Kevin Taft: busted

This didn't take long (click on thumbnail for the full screencap):

I suppose Kevin Taft deserves some small amount of credit for rapidly retracting his false allegation. The fact that he failed to apologize for his unwarranted attack certainly comes as no surprise.

Liberals are arrogant, and will always equivocate and dissemble with words like "misunderstood" - which leaves open the possibility that the problem lay with the wording of the Order - rather than admit the real reason for this mistake was their own incompetent research and analysis.

A false accusation from Kevin Taft?

Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft attacked the government on Friday for supposedly passing an Order in Council that would remove the Alberta Health Quality Council from scrutiny under the Access to Information legislation. Here is a screencap of the story (click for the full web page):

The Government of Alberta was quick to respond. They state that the Order in Council Taft was relying on simply removed the Alberta Health Council from one of two categories that it had been listed in.

It remains subject to information requests:

I don't know who is correct here, but the ball is clearly in Kevin Taft's court. Has he made a false accusation, and, if he has, will he show enough class to withdraw it publicly and apologize?

Given that he is a Liberal, I certainly won't be holding my breath waiting.

Liberal math: 3 Quebecers = 8 Albertans

I just read this post over on CalgaryGrit. It would appear that the delegate selection process for the federal Liberal Party is a bit of a fiasco. There are allegations of voting irregularities, and forged signatures on delegate forms.

In other words, it's pretty much par for the course in the natural governing party.

In addition to the scandals, it would appear that even Liberals are beginning to notice the regional favoritism in their party. The rules of the party are such that approximately 3 Quebec members have the same representation as roughly 8 Alberta members in terms of delegate selection. Commenter Jason Bo Green weighs in:

Wow, interesting numbers.

I'm inclined to agree with you, man - it does look like everyone bombed out in Quebec.

And - pardon my English, but just what the fuck is going on with Alberta getting so royally screwed on say/votes yet again?

Honestly, I'm amazed (and grateful) Alberta sticks it through with us ...

Jason, for your information, Albertans are not sticking with you, or the Liberals. According to the numbers CalgaryGrit posted, your party has a grand total of 3,299 voting members in the Province of Alberta. There are individual ridings in this province with more Conservative members than that. I have also heard that the number of members expected to vote in the provincial Progressive Conservative leadership race could go as high as 200,000.

The federal Liberal Party is completely dominated by eastern Canadians, as your leadership race shows. Albertans simply aren't interested in it (other than a couple of opportunists like CalgaryGrit and daveberta).

Ask yourself this: who is the last leader of the Liberal Party of Canada to come from Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, or Manitoba?

Got you stumped? Let's make it easier: who is the last western Canadian candidate to get a single vote at a federal Liberal Party leadership convention?

Think hard now. There must be someone.

New Leger Poll: Bad news for Kevin Taft

A new Leger Poll was released yesterday. The results for the Kevin Taft led Alberta Liberal Party couldn't be more laughable. Here is a summary of the results:

The Kevin Taft Liberals are at a pathetic 12% in the province, with only 10% of the popular vote in Calgary, and 6% in rural Alberta. This is about 17 points lower than the Alberta Liberals scored in the last provincial election.

The Kevin Taft deathwatch has officially begun.

Methodology

This Leger Marketing opinion poll was conducted among 900 respondents throughout Alberta, September 20th and 30th, 2006. The maximum margin of error for a sample of this size is ± 3.3%, 19 times out of 20.

The margin of error for each area, namely Calgary, Edmonton and other areas combined is ± 5.7%, 19 times out of 20. The Margin of error for the sample of self-declared PC Party supporters is ± 4.4%, 19 times out of 20.

Using the latest data from Statistics Canada, final results were weighted according to gender and region to ensure a sample representative of the province of Alberta population.

Source: http://legermarketing.com/documents/pol/061004ENG.pdf