The Livingstone-Macleod Constituency Association and Take Back Alberta

My answer to Mr. Raynard is that, although I appreciate his view, there is no way on earth I would ever vote NDP.

I remember when Shannon Phillips came to the Crowsnest Pass to dictate to our community that she was creating the Castle Wildlands Park. She showed up unannounced in a little cafe, that could barely hold 50 people, to announce it. What she didn’t do was inform anyone in the community that it was happening. She didn’t contact Council, and she didn’t contact this newspaper. 

Although some feel that the exorbitant spending of the NDP during their tenure was okay, I’m here to tell you it is far from okay for me. This province is still trying to dig itself out of the hole the NDP put us in, forcing the UCP to slash everything to just try to get our province out from under a mountain of debt. 

Do I agree with everything that the UCP cut? Absolutely not. What I do agree with is fiscal responsibility. Council is not allowed under the Municipal Government Act to run this community at a deficit, so I’m not sure why it’s okay for the provincial and federal counterparts to do it.

I don’t run my household under a mountain of debt, so it makes sense to me that my government should not either.

I have also received a few phone calls from members of the Livingstone-Macleod Constituency Association (LMCA). These members explained to me that the Local Constituency Nominating Committee (LCNC) is comprised of three members from the Constituency Board and two members at large and run autonomous to the board. They indicated that the polling stations and times were set before candidate nomination took place and that all was above board.

I thanked them for the information and explained why this nomination experience tweaked my radar. These are the reasons: 

Firstly, if a candidate had a member of the Take Back Alberta (TBA) faction actively working on their campaign during the nomination, and if that same person was also an executive member of the LMCA, it feels wrong to me. Perhaps it’s legal according to election rules, but one must question how it is perceived.

Second, the person in charge as the Returning Officer was completely belligerent to me and that felt awful and antagonistic.

Third, the LMCA Annual General Meeting felt hostile to me and felt like a takeover of the previous board. You add all these things in as one and it just feels off.

So, I thanked these members for the clarification, regarding which made me feel a lot better about the nomination election itself, and asked them to bring my opinion to the table. Specifically, that I will have a much easier time voting UCP if my newly elected representative distances herself from the TBA faction. I will also feel better if our elected representative states that they are in no way under the thumb of any TBA members.

If all these things happen, then perhaps people like me will feel a lot better voting UCP. 

Perhaps, if we get back to a moderate base, people like me will feel like we still have a party to vote for. 

Perhaps if Barry Morishita gets his act together and starts to campaign for the Alberta Party, we may have options. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The same person who called to correct me about the LCNC procedure stated that if I was that judgemental about the LMCA Board, I should join it. 

I said I certainly would join the LMCA. At the AGM we had a local person put his name forward on the board and guess what he didn’t make the cut.