UCP and NDP need to reach out to other voters
By Lethbridge Herald on October 25, 2024.
LEAVE IT TO BEEBER
Al Beeber – Managing Editor
I’ve always believed journalists are supposed to show impartiality in politics. While we certainly have the right – and a democratic obligation – to vote we need to keep our political leanings private lest anyone accuse us of bias.
And we all know how often on social media, at coffee shops and watering holes and in letters to the editor,the media is accused of bias.
Most of those accusations are unfair, the attacks coming because people object to the tenor of a story that doesn’t reflect their own particular viewpoints.
But there are times when bias does happen. I’ve seen it and heard reporters express openly their political affiliations which has been evident in the coverage of a few reporters over the years. And the operative word is ‘few,’ because most journalists in my 44 years plus in the news industry have strived to be fair.
Those of us who write columns will express our political views – if we have them – in a forum such as this which is clearly an opinion column but we’ll also go the extra mile while covering politics to make sure we are fair, giving balanced perspectives of political issues from a range of viewpoints. We need to, we have to.
When I was in my 20s, I spent a lot of mornings at what was known as a coffee klatch with two Ontario politicians who were cousins of the motel owner whose lobby a few of us would gather in every morning including our paper’s advertising manager, the Fort Frances mayor, a houseboat company owner, a teacher and former hockey coach, and others.
Those two politicians, Pat and John Reid, just happened to be Liberals, Pat who represented his riding in the Ontario legislature and John his in Parliament. During the mid-1980s, Pat and I did a lot of talking about issues affecting Northwestern Ontario, including the tourism industry which was highly dependent upon American fishermen and hunters crossing the border to hunt and fish in Canada.
But with a huge boundary water and virtually no regulations regarding where visitors could stay, there were real issues about tourism revenue being lost by resorts and natural resources being plundered, especially by fishermen who could scoot quickly back across to the Minnesota side of Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods after filling their boats full of Ontario walleye without having to buy licences as long as they didn’t actually land on shore or stay in Canada. And they didn’t have to stay at a hotel, motel, resort or campground. They could just park anywhere on Crown land, often leaving behind piles of garbage in the wilderness.
The Reid brothers made an impression on me because they had perspectives that seemed balanced. They didn’t overtly lean to the left, they certainly weren’t rightists, they came across as being central.
And to me, that central perspective is what’s too often missing in politics now. I’ve written before here that there is a population in Alberta who don’t feel their viewpoints are reflected by a party in Alberta that has a chance of getting elected.
That lack of balance is why I won’t be voting in the West Lethbridge by-election when one is called. I’m not going to throw away a vote just because it’s my democratic duty. I’m not going to grapple with my conscience about putting an X beside a party that has some good points but not enough for me to endorse it with a vote.
And both the NDP and UCP do have merits in their political platforms, strong merits – which should get howls of objections from their respective opponents – but they do. But both have perspectives that may be problematic to voters who feel disenfranchised because a more centrist option doesn’t exist, or at least one doesn’t exist that has a chance of being elected as government.
From this perspective, if the NDP wants to attract a wider audience it needs to get Gil McGowan and the Alberta Federation of Labour more into its fold. Gil made some really good points when I interviewed him during his run for the NDP leadership about how the party has moved away from its worker roots. I think he’s right.
The party that once was the home of the working class fighting for fair wages and humane hours is now often associated – right or wrong – with those whose stands on social issues quite frankly are contrasted by their own financial prosperity and job security.
The NDP needs to listen more to the working stiff struggling to make ends meet, who think they should given the same hand up that others are offered, the working Joes and Janes who see their disposable income decrease while costs rise.
In case the NDP didn’t notice, a lot of Albertans have issues with the so-called supervised consumption sites which were dumped upon communities under their rule. A lot do support the UCP’s approach to recovery-based treatment.
As a person who has written in the past about my own family’s battles, I tend to support that UCP approach because enabling is no answer to combating society’s ills. If recovery isn’t the point of an addictions strategy, why have one at all?
I remember as a teen contemplating the addictions problems destroying my family when I had my sights set on a career in social work. Material I read and studied in that era suggested people whose lives are directly affected by an addict don’t have to let the addict destroy others lives in addition to their own. There comes a point when people have to separate themselves from the addict and the addict’s harm. Should that be the case with society as a whole as well as individuals?
With that said, we can’t ignore the trauma being faced by those battling addictions and need to show compassion towards them. As a person who as a child often slept outside in family cars, the lawn in the backyard, or even on a picnic table on school nights to get rest from the demons destroying members of my family inside, I’ve seen first-hand what enabling an addict does. It destroys lives, it destroys families, it destroys self-esteem and it destroys the mental health of others who have to live with the addict.
And as we know mental unwellness and addictions are often inter-twined.
Enabling an addict simply expands the territory of the addict’s destruction, that destruction which I guarantee has impacted me for my entire life as I’ve fought to succeed and put my family’s ills behind – their alcoholism and mental illness, which have taken a toll on me.
But for me the buck stops with me. And I have serious concerns when people dismiss a recovery approach to addictions treatment, instead just talking about harm reduction. I struggle to see how harm is reduced when addicts are given the tools to help themselves die. To me, that’s tantamount to assisted suicide. And suicide whether by drug or razor blade – or combinations of the two as I had to deal with during a parent’s suicide attempts before I was even in my teens – is still suicide.
And nobody who hasn’t been forced to try to stop a wasted parent from bleeding out in a bathroom sink as I did at 10 years old has no business telling me I know nothing about addictions and self-harm. Trust me, I know.
And don’t talk to me about harm reduction unless like me, you spent your childhood hiding pills, booze, razors and knives from a parent! Trust me, I know all about harm reduction, too!
But addicts do need support systems, including those who don’t want to seek help or aren’t ready. To let them just die alone on the streets is inhumane, as well.
I truly understand the need, based on my own family’s history, to find ways of working with people to minimize the damage to themselves. Which in turn minimizes damage to others.
In either case, one singular approach isn’t necessarily the answer as we saw under the NDP’s stewardship of this province. Perhaps the UCP’s way isn’t the only way but at least it acknowledges the importance of recovery. Of hope. Of personal responsibility and accountability.
If the NDP were willing to acknowledge that its approach didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, undecided voters or UCP voters might consider giving them support in the next election, either in the West Lethbridge byelection or provincially.
If they showed true support for the low wage earner, the blue-collar person footing the tax bills for all the social programs Albertans need, they might get more votes. And they need to quit blaming the UCP entirely for the physician shortage which has been going on in Canada for many years, long before the UCP even came into existence. We wrote stories on it many years before the UCP even came into existence. It’s a problem that has been ongoing across this country for a long time.
But the UCP needs to acknowledge its own failings and get the doctor’s comprehensive care model signed, sealed and delivered. The government needs to actually show it cares about the the health of its residents and give health care professionals reason to stay in this province. Quit fighting and show some leadership on health care. Give health care professionals a reason to stay here so every Albertan can have a family doctor again!
While the premier said Monday night the province needs to find savings in the doctors’ budget why not take a different approach and perhaps increase the so-called beer tax to help pay for budgetary shortages? Why not up the gas tax a cent a litre to increase revenue to pay for the much-needed doctors in this province?
Why delay? We need doctors and we need them now. And a targeted tax increase could raise the money needed to pay for the doctors’ budget.
The UCP also needs to drop its efforts to scrap the Canada Pension Plan. It works and it works well. The last thing Albertans need right now is any more financial insecurity. Just quit wasting time and money and act upon issues that truly matter to the province – like climate change, inflation, quality education, doctors and crime.
Residents who feel disenfranchised politically in Alberta have told me these are some of their concerns with these parties, too. But will either listen?
If they truly care about Alberta and its future, both the UCP and NDP need to pay heed to a wider spectrum of Albertans.
All political parties need to listen to all of their constituents. All need to fair, be open-minded and be leaders!
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Interesting, on the other hand, disappointing Al. Your comments and observations are certainly valid and timely, however your declaration that you will not be voting in the Lethbridge West Bi-election is, I believe, premature. The campaign has not even begun.
Having said this, in our democracy, you certainly have the right to vote or not vote.
Your key illustrations facing the election are well founded and need to be transparently projected to potential voters. Why? We are not only faced with filling a seat vacated, hastefully, I might add, by an NDP MLA who simply let her constituents down in so many ways. Most paramount her two years of aloofness, not responding to the reaching out of her constituents! If we were to identify when this aloofness of Shannon Phillips began, interestingly, it is congruent with the closure of the Supervised Consumption Site (SCS). The SCS had perfound repercushions on our community, then, and continues today, agreed?
We know very well the position that Rob Miyashiro had/has on the SCS… he was totally supportive and advocating for the SCS to the point of his bullying other City Councillors during session. This, of course, did not promote a resolve until such time as the UCP came to the rescue and shuttered the SCS!
Perhaps, a point you never considered in your report, Rob Miyashiro does not even reside in West Lethbridge! This should speak volumns to Westside constituents who want/need responsible representation.
Al, perhaps, you may reconsider your decision of not voting, and resolve to vote, vote for hope (John Middleton-Hope) for our City.
It would be good for democracy to have a strong, centrist third party to vote for. Whether a person agreed with their policies or not. People are tired of voting totally left or what they view as totally right. I think it would improve voter turn out, as well. Which is shameful.
After the big SCS was shut down some councilors had voters convinced there was no longer an SCS. Those same councilors knew or should have known darn well that the SCS was replaced with a mobile SCS now called an OPS.(overdose prevention site) Largely unused as addicts shoot up shortly after they purchase their drugs ,which is not typically right beside an OPS/SCS.
Any lessons to be learned from the recent BC election?
Yes, of course, the mobile (trailer unit) beside the homeless shelter was and still was introduced after the SCS was shuttered. Truly not fully utilized, why? They register and control who uses it, don’t allow common drug deals within the facility, recognize and refer “clients” for assistance….Not simply facilitate rampant illegal drug/substance abuse! It is regulated/controlled. By the way, did we ever REALLY know where the missing $3,000,000.00 went from the former SCS, where did the Executive Director (Stacey Bourgue) disappear to immediately after the doors to the SCS were locked? Oh well, water under the bridge, the Lethbridge!
Please, on this issue alone, we can not entertain such a fiasco ever again, don’t walk, RUN from the NDP, run from Rob Miyashiro.
I am trying to understand your comment. The current SCS mobile is largely unused as addicts shoot up once they get the fix. Does this mean that the old SCS was a haven for drug dealers where they could just drive up and service the “customers” who just went twenty feet inside to shoot up without persecution? Hmmm. Maybe we should put a drive thru and parking lot in front of the mobile unit. That ought to do it.
The upcoming elections lead me to the same conclusion of not voting. I’ve never voted anything but Con in my life, but on both a provincial and federal level, this is not the party I supported.
It would take a lot for me to swallow hard and vote NDP or Liberal and realistically can’t see it happening
The continued movement of the “Conservatives” to the right has left myself and many I speak with, without a party which represents my views and beliefs
Why don’t you join the Party in membership and express your voice as to how you believe the Party should go, attend a membership meeting and submit agendas, vote on resolutions…..that is how politics work.
Certainly Party’s evolve over time, if you feel your Conservative Party has moved to the “Right” how so?
If i were you, I would give John Middleton-Hope a call and discus your concern(s) directly with him. He is very easy to contact and will always have time to speak with you. For now:
John Middleton-Hope was selected on September 23rd to be the United Conservative Party’s candidate for the upcoming Lethbridge-West byelection. Currently, John serves as a councillor for the City of Lethbridge, a role he has held since 2021.
Before entering elected politics, John had an extensive career in protective services, working with the Calgary Police Service for over two decades, and then as Chief of Police for the Lethbridge Police Service from 2002 to 2006. He has since worked as a consultant advising businesses, health care providers, government, police training institutions, and post-conflict foreign governments through the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). John specializes in topics of ethics, leadership, police reform, local policing, and conduct management, among others. He has developed courses for a wide range of academic institutions and frequently instructs students at both Athabasca University and Lethbridge Polytechnic.
John has a diploma in criminology from John Abbott College, a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Bishop’s University, and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Calgary. He is additionally a graduate of the Canadian Police College and the FBI Academy.
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Harm Reduction was created by the Religious/Social Services Groups of the World. That is a fact, not fiction. It stemmed from the premise that All God’s Children deserve help if needed. Social Services, on the otherhand are motivated by jobs, and money but use the Religious reasons to ensure appropriate feeding on the Gov Teat.
Now, you may say, thats not fair, because Social Services do good work, they provide a needed function and are a necessity. That is true, however, thier existence and structure is motivated by the Gov niche, that needs to be filled.
The failings of the UCP/NDP/Liberals is always the same. Those in power never want to cripple any of these social services in fear they will shutdown and stop providing needed help. These groups now determine where, when and how much assistance they will provide based on the Dollars provided. This puts the Social Services and Churches in charge even though they insist that is not the case.
A clear example of that is “where” social services wants to serve. Not one politician, not one council, not one Legislature has dared to challenge, “where”. Why? Its an easy answer, if Churches under the guise of providing a Social Service sets up a clothing store, food distribution, for the Addicts who abuse it in your downtown, then suddenly the same Social Services state “we must serve them where they are”! No one challenges the fact that the reason they are in the downtown is because you invited them there with your free services. So you have the first nail in the coffin of society firnly in place by the Churches. The second nail is the flocking to the downtown real estate by the Social Services that live off of this cash cow.
The third nail is politicians then acknowledging the Social Services Cluster and supporting it.
The fourth nail is the expansion of services to a point where its “too big to fail” or too big to fire!
The fifth and final nail is those among us who have sought political greatness and truly have no idea what they are doing to a cities Society and when things degrade out of control, use Police as their support group.The Police then tell you that its your fault you left your garage unlocked (even though on your property) and it is up to you to make sure everything is locked up.Police then hold seminars on how to protect your property from a population invited here by social services and who are supposed to be controlled by Police but can’t be because the Courts believe in Catch and Release! Until that is fixed does it really matter how or if an addict gets treatment?
So in the end you have a cluster of social services with an ever expanding real estate portfolio using your money to destroy your society and the Police telling you its your fault you lost property. The courts further support this by releasing the individual so fast that he/she is back at his/her favorite sport of stealing from residents before the ink dries on the initial charge!
The litany of social services who show up to insist the criminal didn’t know what he/she is doing increases yearly and the cycle continues until your city is a shadow of its former self.
Who is to blame? You, you don’t provide enough money for more social services so they can spend more analyzing Johnny or Julie.
This system fails everywhere in the world, if there was just more of your money ! So really, its your fault!
Dennis, having known you for quite some time. Thank you for your recent post regarding this paramount issue. I’m sure that you do in fact believe that individuals at some point in time may require assistance and guidance through difficult times.
The same applies to the homeless and drug addicts.
However , the line is drawn in the sand what constitutes assistance to actually helping the individual as opposed to continuing to enable the individual in their perpetual drug addictions and poor lifestyle that will eventually downward spiral to death.
Ergo our Premier/Province are moving, I believe in the proper direction to deal with the issue of drug addiction and homelessness.Not an easy fix but it is certainly a start of a building block can be built upon.
For now, we need good government.We need responsible people in government and we need John Middleton-Hope with a plethora of information, experience and direction that will lead us out of this critical situation that is affecting our whole community.
We definitely do not need an MLA like Rob Miyashiro who has been an advocate for enabling drug users, ie the “supervised consumption (distruction) site” that we have experienced and regretted ever since its inception.
I would like to be as optomistic as you. Waiting for someone to volunteer for rehab is a mugs game. Not because it won’t happen, but it happens at such a slow rate that others are joining the drug addiction life far faster. So, there is no relief, no matter if SCS, if Rehab based or any other magical approach.
A city like ours will support these people forever, which is a tad longer than most people suspect, but my date is closer than any of theirs over the last 50 years.
It very strange that a fellow who claims to know the NDP & UCP platforms doesn’t know the the NDP have a very strong policy commitment to recovery-based care for addictions issues. It’s a major part of the overall NDP addictions strategy. In fact, their plan is more robust than the UCP policy, since in their plan recovery-based addictions treatment must have measurable results, must provide public transparency, is designed by medical experts and is not a private prison.
Perhaps the key to deciding who to vote for in the Lethbridge West byelection is for voters to take a closer look at the policy platforms of the parties who are running candidates.
Oh, of course I am sure they do, …..perhaps another, bigger/better ” enabling” Supervised Consumption Site, or other enabling for addicts with no accountability…. maybe they can find Stacey Bourgue
and loose another 3 million?
Lethson, you are playing politics and spreading untruths. There has never been, nor will there ever be a “measurement of results”. This is why social services insist on staged recovery. You go to Stage 1, attend, and if you pass they issue “thier measure”. Eg. 50% Stage 2 then recieves 50% of the initial total and if 50% pass, then they have 50% success rate. If in the end 1 person goes through the final stage and passes they claim 100% success.If 2 months later that person starts consuming again, there is no tracking or corrections on the data. 90% of failure occurs in the first year they are on thier own.
Why dont Govs track? Because the social services do not want to show the entire system is a 100% failure. All Governments rely on deaths to create some resemlance of stability in thier system of accountability, not rehab.
If you ask for results at the 2 year mark, not one province in Canada has that data. Do you know why? 1% or less is the resultant success rate. For that, we destroy our society! and encumber residents with extra taxes!
There are four pillars to a SCS. Please provide a detailed report on the success of the four pillars inn the NDP SCS or even if they bothered to go past PIllar one.
Thanks for your thoughtful letter, Al. I am also struggling with the Lethbridge West upcoming by-election. I have voted in every election of every kind since I was able to vote, starting just shy of 60 years ago! There most certainly doesn’t seem to be a middle ground anymore. As individuals we will never find the perfect fit and that’s fine, but when things get so far to the left and right, it’s very tricky to “hold your nose and mark the X” Just in case someone gets all picky, “fill in the circle”. In the end, I will probably hold my nose and cast my ballot as long-time habits are hard to break. Unless something happens to change my mind, I will vote for the individual rather than the party.
“There most certainly doesn’t seem to be a middleTON-HOPE ground anymore.”
Made a small addition to your post…. just a hint Doug.
a thoughtful entry, doug. and one that likely speaks for a lot of voters. where i see it, i question why i and so very many other voters have long been content enough to “hold their nose” and choose from among a very uninspiring list that represent outdated, corrupted parties (and corrupted is well documented through decades and decades of lies, sleaze, and ineptitude with every party we elect). moreover, each of the parties that has been elected to majorities has overseen the ongoing degradation of democracy in canada.
why not step out and up, folks, and try rejecting the farce with a large x through your ballot? it may not change a thing, but at least one is not complicit in legitimising the so very much that is wrong with our “leadership” today. i suspect to truly make our system more representative of the masses, and more about upholding rights and freedoms, and more about sustainable living, change will require a good bit sacrifice than x-ing out a ballot. but that is a good first and easiest step.
Unfortunately if you don’t vote the old adage is then you can’t complain, you can only protest and either way you are a designated wingnut for not picking a side.
the thing is, a beautiful irony, too, is that going to the polls and voting that none of them deserve a vote (rejecting the ballot with a big x), is both a vote and a complaint 🙂