I have been spending the last few days drilling down on the Wildrose agenda and candidates and have come up with some very alarming things. Yes, I did obsessively read every single candidates profile online and noted their gender, race and profession or background. Not surprisingly most of them are from or involved deeply in Oil Companies and other big business, what I did think was kinda weird was the large number of Real Estate people (10% of candidates) and candidates coming from the Forestry Industry (7% of candidates), does this have meaning? I'm not sure but I have met enough Real Estate agents to know that I trust them about as much as a used car salesman! What really has meaning here though is the glaring white-maleness of the Party, White Men make up 88% of the Party, 12% are Women and 4% are visible minorities. Compare to Conservatives at 23% women and 14% visible minorities, Liberals at 21% women and 13% visible minorities and the NDP at 39% women and 6% visible minorities. Yeah, we do have a long way to go when it comes to representing women in our politics but clearly the Wildrose Party is a step backward in representation of all Albertans.
So, who are the Wildrose representing? A simple Wikipedia search reveals a short history of the Party, formed out of the Alberta Alliance Party, and the Social Credit Party who apparently were so full of Christian Evangelicals they raised concerns about limiting the number of Mormons forming the new Wildrose Alliance Party back in 2008. If you think that sounds crazy have a look at the the many Evangelicals in the US who also raised concerns over Mitt Romney's Presidential Candidacy, Evangelicals don't think Mormons are Christians but merely a cult. Anyway, I digress, the Wildrose Alliance drew many supporters from the old Reform Party, and still have deep ties to many in Stephen Harper's government, including the very sleepy and irritable Rob Anders. For me the scariest of the Wildrose candidates today include;
Link Byfield, running in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock, publisher of the Right-Wing Alberta Report Magazine, my mom was an avid reader so I am very familiar with it, and also the founder of Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, a lovely group of people including Ralph Klein, Jason Kenney, Preston Manning and Alberta separatist Leon Craig. They advocate that Provinces should have the right to decide social and moral issues on their own, through referendum, and despise the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
John Carpay, running in Calgary-Lougheed, in 1994 he wrote an op-ed in The National Post criticizing Ralph Klein for not invoking the non withstanding clause on gay marriage. Recently he was part of the legal team defending anti-gay activist Bill Whatcott. Mr Whatcott has a wonderful history of distributing anti-gay flyers in Calgary,as well as anti-abortion flyers and anti-Islam flyers, he was recently detained by the Calgary Police for graphic anti-gay literature delivered to North West Calgary homes.
Ron Leech, running in Calgary-Greenway, an Evangelical Pastor who wrote an article in The Calgary Herald in 2004 that said " to affirm homosexuality is to distort the image of God, to insult the nature and being of God." But he looks like such a nice 60 year old white guy!
Don Koziak, Edmonton-Glenora, I'll bet my Edmonton friends know him from his Mayoral bid in 2010 where he said LRT expansion was "enormously environmentally unfriendly" and proposed more intersections and wider roads instead, drive baby drive, right after we drill baby drill!!!! I guess???
Andrew Constantinidis, Calgary-West candidate who was Rob Anders' Constituency President and Media Coordinator. Just reading this guys resume one really wonders why and how he could serve as an MLA? He has held senior positions in Exxon Mobile, Citibank,Deutche Bank and is currently VP of an Oil Company. It reminds me of the old George W. Bush days with all the big oil connections, it was stuff like this that inspired Michael Moore's bookStupid White Men. Can you say conflict of interest, are you representing people or your own oil company???
Allan Hunsperger, Edmonton-South West, yet another religiously driven character in this crew and a fairly influential one. He founded Heritage Christian Schools in Alberta 30 years ago and also helped change the law in Canada to bring us Christian Radio stations. Wow and they call the gays a special interest group? His bio also lists his involvement with youth sports and inspiring them to become "world-changers". Yikes, I remember when articles inAlberta Report would rant on about the Communists and Socialists brainwashing our children, a large number of these Wildrose guys cite how involved they are in Youth groups.
Danielle Smith, running in Highwood and also Party Leader, her only political experience is serving one year as a trustee on the Calgary Board of Education. She was on a Global National Sunday show no longer in existence, and as a political pundit on radio and TV, yay for her, so are people like Ann Coulter, doesn't mean you know anything but can argue and shout down people. She also describes herself a "moderate Libertarian", whatever that means, like being a little bit pregnant or a moderate Nazi I suppose? I'm guessing she is Libertarian when it comes to her religious friends distaste for gays and abortions but maybe not Libertarian when it comes to Civil Rights in general. I think Libertarian is just a ruse to sound appealing to a general audience and to cover-up the very radical Right Wing ideas of her party. The old switch and bait, don't get sold down the river Albertans!
I also spent a couple of painful hours reading the Wildrose online policy platform, and surprise I was not impressed! In fact, most of it just left me scratching my head and thinking, huh?, many issues they bring up are Federal not Provincial! Despite its whining tone of change and practically calling the Alberta Conservative Party corrupt Socialists in league with Fidel Castro, the lovely stock footage of people of colour, Alberta scenery, and red-necks toting rifles, a few things pop out. There is a laundry list of Stephen Harper platforms such as ending the long-gun registry, electing the Senate, and marine laws that apply to oil shipping, which are not Provincial issues no matter how much money and influence Alberta thinks it has.Strangely, the Wildrose would like to control Immigration to Alberta because Quebec does as well as pull out of the Canada Pension Plan,CPP, and have an Alberta Pension Plan instead, sounds complicated as we are still allowed freedom of movement in Canada thus far and perhaps another battle with Federal issues that we don't need to have.
Quite stupidly the policy statement includes "The discussion surrounding Global Warming has become highly emotional. There is obviously still healthy scientific debate as to the extent man made emissions of CO2 are affecting global temperatures-and this debate will likely carry on for many years." It's like the discussion over weather the Earth or the Sun was the centre of the Universe 500 years ago. There is no debate over Global Warming in science, it is only the oil companies and the politicians that support them that this issue became emotional at all. It just illustrates where exactly these folks stand, maybe one day they will get emotional over Evolution, don't say I didn't warn ya!
On Education, which actually is a Provincial mandate, not surprisingly they would like to divert Public funding to Private Schools and would like to encourage more freedom in choice for parents. Which to me is code language for sending your kids to religious schools so they don't have to learn secular ideas like science, civil rights or equality. I wonder if Smith would make someone like Allan Hunsperger Minister of Education???
The scariest issue for me is the repeal of certain lines of the Human Rights Act, namely the part that's about spreading hate through print or media, but not to the point of genocide! Gosh, the Wildrose Party isn't the Nazi Party!!! They hate you but don't say they want to kill you! Anyway, the Justice, Policing and Human Rights chapter of their manifesto is one of the largest parts, because they are very concerned about Human Rights, namely that people like me have them! One of the nuttiest things in this document under the Human Rights chapter is "...the Human Rights Commission in Alberta have probably been the single worst offenders of Rights ie: freedom of speech: politically correct activists have used them to punish religious and right-wing social commentators." I know because the real victims are the religious and right wing who only have The Sun The Herald and Sun Media TV to push their views, like publishing articles from Link Byfield and Ron Leech, as well as the Religion Column in The Herald on weekends, I'm still waiting for the Gay Column, even bi-weekly! It's also a lot like the time I received a post-card from an unidentified religious group, before Parliament voted on gay marriage in 2005, that equated gay marriage to terrorism and said it would be the downfall of society. I wonder if it was because I appeared on my local Global Newstelling them that I would contact the Human Rights Commission that they got scared of people like me? Well I did file a complaint, it took months and nothing ever happened legally or financially, but thought I got my point across. Since I have such a personal view of this issue it is not hard for me to imagine what they want to do, namely try to scare folks about the gays, scare women with bloody pictures of abortion and likely go on a Crusade about Islam just like their friend Bill Whatcott. But not to advocate genocide, jeese, we only want to scare the Lord into ya!
This is also indicative of their platform to put civil rights issue to popular votes. No, absolutely not, it is unconstitutional let alone immoral and undemocratic, it is a battle they will lose Federally and a total waste of time on their part. We are foremost Canadians, Albertans second or third, until then we live under the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it's also the thing that allows any nut-case to believe any religion they want and myself to love anyone I want. There is not great threat to anyone here only one that exists in the mind of the self appointed righteous.
So, there's a few reasons why I think the Wildrose is unfit to govern, it's too radical, too religious, too male, too Separatist, too Republican! I watch a lot of American Politics, it's my hobby. So I can tell you a lot about where these Oil people and graduates of Brigham Young University, like party founder Paul Hinman, are coming from, which is the radical right wing of Republicans. They despise energy conservation, especially electric and hybrid cars, they still love trickle down economics and think it works. They hate the poor and gay marriage but have found hating the gays too unpopular and since have switched to abortion issues. Did you know over 200 anti-abortion laws have been passed by Republican led states this year? So much for the Tea-Party charge of lower taxes and more jobs! The Tea Party Republicans are trying everywhere to pull funding of Planned Parenthood and force unnecessary Untrasound on women seeking abortions. This my friends is where I think the Wildrose Party is coming from, most Canadians are just too innocent and polite to think it could happen here.
Please inform as many people as you can with my research, there are a lot of innocent people out there who just don't know what they're voting for.
