What is Change?

Rob Bernshaw, Letter to the Editor

It seems like the word ‘Change’ has been floated around quite a bit lately in the world of political intrigue. Change is a popular phrase used in our everyday lives and the meaning of the word could range anywhere from a change of socks, to the change jingling in our hands when we pay for products or services we use.
How many Albertans are truly aware of the many registered political parties, there are available to choose from?


There are currently nine registered political parties in Alberta listed as of January 2012 on the Elections Alberta website:

• Alberta Liberal Party (Leader - MLA Dr. Raj Sherman)
• Alberta New Democratic Party (Leader - MLA Brian Mason)
• Alberta Party (Leader - Glenn Taylor)
• Alberta Social Credit Party (Leader - Len Skowronski)
• Communist Party – Alberta (Leader - Naomi Rankin)
• Evergreen Party of Alberta Leader - Larry Ashmore)
• Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta (Leader – MLA Allison Redford)
• Separation Party of Alberta (Leader – Bruce Hutton)
• Wildrose Alliance Party (Leader – Danielle Smith)

Each of the above parties feel they have the best interests of all Albertans at heart, and are promoting their view of change, on how Alberta is to be governed in order to regain the Alberta advantage. Each of the parties are probably well meaning and full of good intention at the beginning of their political journey, but as time passes it seems that the road of good intent becomes blurred with a fog induced haze, that blinds the vision all parties started with. We are all looking for a better future for ourselves and our posterity. As time quickly approaches for a 2012 Alberta provincial election, we need to take a step back and fully evaluate what each party is saying to us, as Albertans and voters to be wooed.
Are they on the path to true democratic reform and is each party still promoting values that we as Albertans hold dear to our hearts, or are they all cut from the same political cloth, of constituents last and politicians first?

The Alberta Liberal Party under the direction and leadership of Dr. Raj Sherman are promoting “Yes to a better Alberta”.
That is a nice catch phrase, that all of us in Alberta hope and pray for in our own ways everyday.
In a November 2010 press release at the Alberta Legislature building in Edmonton, Alberta; Danielle Smith Leader of the Wildrose Party made the following public comments:
“Never before has a small group of unelected advisors had such vast influence over public policy and the direction of our province.
Never before have Albertans been listened to less and dictated to more. And never before has the government been less of a willing servant and more of an arbitrary master. Alberta is in the grips of a democratic crisis and Albertans are looking not only for the ideas that could restore our democracy but the principled leadership that it will take to put them into action. So much of what’s wrong with our democratic process stems from the expectation of strict caucus discipline. “

Here is a challenge issued to every registered Alberta political party leader, to take a look at themselves in the mirror to see if the same unelected advisors are directly influencing the decisions, they have personally made; to hold true to the path and vision that got them involved in politics in the first place.
Are principles being comprised for the sake of advice and direction from respective party advisers; that have their own agenda in this political game?

Remember Alberta become informed. Get the information needed and dig out the facts to make a very informed decision at the polls. Make your vote count in the upcoming 2012 Alberta provincial election. Let us see this as a year of change and become the year that the most voters have ever turned out in the History of Alberta politics. Let your voice be heard loud and clear and let us voters be the change that Alberta needs to go forward into the future.

From a very concerned Alberta voter.
Thank you for your time in this regard

"The official's heart must stand at attention before his mind."
- A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky