Time Immortal

Not only did they retain power, I think they even increased their majority. And the Liberals and the NDP seem to both have lost seats, defying most peoples’ expectations.

The nice guy who had the pleasant demeanour of the 98-pound softie getting sand kicked in his face turned out to be the Incredible Hulk. It is a remarkable turn of events given how public opinion polls indicated Albertans were an unhappy lot.

They might have been cranky during the campaign, angry about affordable housing, worried about access to healthcare, concerned about the environment and muttering about the need for a change — but when they stepped into the voting booth they couldn’t bring themselves to change their vote.

Instead, they embraced the guy who promised change from within government — the “change that works for Albertans,” according to the Tories’ election slogan.

Well, it certainly worked for [Ed Stelmach] and the Tories on Monday night.

They won 73 seats. That’s not just impressive, it is stunning. It is almost as many as Klein got in his prime (74 seats) and is the largest landslide won by a Conservative premier in his first election. Ever.

Stelmach, Grace and I decided last night, seemed to be a bit of a paradox; an honest man who, by and large, gets things done, but who was really uncomfortable when caught out in public. He was the leader and, by extension, public face of a powerful party, but was himself not particularly skilled at public appearences. By contrast, when faced with a task, he seemed to be the sort to just throw himself at it until it was done — a mentality one might expect from a Ukrainian farmer. His campaign was nothing to write home about, and he has seemed to make a lot of gaffes (what few public statements he has made about, for example, freedom of expression issues in the province have been little more than politically correct pablum)…and yet one nevertheless gets the sense that he’s, generally speaking, a man of his word and a “doer.”

And evidently, Albertans felt that was worth getting behind.

Pity so many of us were lazy-arses and didn’t turn out to vote, though. But even then, Grace had a bit of an optimistic assessment as she looked around the polling station yesterday: the people who were there genuinely seemed like they cared about the direction Alberta was taking; they weren’t disinterested, but instead were animated, talking amongst themselves and debating the issues right up to the moment the ballots landed in their hand. That’s a hopeful sign, methinks.

“Another Tory majority in sight.”

I don’t doubt that the headline is accurate — support in this province for the Liberal Party rests at an abysmal 18%, with the NDP and Wildrose Alliance parties polling even lower than that — but I have to say this much: it will be an undeserved victory. That’s not to say that I think one of the other parties could do a better job, mind; the Conservatives seem, to me, to be the “least worst” choice a voter could make. I say that having not looked all that much into Wildrose, of course, but I’m also constraining my discussion here to parties that have an actual chance of forming the government in this province.

Anita Perron sends in a response to this article, which I confess was offered as much in the spirit of “tongue in cheek” as it was in the spirit of seriousness. Let me be clear: I consider racism to be a vile thing indeed. But please…an election sign gets vandalized in Mill Woods and we’re calling out the Edmonton Police Service to give this matter their full and undivided attention? When Edmonton leads the nation in gun-related murders (perpetrated, for the most part, by gangs or people affiliated with the drug trade)?

Priorities, people, priorities.

Ms. Perron writes:

I agree with the police who are tying to find the perpetrators of the vandalism to Gill’s sign. Racism is an ugly snake that pokes its head out sometimes, but the rest of the snake is hidden. If there is racism on the sign, you can bet there is a lot more hidden in Edmonton as well as throughout Canada.

I don’t think it is a teenage prank. I think it is an adult amd probably a Conservative who is trying to scare people off from voting for Ms. Gill because she is not white and male. The whole city should be trying to find out who did this.. not only the police.

I’m willing to believe that Racism exists in many corners of Canada, and to be fair I’m actually also willing to give people the right to express racist sentiments, so long as in their expression they do not cross the line into incitement of violence. I’m a freespeecher, so of course I’d say that.

Note, O Reader, that just because I think racists should be allowed to preach their filth does not mean I agree with them, anymore than I agree with Commies or socialists (who I believe also have every right to talk nonsense in public forums). It just means I think they have a right to say what they want to say…so that the rest of us can either choose to listen to them or (more likely) choose to ignore them, or to demonstrate that we do not agree with them or their bigotry in some manner which a) is legal and b) does not interfere with their right to free speech.

Of course, there are many forms of bigotry, and let us pause in the discussion for just a moment to note the bigotry in which Ms. Perron herself engages. She assumes the perpetrator to be “a Conservative”. Notice the capital ‘C’, O Reader: Ms. Perron assumes that the vandals are registered members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. Because clearly, only a Conservative party member would ever dare to deface a Liberal election sign.

She also expresses her conviction that the motive for the vandalism was because Aman Gill is “not white and male.” In other words, she assumes that the perpetrator was a white, male member of the Progressive Conservative party who acted out of racism and sexism.

Ms. Perron’s bigotry, then, is the assumption that members of the Conservative party are a) sexist and b) racist by definition. I don’t point this out, incidentally, to excuse what was done to Aman Gill’s election sign — my intent is simply to remark on the fact that Ms. Perron is every bit as much a bigot as the men she decries.

The fact of the matter is, there are many female MLAs. There are many MLAs who are members of ethnic minorities. Surprisingly, some of them are even members of the Conservative party! These people include Cindy Ady, Pearl Calahasen (the first Métis woman elected to public office in Alberta), Gary Mar, Hung Pham, Shiraz Shariff, and Janis Tarchuk. There are many female members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, and many members thereof who are from ethnic minorities. It’s a…what’s the word?…diverse group. Yes, it’s probably mostly comprised of whites…but then, that would make it representative of the population of Alberta, wouldn’t it? And yes, it may well comprise more men than women (certainly this is true when one looks at elected MLAs; I don’t have membership data for the party as a whole), but this is not a fault of sexism — it’s just a reflection of the fact that fewer women than men feel moved to enter the realm of politics as a career.

I think, then, that the claim that this vandalism against Ms. Gill was motivated by racism and/or sexism within the Conservative party of Alberta is specious at best, and outright false more likely.

It’s just much more likely that this act of vandalism was indeed a teenage prank — heck, for all we know, the perpetrators weren’t even white (they may not even have been male, but I think that might be assuming too much). This is Mill Woods overall, which in many cases has become a community of (and for) ethnic minorities in Edmonton.

But that’s not the point either. The point is that, while the racism is detestable, in the end it’s just the word “Paki” spray-painted on an election sign. There’s no incitement to violence here, and no permanent damage done. If anything, Ms. Gill will benefit from this incident — she’s certainly not going to hurt for the publicity it has given her, and it might even cause a few voters to shift their support to her out of sympathy or solidarity.

Meanwhile (and again, I cannot stress enough that this is Mill Woods, a.k.a. Mill Hood), I’m sure that were the police to go not five blocks in any direction from where this vandalism occurred, they’d find a drug pusher or a pimp. Okay, I’ll be charitable — ten blocks. Point is, there’s a lot of “hard” crime that EPS could be dealing with; compared to any example thereof, this sole act of vandalism is a non-starter.

The “whole city” shouldn’t be trying to find out who did this. The “whole city” should be trying to banish every drug pusher and pimp from within the Greater Edmonton Area, clamouring for the incarceration (and, if possible, deportation) of those men and women whose chosen trade has turned this city into a country-wide leader in the category of violent death.