Redford touts ‘dynamic dialogue’ on issues
The era of political parties meeting just once a year to talk policy is over, Premier Alison Redford said as Progressive Conservatives from across Alberta gathered in Edmonton over the weekend to debate the party’s principles and path.
“If you think about your own family, you don’t talk about whatever issue you care about once a year at a conference. You talk about it at the kitchen table, in the dining room,” Redford said Saturday after a 45-minute question and answer session with an audience of about 400 party members.
The meeting marked the PC party’s first policy conference in three years after interruptions by a leadership race in 2011, which Redford won, and a provincial election in April 2012.
After using her opening speech Friday to announce new policy advisory committees open to PC members designed to closely coordinate with government MLAs, Redford said grassroots Tories want to take part in a “real-time conversation” about issues.
“The model that was in place before I became leader didn’t allow for enough dynamic dialogue,” she said. “Now we have the opportunity to do that.”
PC party executive director Kelley Charlebois said he sensed a pent-up energy among party members to discuss issues, rather than the questions about personality or Redford’s upcoming leadership review in the fall.
“I think what’s going to come out of (Saturday) is a whole bunch of energy over the summer that’s going to result in some real policy initiatives coming forward to the annual general meeting in the fall,” he said.
As PCs talked policy inside the hotel, Tim Kabarchuk willingly faced off outside against a large, inflatable mallet.
As one of about 500 protesters who came to the “Block the Party” event organized by Public Interest Alberta, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and other groups, Kabarchuk volunteered for a human version of Whack-AMole under a painted WhackA-Broken Promise banner.
“It’s just a fun way to repeat and to emphasize the difference between what was promised to everyone and what’s being delivered now,” said Kabarchuk, pausing briefly from popping his head through a plywood cut-out and shouting PC promises from the 2012 election related to postsecondary education, public education and plans to help Alberta’s most vulnerable.
“Getting hit with a soft plastic mallet is a small price to pay,” he said. “Just look at how much fun everyone is having.”
The protest was the latest display of frustration against Redford’s government in the wake of the 2013-14 budget delivered in March. It included cuts to post-secondary education, some programs for disabled Albertans, and smaller increases than promised in areas like health and education.
Though PC party members inside the conference seemed content with the budget, the people outside, who came by bus from as far as Lethbridge and Grande Prairie, talked about the damage it will cause.
Policy sessions were closed to the media.
But Tourism Minister Richard Starke and Jordan Lien, constituency president for the southern Alberta riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat, offered their perspectives on conversations that took place behind closed doors.
Starke said there was an animated discussion about the best way to encourage healthy, active lives for kids. Should Alberta offer a provincial tax credit that mirrors the federal credit for youth sports programs?
“No absolute consensus is coming out of it, other than it’s important through education to encourage a higher level of activity among people of all ages,” Starke said.
Lien said that in a policy session on taxes, opinion was split on the merits of a sales tax or the need to consider changing Alberta’s flat tax.