What’s the Way Forward for Alberta’s Politics?

By Dave King, one of the founders and organizers of Reboot Alberta!

For the past 15 years or more, provincial politics have been a frustration for me and, from what I hear, a frustration for others as well.  I have wanted a government with a different spirit, a different value set, and different goals for my community, a different way of doing politics.  Yet, I am a democrat and a romantic.  So, there is no “us and them”.  When the people of Alberta have voted, the government of Alberta is my government.  Together, we are jointly responsible for our circumstances, and we can do better.

What is the way forward?

Politically, we are living on exhausted and toxic political soil.  We cannot bring it to life by working it harder, or by adding more artificial nutrients or technology.  Our political soil will not become more fruitful if we demand more of it on the same terms as our previous demands.

We need to reject the politics of fear, confrontation, and intimidation.  We cannot overthrow such politics with more fear, confrontation, and intimidation.

We are tired of the politics of problems and liabilities.  We cannot overthrow such politics by claiming to present larger and more serious problems that have, we say, a more urgent claim to attention.

We are not well served by the politics of selfishness, exclusivity, immediate gratification, and harsh judgment.  We cannot overthrow such politics by endorsing alternate forms of selfishness, exclusivity, quick fixes, and more – different — judgments about more people.

We belittle democracy and the enduring public when we adopt its counterfeit – majoritarian rule and the temporary plurality.  We cannot overthrow such politics by seeking to create our own majority in the hope that we will be able to maintain compliance.

We weaken our community when we adopt as the purpose of inclusion the goal of making everyone like everyone else.   We cannot overthrow such politics by seeking to market an ideal that we hope everyone will choose to adopt.

Instead of contending with the current political structures and culture, we need to leave what we are accustomed to.  What is required is a new relationship with our political ground, our practices, and with each other.

We can adopt the politics of hope, cooperation, and respect.  We can adopt the politics of possibilities and assets.  We can adopt the politics of community and the public, inclusion and diversity, the long term, and affirmation.

These “words” have power, because ideas and stories have power.  We need to unleash the power of new ideas and stories.

It is also true that ideas and stories lose their power, when they no longer provide adequate explanation of what is happening and where we are going.

The current political stories are quickly losing their power.  The labels that dominated for so long are losing their power.  The structures and practices that work in the old stories are falling apart.  They are not tenable for our present, let alone our future.

The time has come for concerned Albertans to come together, choose new ways of being democratic citizens, and tell new stories about why we are as we are, what we want for ourselves and our grandchildren, and how we are going to work together to achieve our goals.

However we do it, a new democracy does not mean “more of the same, only better”.  It doesn’t mean simply that we replace one old-fashioned political party with another old-fashioned political party (perhaps of recent vintage).  A new democracy doesn’t mean that we abandon the dream of self-government and live as much as we can without regard for our government.

A new way of being democratic will require a much richer sense of what it means to be self-governing.  A new way of being democratic will require more participation, by all of us, in different ways and in a greater variety of different situations.

Most of all, a new way of being democratic will require us to be civil with each other when we agree, and even more civil to each other when we are uncertain, and most civil when we disagree.

A few of us are choosing to walk away from the historic political process, but we are not abandoning politics, or democracy, or our responsibilities as citizens.  We are looking for a new place to stand, a new way of practicing good stewardship.

We won’t all settle in the same place.  We won’t all choose the same way to make a contribution.  We won’t all want the same personal outcomes.

But, when all is said and done

• we are democrats – we respect and value individuals and the public

• we will undertake our work in a spirit of civility and community

• we will undertake our work with a commitment to diversity and sustainability

• we live in hope

• we focus on possibilities and assets.

We are committed to our fellow citizens, and we will do the work that we imagine needs to be done.