New Leader For The Wild Rose.

[Walleyes]

Not sure who is aware of this but the Wild Rose has elected a new leader, Brian Jean.

All though I have had little contact with Brian over the past 25 years or so I did know him quite well at one time. Our families were quite close for a number of years. Brian comes from good stock and was raised in a strong Conservative environment. Yes his resume includes being a lawyer and MP but i don't want this to persuade people from what they  may think of him. From what I have heard he has remained strong to his up bringing. Brian has a strong moral upbringing which is something that I feel is important in a politician.

I for one have some renewed hope in the party with Brian at the lead, enough at least to give him the benefit of the doubt for now and see what direction he takes us in. For those that care and have been watching I truly believe he will be a strong Conservative leader.

Lets get behind him and see where it goes.

 http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/28/gunter-wildrose-gaining-on-pcs

[Sonny]

I really don't know much about him but I'm willing to give him a chance.

[Paul]

I would give this guy a chance can't be any worse than it is anyways.

[Weste]

There aren't any other options.  I am sure the PC's will get elected again due to the fact that there are no other viable options.

[jboutdoors5]

Unfortunately, I think Rick is right. People love to hate the PC's but they keep voting for them. I don't know much about the new leader at all, I do know Drew Barnes, thought he might have had a chance. I really hope the PC's are out this time, I'm just not 100% behind the Wild Rose party either.

[Tuc]

I too think the PC's will get elected again. Brian is the new guy on the block, lets see what he can bring to the table to sway the voters.

[Sonny]

I too think the PC's will get elected again. Brian is the new guy on the block, lets see what he can bring to the table to sway the voters.

Couple friends at work know Brian and they have noting but praise for the man.

That's a good sign..

[AxeMan]

I don't know of the man at all.  I do wish the best to him if he is does have honest morals.
He has a huge hill to climb.  I am in the "once bitten, twice shy" group.
The WR has so much to put behind them and regain trust, an almost impossible task after the level of treason that most of the old party displayed.

The only strategy that would impress me is to lay out a complete Party platform and economic plan (in detail, not generalizations) for all to see.  Provide a realistic alternative.
Their website is really just a bunch of very generalized statements; how about a balance sheet or a complete alternative budget with monetary figures and a bottom line? A lot of what they say is do more with less; is that realistic?  Actually, if you take the time to read their website, their message is not a lot different than the PC's.  With the information that is there for us to see, I have a hard time believing that they would govern much differently than the PC's.  Even Danielle has made that admission now she has defected.
 
If they just bash the PC's as Danielle did for much of her time, they will sink out of sight.

Brian Jean, to be successful, you must be different and than your predecessors.  People will demand realistic alternatives and detail, not political rhetoric.  Any political hack is good at that old game.

[Walleyes]

Don't get discouraged everyone,, now more than ever we need a change.. Lets not let them win,, divide and conquer was there strategy lets not let them have their day.

Some news from the W.R.

Alberta Wildrose party leader envisions a different-looking oilpatch

Claudia Cattaneo | April 6, 2015 | Last Updated: Apr 6 7:00 PM ET

“It’s the wild west up in Fort McMurray,” says the leader of the official Opposition, suited up for a get-to-know meeting with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Brian Jean, the newly elected leader of Alberta’s Wildrose Party, doesn’t put much stock in opinion polls, even as they show he’s got a fighting chance of scuttling the carefully orchestrated re-confirmation of the province’s long-ruling Tories under the new leadership of Jim Prentice.

“Our government has been in power for 44 years … and to think that an upstart little party like Wildrose made up of ordinary Albertans is going to be able to take them down is, quite frankly, humorous,” Jean says over coffee Monday, on the eve of an expected election call in Alberta. “I am running to hold them to account. I want to make sure that someone keeps their feet to the fire.”

But if by some “miracle”  Jean, 52, gets to form the next Alberta government, life for the oilpatch could look a lot different.

The lawyer, former Conservative MP for Fort McMurray-Athabasca, and admirer of the late premier Peter Lougheed, doesn’t like what’s happening in the province’s oilsands region and wants to change it.


“It’s the wild west up in Fort McMurray,” says the leader of the official Opposition, suited up for a get-to-know meeting with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Too many licences have been handed out to developers competing with each other on all levels, he says, driving up costs, requiring the import of labour from across Alberta and around the world, while forcing workers to spend hours a day commuting to oilsands plants before 12-hour shifts. Meanwhile, the provincial government is running up a deficit after an oil price crash that should have been planned for. With 50% of the world’s free oil, he says the region is too important to be poorly run.

“I would suggest that the pace of the oilsands doesn’t need to be sporadic,” says Jean, whose party is tied for voter support with the Tories, according to recent polls. “It needs to be well-planned. We have to have a long-term vision. We have 1.9 trillion barrels, a gift from God. And what do we do with it? We give licences to people who sporadically come in and control our life and diminish our quality of life.”

First floated by Lougheed, the idea of provincially managed oilsands growth may be heresy to the oil establishment, which would rather call the shots itself, and a better fit for the left than for the Wildrose, which with its slash-spending mantra sits at the right of Prentice’s Tories.

Prentice’s answer, which reflects the wants of the oil community, has been to support oil sands growth by building more export pipelines while ratcheting up the province’s climate change policies.


I would suggest that the pace of the oilsands doesn’t need to be sporadic

Yet Jean (pronounced like blue jean), who replaced Danielle Smith after her unsuccessful defection to Prentice’s ranks, said the province is already interfering in the oil economy, but it’s doing it poorly. “If you are going to interfere, do it right,” he says, stressing that if elected he would be very hands-on to ensure the benefits of the oilsands are more directed at Albertans.

“There are up to 60,000 to 80,000 [oil workers] in Alberta at any one time that pay taxes in other provinces,” he says. “They live in camps. Their quality of life is not good and so they go on national TV and talk about what a bad place it is. That is because they live in a work camp. If you want to move to Fort McMurray and work, move to Fort McMurray and work.”

Like Prentice, Jean wants to see construction of more oil export pipelines to eliminate the discount on Canadian oil because of its dependence on the U.S. market.

He says his pipeline strategy will be announced during the campaign, but hinted he supports greater value creation in Alberta, including refining and upgrading. It’s another area of potential discord with the oil industry, which would rather make use of its own systems than build new facilities at high cost in the province.

Jean said aboriginal opposition to pipelines in British Columbia could be reduced by showing positive that lifestyle changes can come with development.

“I know that aboriginal communities want the same things that we want,” said Jean, who has relatives in three bands in northern Alberta. “The truth is, in northern Alberta, aboriginals are happy, they are successful, most of the communities are dry or at least people don’t have the same issues as communities around Canada, because they are working.”

Jean threw himself into the race to fix the province’s health care due to the illness and recent death of his 24-year-old son, Michael, of lymphoma. His main goal is to shrink a “bloated” provincial bureaucracy, including health care delivery he believes is driven by process rather than healing.

He also believes Prentice hasn’t done enough to cut spending, and instead announced unpopular taxes targeting the middle class. With an early provincial election expected to be called Tuesday, Jean’s alternative views promise to shake things up, win or lose.

Financial Post


 

[Walleyes]

http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/wildrose-leader-brian-jean-kicks-off-campaign-in-calgary


Wildrose Leader Brian Jean blasts PCs for calling an “illegitimate election”
 
James Wood, Calgary Herald
   
Published on: April 7, 2015
 
Just a few months ago, the Wildrose Party appeared ready to expire — losing its leader and most of its caucus — but on Tuesday, new leader Brian Jean vowed the party is ready to fight the governing Tories.

Wildrose was left in disarray at the end of last year after 11 MLAs, including leader Danielle Smith, crossed the floor to join Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservative government.

But Jean, the former Conservative MP for Fort McMurray-Athabasca who became Wildrose leader less than two weeks ago, said his party will run a full slate of candidates and expects to hold its place as the official Opposition.

“We will stand up for Albertans, because Albertans deserve to have a strong democracy,” the 52-year-old lawyer said at McHugh Bluff Park, overlooking the Bow River and downtown Calgary.

“We must put an absolute end to the idea that the PC party is entitled to govern simply because they are PCs.”

To reassure voters concerned about the recent past, Jean said every Wildrose candidate will be required to sign a contract specifying they will pay $100,000 in damages to the party if they cross the floor as an MLA.

Jean, who is challenging PC cabinet minister Don Scott in Fort McMurray-Conklin, will spend most of the 28-day election period traversing the province in his campaign motorhome.

Alberta Wildrose party leader Brian Jean announces the launch of his campaign in Calgary on April 7, 2015.

Wildrose had five seats in the legislature at dissolution, with three incumbents running again. The party’s website lists 64 of 87 candidates in place at this point.

University of Calgary political scientist Anthony Sayers said if the party expands its caucus beyond its current five members during the election, it will represent a victory for Wildrose.

He said the party seems to have moved past the floor-crossing and is “in surprisingly good shape.”

With Prentice seeking a mandate for a tough budget that includes numerous tax increases, a spending freeze and a $5-billion deficit,  that “plays to the strengths” of fiscally conservative Wildrose, said Sayers.

“They have in many ways the clearest run to the election. That doesn’t mean they will recover what they did last time, but their strategy, their road to the future is the clearest of all the parties,” he said.

At the campaign launch, Jean slammed the Tories for not cutting a “bloated” Alberta government as it hiked taxes in the budget.


“Under Jim Prentice the bloat will remain and will get bigger,” he added. “Wildrose is the only political party that will stand against high taxes.”

[Walleyes]

Wildrose calls on PC Party to pay for $100K campaign ad from Premier's office

MARCH 23, 2015 2:00 PM

EDMONTON, AB (March 23, 2015): Today, the Wildrose Official Opposition called on Premier Jim Prentice to have the PC party pay for his $100,000 taxpayer funded PC campaign ad.

For weeks, Prentice has made it clear he has no intention of passing his budget in the house, instead using it as his central campaign platform.  On the eve of an illegal election call, Prentice is using the televised campaign ad to focus squarely on the budget he plans to campaign on.

“The cost of this will be more than double Premier Alison Redford’s $45,000 trip to South Africa.  Taxpayers shouldn’t be funding a partisan campaign ad coming out of the Premier’s office,” Saskiw said.  “Today, we are calling on Premier Prentice to have the PC party pay taxpayers back for all the expenses involved in this campaign ad.  This is clearly a purely partisan piece of PC propaganda.”

Precedent for the PC party paying for partisan government spending is well documented.  In August 2014, they paid back monies for partisan flights taken to a PC leadership fundraiser on government planes, while Redford paid back the costs for the South Africa trip.

The cost includes $36,000 in production costs and $10,000 to hire a speech writer.

The Wildrose firmly rejected having taxpayer dollars spent on PC electioneering.  Instead, the Wildrose is focused on putting forward meaningful ideas to protect taxpayers, shrink the size of government and to grow the economy.

“Spending hundreds of thousands on campaign ads while Albertans are hurting is just the latest example of misguided PC priorities,” Saskiw said.  “We will continue to get our message out about keeping our economy strong with no tax increases, and smaller and more efficient government without having to leave taxpayers will the bill.”


 

[Walleyes]

Wildrose plan would cut 3,200 management jobs in public service

By Mariam Ibrahim, Edmonton Journal April 9, 2015

EDMONTON - Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said Thursday his party would balance the budget in three years, without raising taxes, by cutting 3,200 civil servant positions and deferring “lower priority” infrastructure projects.

Announcing his party’s finance platform in the Federal Building plaza in Edmonton, Jean said his party would put the budget back in black without hurting the quality of government services.

“This plan fully protects all front-line workers and the important services that they deliver to Albertans,” Jean said.

He said a Wildrose government would slash 1,600 management jobs in government and another 1,600 management positions at Alberta Health Services over three years. Jean said the cuts would be achieved mainly through attrition. He acknowledged the health authority would lose some of its independence in the process.

“There are simply too many assistant deputy ministers and too many executive directors and too many executive advisers,” Jean said.

The budget tabled by the Progressive Conservatives before the election included cutting 1,700 jobs at Alberta Health Services, also mainly through attrition. Jean said his plan would see fewer positions eliminated, but said they would all come from the “bloated” management ranks.

Liberal Leader David Swann called the Wildrose proposal to reduce the public service “a very dangerous decision.”

“Unless there is clear evidence of redundancy, inefficiency and failure to provide proper leadership, we should be supporting the public sector,” Swann said Thursday afternoon while canvassing his Calgary-Mountain View riding.

The Wildrose would slash the health authority’s consultant budget 50 per cent and cut the government’s travel, advertising, conference and communications budgets in half. It would get rid of corporate grants and institute a three-year salary freeze for all remaining government managers.

The party would also eliminate the income tax hikes, a new health tax and user fee hikes introduced in the provincial budget two weeks ago.

He said the cost-cutting would save $2.2 million this fiscal year and $3.5 billion by 2017-18.

Jean said the cuts wouldn’t extend to infrastructure projects and pledged to spend more on capital in Alberta than similar provinces.

The party would extend the government’s current five-year capital plan an extra year, but would push “lower-priority” projects to the back burner for a year. Jean couldn’t say which projects might be deferred, but said no schools, hospitals or roads would be affected.

“We’re not talking about cancelling those projects”

Jean said his plan would see the government stop taking on debt by 2017 and pay off existing debt within roughly 12 years. He promised to invest half of all future surpluses in the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

Jean said the measures would be possible using the government’s existing stream of revenue.

With files from the Calgary Herald

[Walleyes]

Braid: Why Prentice is playing the 'extremist' card

Don Braid, Calgary Herald
   
Published on: April 9, 2015

It seems strange for Premier Jim Prentice to brand other parties “extreme” in this election campaign, when the Progressive Conservatives have done nearly everything that any Alberta party could possibly try, from extreme to sensible to just plain goofy.

Since 1971, the PCs have saved money, spent money, thrown money away, given tax breaks to corporations, taxed corporations, bought corporations, sold them at a loss, travelled lavishly by air, bounced around in buses, raised royalties, cut royalties, borrowed fortunes, piled up savings, subsidized mortgage interest, laid off public sector workers, hired droves of them — and on and on.

The NDP, with its surprisingly nimble campaign, caught the joke wickedly on Thursday by naming its first “Extremist of the Day.” The winner is former PC Premier Peter Lougheed, who proposed corporate tax hikes in 2011.

Asked about Lougheed’s comment, Prentice said that was 2011, this is now, and burdening corporations with higher taxes would cost jobs.

He also added, naturally, that Lougheed was his mentor. Everybody in Alberta politics seems to say that sooner or later, except maybe Naomi Rankin, leader of the Communist Party.

It’s bizarre, don’t you think, that with all these juicy PC policies littering the landscape, Prentice would brand the other parties as extreme?

Well, maybe not. The PCs rarely adopt a major campaign strategy without a good reason, usually based on detailed, frequent and expensive private polling.

And they found their reason; most of us really do think parties we don’t like are too extreme.

Coincidently, Marc Henry’s ThinkHQ polling firm released a survey Thursday that shows: “Equal proportions of Albertans (44 per cent) believe that Wildrose and the NDP are too extreme for them.”

Also, “a majority of PCs, NDP and Liberal voters say Wildrose is too extreme.”

And, “over 70 per cent of Wildrose and PC voters say the NDP is too extreme.”

The last point shows the NDP’s vulnerability and explains why Prentice is attacking Rachel Notley’s party so aggressively.

Henry’s poll also says 72 per cent of all voters believe the PCs are “arrogant and elitist.” Even 29 per cent of the party’s own supporters say this.

The obvious trick is to deflect attention from that little problem by focusing on the claimed extremism of the small-party demons in our midst. It’s another way — quite a subtle one — of arousing the Alberta electorate’s powerful resistance to change.

But how extreme are they, these other parties?

Notley’s NDP would raise corporate taxes, but also help create 27,000 new jobs with a tax credit announced Thursday.

She says the credit would pay 10 per cent of each new employee’s salary to a maximum salary of $50,000. The “fully-costed” plan would set the government back $89 million this year.

So, the NDP would both tax corporations and help them with a salary subsidy. The PCs have done the same things themselves, in various ways, over geological time.

David Swann’s Liberals would raise corporate taxes by two per cent, but abolish them entirely for companies earning less than $500,000. The promise targets the small mom-and-pop sector that Prentice won’t hit with higher rates but will continue to tax at 10 per cent.

Then there’s Wildrose, which issued its own fiscal plan Thursday just as the premier continued to claim it doesn’t have one.

Brian Jean’s party says it would cut $2.2 billion from spending this year, both by digging deep into government bureaucracy and spreading the capital building plan over six years rather than five. All of Prentice’s tax hikes would be reversed.

Despite that, Wildrose says it can balance the budget by 2017-18, protect front-line services, ban school fees, and restore the full charitable tax credit that was cut in the Prentice budget.

Jean would slash government management ranks by one-third, and Alberta Health Services bureaucracy by half.

It’s a standard small-c conservative position in Alberta, less extreme than PC Premier Ralph Klein’s measures were in the mid-1990s.

But we all think somebody’s extreme, don’t we?

That’s what the Prentice campaign is playing on. It’s brilliant, in a typically diabolical way

[Tuc]

I hope Albertans wake up and see this party for what it is, a bunch of power hungry crooks.