Mar. 16, 2011 - Issue #804 : P.S. I love You
Issues
Truth revealed
UK comparison exposes Wildrose Alliance's plan for public services
For the past year in Alberta the back and forth between those Albertans warning that the Wildrose Alliance is an extremist right-wing party and party leader Danielle Smith has taken on an almost Monty Python-esque quality. The latest episode of "who's the extremist?" played out at the March 2 Wildrose fundraising dinner in Edmonton.
In her speech to the faithful, Smith referenced those dire warnings about "right-wing extremists masquerading as moderates," and proceeded to quickly discount them: "Quite frankly, these sinister-sounding terms are meaningless. They are used to create fear. They are the resort of people who have run out of useful things to say. And they will not work. Albertans will not run away and hide from a scary word. They will not be fooled."
Take a close look at the above quote, however. In a departure from the Monty Python bit, the above doesn't actually say "we're not extremists." It says, "Albertans will not run away and hide from a scary word."
Danielle Smith and her crew are expert communicators, and they have toured the province over the course of the last year being very careful about what they say and to whom. They choose their words carefully to imply that they are rational, moderate and in favour of public services, but the meat of their policies says otherwise.
A good example of this is their response to the provincial budget, where they criticized the government for investing in public infrastructure (schools and hospitals) that they can't afford to staff. The implication is that the Alliance is aware of the need to properly staff public services, and that they would properly staff them. What is not said publicly, however, is that the Alliance is actually interested in the opposite: privatizing education and healthcare so that the government wouldn't have to staff them at all. That really is the essence of right-wing extremism masquerading as moderation, and they've been doing this not only in education and health care, but also in social services and infrastructure.
In the March 2 speech cited above, however, Danielle Smith's communications team either slipped up or experienced a rare flash of honesty. A few paragraphs after saying that use of the word extremist is just a fear tactic, Smith went on to align herself and her party with one of the most extreme policy platforms anywhere: UK Prime Minister David Cameron's "Big Society."
In case you've missed it, here's the essence of Cameron's plan in the UK: cut public services, cut taxes, eliminate any and all government support for the poor, disabled and vulnerable, and let churches and charities work it all out. Social services will be off-loaded to local councils, which are already completely cash-strapped, and all local services and facilities (like libraries, public transit, rec facilities, and infrastructure and maintenance) will be made to disappear. Volunteers will be become the defacto go-to people for making things happen in communities.
At the same time, decent health care will be available only for those who can afford to pay, with everyone else having to prove they are worthy and beg for access to whichever charity is willing to provide it, while a tripling of university tuition is ensuring the exclusivity of access to advanced education.
In other words, Cameron's vision for the UK is largely based on a return to that Victorian society articulated so well by Dickens in A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist. A society where supports, housing and services for the poor, disabled and down-on-their-luck is based not on their rights and entitlements as human beings, but rather on their ability to beg for their gruel more effectively than the next person.
This is the vision of society that Danielle Smith aligned herself and her party with on March 2 when she publicly held up Cameron's "Big Society" as an ideal they would emulate in Alberta. So much for her claims of moderation and common sense.
But in the end, as scary and distasteful as this vision will be for most Albertans, it is positive that Smith has embraced them so openly. Hopefully this signals a turn away from the double-talk and misrepresentation we have seen from the Alliance up until now, and a turn toward more honesty and openness in the kind of Alberta they want to build. Hopefully the mainstream media and the other political parties in the province will latch onto this and spread the word. Albertans need to be aware of what the party truly stands for, and make their electoral decisions accordingly. V
Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the Parkland Institute a non-partisan, not-for-profit public policy institute housed at the University of Alberta.
More stories in front »
vueweekly.com comments: powered by DisqusPrivacy Policy:
Vue respects your privacy. We will not forward your personal information to any other organization except as required by law, and will use your e-mail address only to respond to your comments. We reserve the right to edit and remove comments for length, clarity and/or if they are illegal or inappropriate. Your email address is never shown to visitors to vueweekly.com. Read the whole policy at: http://vueweekly.com/privacy
Comments policy
Comments go online directly without first being seen or reviewed by editors at Vue. Don't personally attack people, don't be defamatory, don't be spam-atory, don't hawk your band, don't pretend to be someone else, be clear, be on topic, be nice. Read our extended comments policy here. »
We use Disqus for our comments system. What's that all about?
We found that managing the comment community at Vue was easier to do with a system like Disqus. If this isn't straightforward to you, get help here.