Calgary Federal Politics

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by fusili

Well, it's all said and done now. I think all groups fought hard and ran good campaigns and all should be respected for that. Unfortunately, we have a candidate that I do not think is a good representative for the riding.

This election does demonstrate how much "vote-splitting" needs to be addressed. While I prefer a mixed member proportional system, I do agree with Malcolm that something like a Instant Runoff Vote is a good idea. The question is, why didn't the Liberal Party do anything about First Past the Post when they had massive majorities in the 90s? The other issue is the question of whether the left can really unite. I, for instance, would vote Conservative over NDP (holding my nose the entire time), and I am not alone.

The one thing that really upset me in the race is the horrible vitriol that was directed at the Turner campaign (which I was deeply involved with) and the Greens in general from the Liberal Party in particular. The level of condescension and anger directed at Turner supporters was pretty off-putting.

What I think the Federal Liberal Party in Alberta needs to understand is that they are not entitled to the "progressive vote" here. In order to gain people's support, they need to speak to your values and respect their thoughts. Calling people "dirty hippies" or "Tory hipsters" doesn't bring people to your cause. Imagine if Stephan Harper and Peter Mackay used such language against each other when trying to merge the Alliance and PCs.

In the end, it was a very interesting time in Calgary's federal political history.

Fighting separatism. The pledge was no major changes as the country had just fought two constitutional battles.

One reason I support runoff versus other reform methods is I don't believe it to be a major enough change to need authority of the people to implement unlike the proposed changes in Ontario and BC that were major enough to need votes. That being said, the UK held a vote on implementing IRV, but I don't think that was necessary.