaningful turnover in government—even those few times when the party in power does change, they've all had very similar platforms (save for when the Liberals were turfed waay back in 1921), and the change has been prompted more by endemic corruption (or widespread belief therein) than by any real desire to change policy or government direction.

Things looked (as I understand; obviously I was neither an Al Bertah resident nor a voter at the time) promising in 1993 when there was widespread dissatisfaction with Don Getty, but Sheikh Klein's ascendancy pretty much put an end to that spike of Liberal popularity.

Which leaves us where we are now. Similar current dissatisfaction with Klein, but it's unlikely this will mean widespread regime change; rather more likely just tumult within the party which will, externally, continue as before.

The upshot of all this is that the government behaves, to some extent, as do single-party governments everywhere. As there is no opposition to speak of to Conservative policies, those which are set become enshrined as a matter of course. And decisions on policy are predicate to lobbying groups (generally Big Business) promising to fill Conservative coffers in return for favourable bills. Which is more-or-less what happens.

The (place I work) has long long ago ceased to put any real faith in the provincial government, and instead operates largely via the corporate vector. Interactions with the gov't are performed mostly as a formality, with the expectation that, token platitudes aside, nothing much will ever come of them. We are rarely surprised, tho' the aforementioned current tumult within Sheikh Klein's majlis has resulted in some surprising progress in the last 6-8 months. Still, little has been finalized.

We are in a sense lucky in Al Bertah to be living in an era of (relative) corporate enlightenment, and some companies are actually quite reasonable to deal with. Shell, Husky, PetroCan and Weyerhaeuser, to name a few, are generally willing to work with us. There are of course some companies: ConocoPhillips, EnCana, Spray Lakes, that are horrible. Most fall somewhere in between.

What this means, of course, is that if there is a specific area where the only companies involved are not so enlightened, well, there's little recourse. McLellan Fen, north of Fort McMoney, is a disaster zone, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.

That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part II

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

Depending on the fickle winds of Canadian politics, however, there may be a check in place. Al Bertah's "official opposition" is, of course... the federal government.

Politics in Al Bertah run not so much along a government-opposition line, as in most other legislative parliaments, but rather along a provincial-federal line.

Until last Winter's election, our one recourse at work was to appeal to the Ottawa government (or a branch thereof) to overrule provincial policy (or, more likely, continually pester Edmonton so that attrition would wear Klein's cronies down to the point where they'd just cave in rather than expend more resources fighting the matter).

Which makes for one of the screwiest systems of government ever. But I digress.


THIS is of course, the reason behind Al Bertah's insistence on such issues as devolution of federal powers, elected senators, and so on.

So currently, with a federal government in place that is idealogically friendly with the Al Berti majlis, one may read between the lines as implying a "strong majority" for the (provincial) Conservatives.

Until recently, with a more hostile Liberal government in Ottawa, the implication would be that the Jester in Edmonton held power in a weaker court—perhaps not a minority per sé, but a much "slimmer majority."

Were the NDP to be elected federally, HAH! Then we would see the closest possible thing to a true minority government in this crazy mixed up province.




All this as I see it, of course. Rather heavily filtered through my experiences @ work.

Re: That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part II

[culpster.livejournal.com]

So for the unwashed, where *do* you work? (I'm trying to make sense of the above post about corporate enlightenment...)

And does Jim Dinning remind anyone else of the ultra-hateful yuppie in Naked? Just asking.

Re: That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part II

[mrputter.livejournal.com]

> for the unwashed, where *do*

Oh, heh. Just a non-profit Environmental Org. Pretty Alberta-specific, so not likely you've ever heard of it, unless you've lived in the province.

Re: That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part II

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Al Bertah's "official opposition" is, of course... the federal government.

Gwyn actually made this point somewhere else in the article. Even if other provinces don't quite sport the same type of dynastic rule, the powers of the provinces are even more concentrated in the hands of their premiers, for many of them, the only opposition comes from Ottawa.

Re: That wacky oil-rich sultanate, Part I

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

whether this was a sarcastic quip

I intended it that way when I started the post, but then I realized that I don't know much about Al Bertah and had to check to make sure I didn't miss the obvious.

in an era of (relative) corporate enlightenment

When you're rolling in dollar bills, you can afford it...