Thursday, March 31, 2011

Election Fever? in Calgary?

There's a rumour that a federal election has been called, although you wouldn't know it by the absense of Jason Kenney. For those of us who follow the political news and just happen to be "other than Conservative" (I know, I know, we're seen as an endangered species in Alberta...), we see real opportunities for gains. Not that we expect any wins in Calgary South East, not this time, anyway.

However, the Conservative Party faces a serious lack of ethics, having lost the confidence of the House of Commons over it's secrecy and inability to see the HoC as a necessary part of the democratic process, with four senior advisors charged with elections fraud, a former senior advisor under investigation for illegal lobbying, and the list goes on. In fact, Jason Kenney is under investigation for a couple of issues - using HoC money and staff to do party politics, and hiring a private citizen to "fast-track" immigration visas from India (wonder what the price of immigrating goes for these days??? a few votes, perhaps?). I find it awfully convenient for the Minister of Immigration to also be named as the CPoC recruiting lead for immigrants.

Then, there is a lack of any kind of visionary policy development. Instead, they throw money at the issue-du-jour, and attack the opposition on perceived personality defects with the concept that a good offence is better than good defense.

With that, I'm off to our campaign kickoff event, where we present our new candidate and lots of good policy - Family Care, Pensions, and a Canada we can be proud of.