Opinion
The 5 Stages to an Alberta Party Election Loss
The Alberta Party managed to attain 5x more votes than they did in 2015. Yet were the biggest losers of the 2019 election cycle. To be honest I believe we would have been well served to have the AB Party win a couple seats in the legislature. However, that is certainly not how things went down on April 16th. They gained 5x the votes and lost all three of their seats.
I have seen some curious behaviour from former Alberta Party candidates as of late and it got me to thinking: ‘What is the AB Party (both party and individual candidates) going through right now?’ Lets explore what I believe to be happening and where I think they need to go to turn (what is now a fringe party) into the opposition.
5 Stages of the Alberta Party Loss
Denial
As mentioned The AB Party went into the election holding 3 seats, hoping to build upon their party growth. What they attained was actually pretty incredible. They recieved over 5x the amount of votes they had in 2015. From 33,867 to 170,872. The response to attaining 0 seats was not surprising and was somewhat humble In my opinion. Mandel cited being proud of the AB Party brand and, frankly, they should be. However, he was wrong for blaming polarization as the reason for the loss. You cannot simultaneously gain 5x the votes and blame polarization. The one thing missing here is that there has been no recognition that their platform was extremely weak. They continue to be in denial that their ideas were not inspiring, their vision was lacking, and their boldness was not focussed on any areas of importance. The AB Party is currently in denial. I do, however, think they are moving past this. Slowly but surely.
Anger
Although we have not seen a direct example of anger from the Party we have started seeing some pretty broad examples of anger throughout the AB Party team/former candidates. I have seen individual candidates who have generally touted themselves as the calm and collected type start to lash out. I have seen insults directed towards conservatives and towards anyone who disagrees with them in general. It is clear that after a couple weeks individuals are starting to feel angry. This is to be expected it is, after all, a human trait. It is now a month after the election. Candidates who worked so hard for so long are realizing what the election cost them both financially, and emotionally. They find it freeing not to be under the “do no harm” mantra of the party system anymore and are beginning to say how they really feel. This is where the rubber really hits the road. The AB party was supposed to be different, made up of candidates who respond with thoughtfulness and consideration. The blinders are being pulled off and we are finding out that the AB party is just another party. They are no different than anyone else. They have their spin, they have their ideology, and ultimately they were fooling themselves into thinking they were different. Perhaps this is an opportunity for their candidates to prove me wrong and pull back on some of the over the top anger and remember that anger is in general, just not worth it.
Bargaining
We have seen a very very clear example of bargaining this week. The AB Party refuses to accept the fact that they are no longer in the Legislature. They have asked for money from they LAO with the intent of being a quasi opposition without a seat in the legislature. They want the funding to do the research while they no longer represent anyone. This is just part of the steps of grief that the AB Party is facing. They are trying to hold on to what once was but no longer is.
Depression
I don’t think the AB party is here yet. Depression in the party sense is devastating. We are going to see growing disinterest from individuals who gave so much before the election. We are going to see folks question ‘What is the point?’. They are going to question the AB party principles, they are going to ask themselves if they should just try to change the NDP or UCP from within. There will be some individuals who pull back and you won’t hear from them again. This is the stage that the Party’s head brass need to address head on. They need to quickly work on inspiring individuals and they need to come up with a plan to allow individuals the time to “shut-off” after a tough election while ensuring they don’t lose touch. If the depression symptom spirals out of control their party will die. On an individual sense, and with sincerity, I do ask anyone who finds themselves getting into this stage to take the time to reflect on the greater good in life. Please seek help if you need to. Depression is nothing to joke about and, yes, an election loss is a legitimate reason for someone to become depressed.
Acceptance.
I do hope the AB party is able to move to acceptance quickly. Let’s look at a few things that the AB party needs to accept.
1. They ran a terrible platform – Yes, there were things in their platform that were amenable. However, it was choppy there was no consistency. It focussed on things that Albertans didn’t care enough about. They were bold in all the wrong areas.
2. The AB party made a mistake kicking out Greg Clarke as leader – There was no opposition MLA that I liked more than Greg. Make no mistake, (while Greg may not admit it himself) Greg’s demotion was a result of a coup from old PC members who didn’t like Jason Kenney. They were quick to join the AB party and place their own person in the position of leadership. Stephen Mandel may have carried the party to 5x more votes but there is no doubt it was on the kindness and likability of former MLA Greg Clarke.
3. They cannot blame polarization for their loss – If they knew that the election was going to be a polarizing one they were perfectly positioned to create themselves as the opposing pole. Instead they positioned themselves as an outlier. The election was polarizing, yes. However, as I already said, they cannot simultaneously blame polarization while championing 5x more votes.
4. They are not different than other parties. – Trying to run a party as though Ideology doesn’t exist is a fools errand. The thought that they are going to do politics differently and its all going to turn out does not come from humility but rather just a vain attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. Trudeau is a perfect example of the AB party narrative. He was going to do politics differently too. The AB party just isn’t different from other parties and the idea that they think they are is actually quite frightening.
5. They need to stop talking, and start working – The AB party is doing themselves no favours by silly maneuvers such as asking for money from the LAO. They need to stop this nonsense and come to grips with the fact that they are now no different than the FCP, the AAP, and the AIP. They should look at the votes they attained as an opportunity to fundraise, not as a passage to being taxpayer funded.
In Conclusion: There is a lot of room for the Alberta party to grow and become the official opposition in 2023. However, this will never happen if they get stuck where they are. They need to move beyond the Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression stages and start to accept their failures so they can embrace the reasons for their incredible success at achieving 5x more votes than they did in 2015.
Business
Global Affairs Canada Foreign Aid: An Update
Canadian Taxpayers are funding programs in foreign countries with little effect
Back in early November I reached out to Global Affairs Canada (GAC) for a response to questions I later posed in my What Happens When Ministries Go Rogue post. You might recall how GAC has contributed billions of dollars to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, only to badly miss their stated program objectives. Here, for the record, is my original email:
I’m doing research into GAC program spending and I’m having trouble tracking down information. For instance, your Project Browser tool tells me that, between 2008 and 2022, Canada committed $3.065 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The tool includes very specific outcomes (like a drop of at least 40 per cent in malaria mortality rates). Unfortunately, according to reliable public health data, none of the targets were even close to being achieved – especially in the years since 2015.
Similarly, Canada’s $125 million of funding to the World Food Programme between 2016 and 2021 to fight hunger in Africa roughly corresponded to a regional rise in malnutrition from 15 to 19.7 percent of the population since 2013.
I’ve been able to find no official documentation that GAC has ever conducted reviews of these programs (and others like it) or that you’ve reconsidered various funding choices in light of such failures. Is there data or information that I’m missing?
Just a few days ago, an official in the Business Intelligence Unit for Global Affairs Canada responded with a detailed email. He first directed me to some slightly dated but comprehensive assessments of the Global Fund, links to related audits and investigations, and a description of the program methodology.
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To their credit, the MOPAN 2022 Global Fund report identified five areas where important targets were missed, including the rollout of anti-corruption and fraud policies and building resilient and sustainable systems for health. That self-awareness inspires some confidence. And, in general, the assessments were comprehensive and serious.
What initially led me to suggest that GAC was running on autopilot and ignoring the real world impact of their spending was, in part, due to the minimalist structure of the GAC’s primary reporting system (their website). But it turns out that the one-dimensional objectives listed there did not fully reflect the actual program goals.
Nevertheless, none of the documents addressed my core questions:
- Why had the programs failed to meet at least some of their mortality targets?
- Why, after years of such shortfalls, did GAC continue to fully fund the programs?
The methodology document did focus a lot of attention on modelling counterfactuals. In other words, estimating how many people didn’t die due to their interventions. One issue with that is, by definition, counterfactuals are speculative. But the bigger problem is that, given at least some of the actual real-world results, they’re simply wrong.
As I originally wrote:
Our World in Data numbers give us a pretty good picture of how things played out in the real world. Tragically, Malaria killed 562,000 people in 2015 and 627,000 in 2020. That’s a jump of 11.6 percent as opposed to the 40 percent decline that was expected. According to the WHO, there were 1.6 million tuberculosis victims in 2015 against 1.2 million in 2023. That’s a 24.7 percent drop – impressive, but not quite the required 35 per cent.
I couldn’t quickly find the precise HIV data mentioned in the program expectations, but I did see that HIV deaths dropped by 26 percent between 2015 and 2021. So that’s a win.
I’m now inclined to acknowledge that the Global Fund is serious about regularly assessing their work. It wouldn’t be fair to characterize GAC operations as completely blind.
But at the same time, over the course of many years, the actual results haven’t come close to matching the programs objectives. Why has the federal government not shifted the significant funding involved to more effective operations?
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espionage
Chinese spies arrested in California
From The Center Square
PRC operatives arrested in Guam during historic missile test
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operatives and spies continue to be arrested in the U.S. The latest include two Chinese spies in California and several arrested in Guam near a U.S. military installation on the same day as an historic live ballistic missile interception test.
In California, a 64-year-old man was arrested on several charges including allegedly acting as a PRC agent while working as a campaign manager for a southern California city council candidate elected in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The operative “allegedly discussed with Chinese government officials how the PRC could ‘influence’ local politicians in the United States, particularly on the issue of Taiwan” and was allegedly involved in operations “to combat ‘anti-China forces’ in the U.S., among other conspiracies.
He was also charged with conspiring with another PRC operative who was sentenced to prison last month for acting as an unregistered PRC agent and bribing an IRS agent. In that case, two PRC citizens living in Los Angeles were targeting members of the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center, a multi-agency investigation found.
In Guam, U.S. Customs officers arrested PRC citizens who illegally entered near a U.S. military installation, according to the Guam Customs & Quarantine Agency.
As part of their investigation, officers learned the PRC operatives were dropped off the coast of Guam by a vessel originating from Saipan, in the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
On Dec. 10, they apprehended and detained two PRC women. On Dec. 11, they apprehended four PRC men who were all transported by the same vessel originating from Saipan, authorities said.
One PRC male was apprehended in the Tanguisson Beach area; three PRC men were apprehended in the vicinity of a U.S. military installation.
They were apprehended as the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, working with U.S. Department of Defense partners, “successfully conducted a live intercept of a ballistic missile target, marking the first Ballistic Missile Defense event executed from Guam,” the MDA announced. The operation was conducted off the coast of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
MDA Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said the successful operation enabled them to “build upon and validate joint tracking architecture and integrated air and missile defense capabilities for Guam.”
The flight test was “a critical milestone in the defense of Guam and the region,” Commander, Joint Task Force-Micronesia Rear Adm. Greg Huffman said. “It confirmed our ability to detect, track, and engage a target missile in flight, increasing our readiness to defend against evolving adversary threats.”
“Within the context of homeland defense, a top priority for the Department of Defense, Guam is also a strategic location for sustaining and maintaining United States military presence, deterring adversaries, responding to crises, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” MDA said.
Recognizing the threat posed by the PRC, the Guam Customs & Quarantine Agency has apprehended 152 PRC individuals “who were determined to be in violation of Guam entry laws” since 2022.
It’s also involved in a multiagency border security task force targeting illegal entries, which includes the Guam Police Department, Guam Fire Department, Guam Attorney General, Guam Port Authority, Guam Department of Labor, Guam Homeland Security, Guam Department of Agriculture Conservation Division, Marianas Fusion Center, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Customs and Department of Public Safety, US Coast Guard, US Navy, US Customs and Border Protection, US Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, and Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The task force is asking its community to contact them with any information related to illegal entry and to remain “vigilant and keep watch for individuals suspected to have made illegal entry to the island or who may be involved in smuggling activities.”
Border security and immigration law violations in the CNMI have long been a concern expressed by members of Congress, including the explosion of illegal birth tourism on the islands, The Center Square reported.
The recent PRC operatives arrests come as the greatest number of Chinese nationals illegally entered the country in U.S. history under the Biden administration, more than 176,000, The Center Square first reported.
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