Browsing posts in the ‘Public Service Announcements’ category

… and the race is on…

1
March 26, 2011 - By

I’m sure if you are up on politics, you know that His Excellency David Johnston collapsed Parliament officially this morning, after yesterday’s motion of confidence against the Government was passed by the majority of the House.  If you weren’t in the know, well, now you know – never mind that in a few hours, the boulevards will be littered with signs.

Here at CalgaryPolitics we are hoping to bring you some information about the Federal Election, including Riding Profiles in the coming weeks.

Don’t know what riding you’re in?  Elections Canada has always had a nice postal-code based search tool called the Voter Information Service.  While you’re at it, consider working for your local returning office – they tend to be slightly busy around this time.

May 2nd is the day we go to the polls.  The next 37 days are going to be busy.

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Why I Don’t Want You To Vote

21
October 15, 2010 - By

Wow… didn’t think I’d ever be using THAT particular series of words in the title of a blog post… but, there you have it. Clear as day.

…

Yup. Still there.

Nation, there is a clear and present danger to our democracy out there. It lurks in the shadows, hides behind the steering wheels of mini-vans, walks the dog…

This threat?

The scourge of the Uninformed Voter.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear on this point: EVERYONE who is eligible has the absolute right to vote, and that should never change. Your vote, informed or uninformed, is just as valid as mine.

Therein lies the problem, though.

Because I’ve spent hours researching these candidates, and their opinions. Chances are, as someone reading this, you’ve spent a lot of time doing the same. The very act of reading a blog or one of those ancient proto-blogs that they print on paper (whatever happened to those things?) is a sign of your engagement. But, thousands of people who have done no research, attended no forums, or asked no questions even of themselves about the future of their city will be walking into the polling place on Monday, and they will be [...]Read More

Categories: Political Theory, Public Service Announcements

A Call for a Final Debate

32
October 6, 2010 - By

As much as I hate to admit it, it looks like the race to be Calgary’s next mayor has slowly narrowed itself down to three candidates who have a shot at the big chair.

Barb Higgins and Ric McIver are polling almost neck and neck, while Naheed Nenshi is the only other candidate in double digits of support.

I’m not ready to call the race yet or anything like that, but I do think it is time for citizens to be given a chance to see these three head-to-head-to-head in a debate allowing them the opportunity to clearly layout their plan and priorities for all Calgarians to directly compare free of any hindrance.

All three candidates have espoused their belief that what Calgary City Council needs is more transparency and accountability. There is no time like the present to show their belief in these principles and how important they are to them.

CalgaryPolitics.com has created a Facebook event page where all Calgarians can lend their support to this call for a Final Debate of the leading candidates in the week before the election. Please follow this link and mark yourself as “attending” if you too believe this debate [...]Read More

Tags: ι ι Categories: Calgary Issues, Events, Mayor of Calgary, Public Service Announcements

City of Calgary Election iPhone App Review

1
October 6, 2010 - By

I’ve been having a bit of “back and forth” via email with the City of Calgary’s Deputy City Clerk and Returning Officer for the past couple months.

On July 29 I originally asked her about the possibility of creating a “where to vote” widget, similar to what the City has (or at that point, would have) on their website. My idea was that if the Javascript behind the widget on the City’s site was made public, any candidate or third party such as CalgaryDemocracy.ca or CalgaryPolitics.com could include it on their website. The concept of course being that the easier it is to find out what ward you live in and where you can vote, the more likely we would be to have a higher turnout.

It took a few weeks, but I was eventually shut down and told this would not be happening for a variety of reasons. (Because of a confidentiality statement at the bottom of every City of Calgary originating email, I can’t share the exact obstacles given. Not that I agree with them anyway. But I digress.)

Needless to say I was super excited when I got an email last week from Ms. Clifford telling me that the City had developed [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Alberta soldiers excluded from voting

October 1, 2010 - By

The Calgary Sun reported today that many Canadian soldiers from Alberta who are stationed overseas (such as in Afghanistan) will not be able to vote in this month’s municipal elections throughout the province.

Now, those who know me know that I am no fan of the military, but I am somewhat of an extremist when it comes to including everybody in the democratic process. It is a travesty that these citizens are being left out of the process because of an inability of the various levels of government and the Canadian military to find a way to enable the soldiers to vote.

The problem stems from these factors: Typical mail delivery time for overseas military is apparently at least 5 weeks. There are just 4 weeks from nomination day until election day in our municipal elections. The Provincial legislation governing municipal elections only allows for traditional voting station balloting and “Special Ballots” which must be physical paper (not electronic), but which can be mailed or otherwise transported from outside the province.

In discussions on Twitter today, we talked about what I consider to be three very [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Politicians threaten public health

2
September 29, 2010 - By

This year, I have been sick twice with bugs presumably caught from shaking hands with politicians (I won’t go into the gory details, but there is a high likelihood of the source, given my hand-shaking activities in the days preceding the development of symptoms). I’ve also heard that a number of candidates in the current election have come down with illness, too.

So, I’m putting a call-out to politicians, political hacks like myself, and the public at large, to try to practice safer politicking. Let’s try to reduce the social pressure to always shake hands and instead accept alternatives that are less likely to spread contagion. A couple I can think of are the “fist-bump” and the Japanese-inspired head-nod.

This is going to need to be led by those of us not running for office since a politician who won’t shake hands in the current social environment could be seen negatively — potentially hurting their campaign. It’s up to us to offer a head-nod or fist for bumping to any politicians we meet on the campaign trail, instead of the usual proffering of a hand to be shaken. The politicians, in turn, can be encouraged to thank the hand-shake-avoiding person [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Do as I say…

September 23, 2010 - By

We’re all pretty excited about this election.  There’s opportunity for change, growth, and direct engagement.  Everyone wants to have a forum – to be able to discuss their issues, meet with candidates, and hopefully get a feel for who you are going to vote for.

The main calls have been for transparency and accountability, as there has been a feeling of a loss of communication between everyday citizens and politicians.  There is a disconnect between what we seem to ask for and what happens, but no explanation in between. We feel like there are closed-door meetings that are framing our city, instead of open meetings with stakeholders and citizens.  We want our politicians to play by the rules.

So it saddens me to hear that there has been a case where someone, essentially, broke rules to create these accesses to candidates.  That, using obfuscation as a method of getting things done, they felt that they the end justified the means.  The attitude of apologizing later is better than asking in advance, for the sake of creating one more forum, is sad.

I’m not about to say who, which forum, or the specifics, because I don’t feel that is the place [...]Read More

Categories: Events, Public Service Announcements

Savaging the Airwaves!

September 19, 2010 - By

Nation, a big part of the reason that I do what I do is for the fame…  as we all know, bloggers – particularly political ones – are the rock stars of punditry.  Limousines, Cristal, bling bling, Lear Jets…  the sky’s the limit when you’re rolling with the crew at CalgaryPolitics.com.  Think Ric Flair meets Keith Richards during Mardi Gras.

Well, I’ve been asked to appear in a regular spot on CBC Radio One’s “The Homestretch” on Thursday afternoons between now and the civic election, along with fellow CalgaryPolitics correspondent Jeremy Klaszus to talk about developments in the mayoral race from week to week.

I’m tickled pink about the opportunity – and not just because of the notorious “studio parties” that they throw at the CBC Radio offices.  I think that Jeremy and myself come from 2 different places on the old 2-dimensional political spectrum.  Toss in the fact that he’s a trained journalist, and I’m an opinionated schmuck, and it could make for some very interesting conversations.

You can take a break from screaming at the guy in front of you who doesn’t know how to merge (“You’ve got an ENTIRE LANE to yourself! Why are you STOPPING?!?!?”), and [...]Read More

Categories: Mayor of Calgary, Public Service Announcements

Twibate Tuesday

9
September 12, 2010 - By

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. Get ready for mayhem mayhem mayhem.

This Tuesday, CalgaryPolitics.com is having our first Twibate, starting with the mayoralty candidates. I have received confirmations that quite a few will be participating, and we look forward to this being a very interesting event for the Calgary Political scene.

The Twibate will start at 7:00pm and go for two hours (officially). However, discussions and conversations that spring from it may very well last until election day.

What if you don’t have/want Twitter??
On the day of the Twibate, navigate over to TwitterFall. You can essentially “watch” the Twibate, even if you are not going to participate.

On the left side of the screen, you can configure searches. You will want to add these two:
#yycTBq
#yycTB
The first will be the questions posed by @CalgaryPolitics to the candidates, so you can see the “official” questions. The second is for all tweets that have to do with the Twibate (as long as people tag them with it)
#yycvote is another you can watch as well, and that covers the election in general

On the right side you can configure a number of options to make [...]Read More

Categories: Events, Political Theory, Public Service Announcements

Information early and incomplete

August 26, 2010 - By

At the end of the last century, when I was still working in a corporate job, the president of the company had a couple of cheesy (but useful) catch-phrases he used at almost every one of our monthly all-staff meetings. The first was “Know your business by the numbers” which led us to all review the various numbers for the company every month (budgets, sales, call-centre stats, email issue stats, etc.).

The second catch-phrase was “Information early and incomplete.” This one, in particular, has really stuck with me over the years. It means, even if you don’t have all the details or it’s otherwise incomplete, you share what you know as soon as you know it. It’s not a complex idea, but practicing it can have very significant impacts (and failing to practice it can also have massive impacts).

This came to mind again today as a major scheduling conflict emerged in the municipal election here. A couple of organizations are putting together mayoral candidate forums and scheduled them for exactly the same time (I got an email from one yesterday, and a Twitter announcement from the other today). Oops!

I contacted both organizers to point out the problem, and [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Calendar, Events, Public Service Announcements

Desperately Seeking School Board Trustees…

10
August 26, 2010 - By

Nation, I’ve written before about the crucial role that school board trustees play in our education system and, by extension, in our society.

In Calgary, we elect 7 men and women to sit on the public school board, and 7 to sit on the Catholic school board – the ballot you receive is determined by the system you indicate support for on your property tax form.

Now, these positions are not nearly as hotly-contested as the races for Alderman or Mayor…  they’re low profile, often thankless jobs, with few material perks and long, late hours making tough decisions with one financial hand tied behind your back.  For these reasons, you don’t often see a flood of candidates trying to get out of the gate early, hit up the Stampede BBQ circuit, fundraising, doorknocking, and recruiting a small army of volunteers to help get the word out.  We don’t see a lot of politically connected, experienced or savvy people running – we see parents.  Recent graduates.  Earnest people who have never sat down around a kitchen table and talked election strategy with 8 brilliant political minds (just throwing that example out there).  They don’t often advertise that they’re considering [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements, School Board Trustees - Calgary Board of Education, School Board Trustees - Calgary Catholic School Board

Twibate Dates and Details

3
August 13, 2010 - By

After cross-checking schedules, some predictive analysis modeling, and channeling of spirits, we now have dates and details for the CalgaryPolitics.com Twibate Series.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Twibate series is an opportunity to have the candidates online, answering questions in a debate, combined with opportunity for any follower to engage, ask follow-up questions, and learn more about the candidates in one place.  11 mayoralty candidates have Twitter so far, as do almost 30 aldermanic candidates.

The dates will be as follows:

Mayoralty: Tuesday, September 14, 7:00pm
Aldermanic Wards 1,3,7,9,11,13: Tuesday, September 21, 7:00pm
Aldermanic Wards 2,4,6,8,10,12,14 and 5: Thursday, September 23, 7:00pm
Note: Ward 5 moved to Sept 23 to avoid conflict with CiviCamp’s Ward 5 forum

The Twibate will take place over 2 hours – a total of 11 questions per Twibate, with opportunity for closing statements after.  Of course, this is only the official times of the Twibates – followup questions may take additional time to answer.

We have provided all candidates whose email addresses we have/were able to find with a link to Candidate Guidelines.  If you are a candidate and did not receive this, please let us know, and [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Election Handbook “oops”

August 11, 2010 - By

By now every potential Calgary Municipal Election candidate who has picked up a nomination package from the City should have received the following letter. The letter informs candidates of an error in the handbook that was part of their nomination package.

An “oops” to be sure, but no harm, no foul, right? I’ll give you one guess as to what Sections 147.3(1) (a), (b) and (c) of the Local Authorities Election Act deals with. If you have been following the relationship between the municipalities and the Province at all for the past three years you probably guessed right away: campaign finances.

Here is specifically what that section of the act says:

So what does this little “oops” mean?

At first glance it looks like it means that all bets are off and there are no campaign contribution limits. This is however not the case. Section 147.2 of the Act deals with limitations and it is in full effect still.

All this mistake means is that you don’t need to keep your campaign monies in a bank account. Sock it away under your mattress for all the Provincial Government cares.

Presumably these clauses have not been proclaimed [...]Read More

Categories: Political Theory, Public Service Announcements

CalgaryPolitics.com Presents Charity Bowling Event for Brown Bagging It!

1
August 11, 2010 - By

 

Many of you know that I am a regular volunteer and a huge supporter of Brown Bagging it for Calgary’s Kids Society ( BB4CK). The gents over at calgarypolitics.com and I have decided to organize a Charity Bowling Event to help raise awareness and some money for this amazing group!  With the 2010 Calgary Election less than two months away, we thought it would be fun to mix Bowling and Politics for a good cause!

Join in as local Bloggers, Media and Candidates for the 2010 Calgary Municipal Election help to “Strike Out” Hunger  This fun event will take place on Monday August 30, 2010 at 6:30-9pm.  The response so far has been amazing and tickets/lanes are selling quickly, with many candidates already booking lanes! 

All proceeds will go to support BB4CK!   Brown Bagging It For Calgary’s Kids Society is a local organization that provides nutritious lunches to almost 1600 needy children a day!  Their website is http://www.makeityourproblem.ca/

 I have attached a copy of the invitation and registration form!  We hope to see you there!

 
Shane

Invitation Form Link is Here

Registration Form is Here

Facebook Page

This is [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

CalgaryPolitics.com Debate

9
August 4, 2010 - By

If you’ve ever watched a Canadian political forum, it goes pretty much like this:  The moderator asks a question, and the candidates, in rotation, answer.  One by one, they either tack onto an opponent’s answer, or refer to another one to explain how theirs is different, but there is no real rebuttal process or the point-counterpoint dynamic that exists in a real debate.  Hell, even those friendly arguments at the bar about Mac vs. PC look more like a formal debate than these.

However, it is difficult to hold a real debate because, well, could you imagine the point-counterpoint complexities of a dozen candidates?  I guess you could hold debates of 2 individuals and ensure every candidate faces every other candidate… but then you would have 66 individual debates.

So how do you really get a chance to put all the candidates in one spot, let them argue with each other but also have a moderator who asks specific questions to each of them as well?  And how do you allow the audience to chime in with follow ups to individual candidates?

Enter the debate style of the social media world: The CalgaryPolitics.com Twibate series.

Alberta has one of the [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

New CalgaryPolitics.com updates and writers!

1
August 3, 2010 - By

Welcome to the new-look CalgaryPolitics.com. While I’m sure this isn’t the last re-design we’ll have before the election, I hope the new site template makes finding the information you are looking for easier. Part of that process was the new way we are utilizing tags and categories.

The category of every post on CalgaryPolitics.com refers to every race being discussed in that post, while the tags of every post now refer to the name of the people mentioned in that post. I’ve even put some handy links on the side of the site for you. Now if you want to know what Dave Broconnier news there is, you can just click on his name in the tag cloud and you’ll find everything we’ve ever written about him. If you want the latest on the Ward 1 aldermanic race, click on that in the category list and you’ll get everything you’re looking for.

The biggest change however is we now have two new writers joining the team. Everyone please join me in welcoming Kirk Schmidt and Jeremy Klaszus.

For 6 years, Kirk blogged about Federal Politics on a site called 55dB, until he shut it down in 2009. He has decided to [...]Read More

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Excuse the mess…

1
July 30, 2010 - By

… we’re renovating.

Nation, in addition to some exciting news that DJ Kelly will be bringing us early next week (be sure to stay tuned!), the site is going through a bit of a facelift.

In the interest of making the posts consistent in the way they’re categorized and tagged, I’ll be going through the blog posts and tagging/categorizing them under our new system.

Until I’m done (should be early next week), the categories and tags are going to seem somewhat random. Because they more or less are.

Bear with us, though – when the re-organization is done, posts about particular races or mentioning particular people will be MUCH easier to find. :)

- E.S.

Categories: Public Service Announcements

calgarypolitics.com is taking over the airwaves!

5
July 29, 2010 - By

Nation, it has been a big week for The Best Political Team in the Blogosphere (TM), with interviews galore over the past week.

DJ Kelly has been all over the radio waves (July 22nd – 6 pm – and July 28th, 3 pm), Shane Byciuk from calgaryrants.com was interviewed last Friday on Global TV Calgary and on radio (CHQR AM770 at 9 pm on July 28, also available at the audio vault, as well as a 5 pm interview on the 22nd), Jeremy Zhao from politicalgary has done radio and was admitted as media to the Barb Higgins press availability yesterday morning, and your humble scribe has been on the radio twice – once on CJSW and again this morning on CBC Radio One (with Jeremy).

The CJSW interview, and the CBC interview, with Jeremy, are embedded on my blog, here.

It’s clear that the more interesting this election season gets, the more you’re going to be hearing from the folks at calgarypolitics.com. Now would be a good time to bookmark the site, and add us on twitter.

Radio and television programming directors – the bidding for the entire calgarypolitics.com team to spend the evening of October [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Hey, Candidates – We’re Over HERE!!!

2
June 23, 2010 - By

Folks, one of the most oft-cited reasons for politically engaged folks to resist taking the plunge and putting their names forward as candidates is money. Specifically, the need for lots and lots of it.

Now, the money that gets poured out of campaigns as though they’re printing it in the basement gets spent on many things – but none so needlessly as in advertising.

“We NEED to spend big money on advertising – we need signs, and banners, and posters, and print ads, and demon dialers…”

Okay…  you definitely need SOME of those things.  And unless you’re one of the mainstream media’s anointed few “real contenders” in your race, you probably need all the help you can get in getting the word out about your campaign, because there are only so many real reporters, and only so much print space, to go around.

IF you’re living in 1984.

Candidates, Official Agents, Communications Gurus and Campaign Managers, take note: calgarypolitics.com is here, to save you boatloads of cash, and help you get the word out.  Whether you want to be Mayor, Alderman or School Board Trustee, we want to hear from you – and so do our readers.  Who vote, by [...]Read More

Tags: Categories: Public Service Announcements

Calgary Municipal Pre-Election: Hashtag Selection

4
May 20, 2010 - By

Nation, as one of the first (THE first?) Tweeters to use #yyccc to tag tweets related to Calgary’s City Council, the issue of using #yyccc for election coverage strikes particularly close to home for me.  I’ve been using it just like everyone else, but we’ve got to agree on a convention – what hashtag will we ALL use, to keep things simpler (the entire point of a hashtag in the first place)?

I’ve heard some people want to keep #yyccc strictly for issues of actual governance by the sitting council, rather than filling up the stream with election tweets.  Which is certainly fair, in my opinion.

A good article on how to go about choosing an appropriate hashtag can be found here.

No matter what decision we make, the winning hashtag needs to be 3 things:

  1. Easy to remember
  2. As short as is practical (it counts towards your 140 characters!)
  3. Forced down the throats of those mis-using the old one (if applicable)


Results will be announced tomorrow, and a new hashtag (possibly) will be born.

- E.S.

Categories: Public Service Announcements

Taking blogging to the next level and legitimizing it

1
March 4, 2010 - By

If there’s one thing I want to see this election, it’s going to be legitimizing blogs. What do I mean by that?

The Internet has been great at moving information from point A to B at a very fast and rapid level. Every individual blogger on this team has been able to do that. You might give credit to the grandfathers of blogging such as Daveberta and Calgary Grit.

The combined strengths of this specific collaboration between local Calgarian bloggers will give a sense that the blogosphere, at least in Calgary, will be very strong. Yes, blogs are opinion based, but a strength like this will hopefully give rise to a fourth pillar of mainstream media.

But, you said earlier in some post you did that social media isn’t very strong.

I said that social media at its current level isn’t strong, but its progress towards being a main source of information and news is still years away. This current collaboration will hopefully be a starting point, but it definitely won’t be the big one that will launch the Internet onto that level of awesome.

In order to take it to that next level, blogging will have to take it [...]Read More

Tags: ι Categories: Political Theory, Public Service Announcements