Did you watch the debate tonight, Sam? I don’t think the NDP have a snowball’s chance, but I was impressed with how knowledgeable Brian Mason was.
I never saw how twitchy Premier Alison Redford is before - I noticed that when she was listening to someone else ask her a question, her eyes and eyebrows were just twitching away.
I missed it - I had other commitments tonight. I’m hoping I’ll be able to find it online somewhere - maybe on Youtube.
Most people who would be using the Calgary-Edmonton train would be going from downtown to downtown, would they not (i.e. business and corporate commuters)? Run the trains into downtown or to a light rail link and you’ve solved your cab/rental car problem. You’re not using the train to travel because you want to drive around the city. There’s actually a little better transit from the Calgary airport to downtown now with an express bus but that’s still not a great option, which is why the “convenience” of a hop on flight between the cities still wouldn’t work.
That, or they’re headed to a hockey or football game or concert, all of which have great transit links in both cities. You also get to pick up people along the way in Red Deer and maybe Camrose (not a huge deal but it’s something). Again, I’m non-committal on how much traffic there would be for the train (I’d like to see a study) but I think the issues are bit different for air travel.
Via used to run a self-contained one car/engine thing on the rail line between Regina and Saskatoon; probably held more people than a bus, but it wasn’t a full train. It didn’t survive. Can’t remember whether the price was competitive with STC or not. This was back in the 80s.
By the way, welcome back, Sam.
Thanks for that. I appreciate it!
In case anyone is still wondering if Danielle Smith is some kind of closet social conservative, here are some direct quotes from her from this interview in the Globe and Mail:
So… She’s pro gay marriage, and pro choice. Furthermore, even though her positions on those issues were known at the time, she was still elected leader of the Wildrose Party, getting almost 77% of the votes. That tells you something about where the party itself is coming from.
Are there still a lot of social conservatives in the party? Sure. Just like the NDP (and US Democrats) have hard-core socialists along with more moderate progressives. The parties that represent the end points of the ideological spectrum always pick up some of the extremes. And the opposition always tries to paint the extremists as being representative of the party. But really, to be fair you have to look at where the center of gravity of the party is, what their platform is, and who is in the leadership. In the case of Wildrose, they are simply not a socially conservative party.
Or look at it this way: Danielle Smith would be considered too left-wing for the Republican party of today because she’s pro choice and pro gay marriage. But she was elected leader of Wildrose by a 3/4 majority.
Yeah I would see a train as basically being a competitor/replacement for the Red Arrow bus (that goes from downtown Calgary to downtown Edmonton, with a stop in Red Deer). I really like taking it as I don’t have to drive, and hence can nap or read or work on my laptop. The bus takes three hours though, so hopefully a high-speed train would take half the time. The Red Arrow bus is always full the times I’ve taken it, and I’m sure anyone who uses it regularly would love to have a train between Calgary and Edmonton.
BUT - there’s only 8 busses between Calgary and Edmonton each day, and they carry maybe 60-80 people each trip - and chances are the mid-day busses aren’t full. Is the market for a Calgary to Edmonton downtown train going to be THAT much bigger than the market for the Red Arrow? Is transporting a few thousand people a day somewhat faster going to be worth a multi-billion dollar investment?
Regarding the election in general, I’ll be interested to see how much voter share the Wildrose party is able to wrestle away from the conservatives. I find it amusing how catering to social conservatives is kind of a double-edged sword for the Wildrose party - pick up the social conservative voters at the expense of the fiscal conservative but socially liberal voters (which IME is the dominant political slant for city voters).
Thanks for your input, Sam - that really is my big concern about the Wildrose Party. Like I said earlier, I do like their platform (well, sending oil dividend cheques to all Albertans is an obvious vote grab and a terrible idea, in my opinion, but I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to care about how they squander the resource money :)).
Ugh, I must be in a swing riding. I’m getting 3 taped calls a day for polling and “have you considered our awesome candidate?” and I’ve stopped answering the door if someone has a pamphlet in their hands.
I’ll add my thanks too, Sam. Here is southern Alberta, the rumours are swirling–the craziest I’ve heard so far is that Wildrose will turn Alberta into a theocracy, complete with forced conversions–but otherwise, the rumours reflect legitimate concerns: Wildrose will tamper with abortion rights, with gay rights, and so on. I continue to be undecided, but I am glad to see that Ms. Smith is aware of these concerns, and is trying to reassure the electorate that she cannot turn back the clock on morality issues.
It occurs to me that maybe the Wildrose Party should have been aware that this was going to be their Achilles heel, and pro-actively got ahead of it before the election was called (and especially don’t have people who are high up in the party shooting their mouths off like that one guy, what’shisname).
Budd car. Still in use in a few places. Budd Rail Diesel Car - Wikipedia
That’s it!
Jim raised an interesting point earlier today - as pointed out by Premier Redford during the debate, Danielle Smith declined two opportunities to run for election as an MLA since she has become leader of the party. Does anyone have any speculation as to why she would do that?
There’s a good profile of Smith in the Globe and Mail which sheds some light on your question.
Oh for eff’s sake: Smith says climate change “not settled”.
Polls show Wildrose on track for a majority, although slipping a bit: Edmonton, Calgary up in the air as another poll shows tightening Alberta race
They’re polling in the 40% range overall, but with massive support in the rural areas, so that is a a bit deceptive.
Wildrose looks to be firmly in the lead in the rural areas, slightly behind in Calgary, and slightly ahead in Edmonton; common wisdom is you need to take two of the three areas to form a majority government.
Well, if Rob Anders is supporting the Wildrose Party, that’s all I need to know. I won’t be voting for them.
(The climate change thing is extremely disappointing, too.)
Comparing the provincial Wildrose party to the national Republican party is a bit misleading. Is she really any more left-wing than Mitt Romney was when he was governor of Massachusetts?
That’s OK. He’ll probably fall asleep and miss the voting day entirely anyway. Then wake up and call the Provincial government a bunch of communists.