Sure is quiet................

As you might have guessed I’ve eagerly been awaiting the launch of the Alberta Party’s website. If you click on the header on their site it clearly says; “starting March 1st” This was further confirmed when they met with Dave Cournoyer.

I realize things can happen and there might be a very logical reason for the delay. Actually this is one of the reasons I signed up for their newsletter; to be kept abreast of developments. I have yet to hear from them; not even a standard, automated welcome note.

So I went in search of information from those involved. The Renew Alberta website has not been updated since the original announcement on February 19th. The Alberta Party’s leader has not blogged since the same date. The most recent interim leader made a few comments on Feb 24.

I also checked Twitter for #renewab, @albertaparty; searched “the big listen”. Nadda. Zip. Zilch.

*** crickets ***

More food for thought

An anonymous commenter has brought up the question of the validity of the Leadership of the Alberta Party.

After reading the real constitution of the Alberta Party, they left a comment in this post.

Reading those pages I dont see any reference to a leader.

An interesting observation.


Edwin Erickson (the Leader of the Alberta Party) and I have tweeted to one another this morning and I have asked him his thought on my earlier entry, but no response so far.

Edwin Erickson a little infatuated perhaps?

At around 10:30 PM (yesterday now) I noticed a new member on Twitter, WAPwatch. At first I thought it might be my old internet friend resurrected. But alas, it is not. My old nemesis would have been a little bit smarter and I would not have been able to figure out the real identity so quickly.


Here are two screen shots taken at the same time. You will see the first posts of WAPwatch. (made at 8:23 PM. according to Tweetdeck)

And here you will see his followers. (Note: I have blocked out the other follower from the screenshot at their request, as they are no longer following)

You will note that the first follower, Edwin Erickson started following WAPwatch a full four hours before the first tweet. Before even one Tweet with any hash tags was posted.  The only way he could have known about the account and started following it before any tweets, was if he (or a cohort) created it.

Since then Edwin Erickson, I mean WAPwatch has been going through all of my followers and has started to follow them.

I suspect by morning WAPwatch will also be following everyone I am following.  Interesting that he chose pink for a background color. Presumably to lead one to believe it was a woman. Or maybe Edwin really does like pink.

Editted to add:
Joanne points out in the comments that this timestamp is of his last Tweet. And I stand corrected; I took it to be the follow time. Nonetheless, clearly he was the first on the bandwagon of this unusual twitter'er. I see this morning the following list is a mirror image of those following me.

Edited to add:
You will no longer find me on his list as I have now blocked him. I recommend my family do the same.

A Black Cloud Over the Alberta Party

In my last installment regarding the Alberta Party I outlined the three steps to rescinding or amending party bylaws under the Society Act. I dropped a couple of hints in that posting and I suspect they will have caused either the Alberta Party or the Renew Alberta group to do a bit of homework. As such the information in today’s entry should not come as a huge surprise to them.

I will preface this also with: This is not an unusual situation, in fact I have been through similar experiences with two other parties. As well I have heard that this once happened to the PC’s many years ago.

As a recap here are the three points in the Society Act regarding changing bylaws.

Rescission, etc. of bylaws

15
(1) The bylaws of a society shall not be rescinded, altered or added to except by special resolution of the society.
(2) No rescission or alteration of or addition to a bylaw has effect until it has been registered by the Registrar.
(3) If the Registrar is of the opinion that a bylaw is not in accordance with the application for incorporation or that it contains anything contrary to law, the Registrar shall refuse to register it.

When it came to #2 I wrote:

Hhmm, okay we’re going to have to presume they have filed the resolution with the Society’s Registrar and that brings us to the third requirement.

As everyone knows one should never presume or assume anything. So I went to my local registry office and requested the appropriate searches and received the documents. For now I am only going to post the relevant sections.

This first one is a summary of all the submissions to the Registrar since 1998.

You will see generally each year they have filed their Annual Return and Audited Financial Statement. These along with a list of current directors are the basic requirements to keeping the non-profit society active. You will note they filed changes to the directors on Oct. 4, 2008 and again on June 5, 2009. The most recent activity has been two change of address; Sept. 2 & Dec 2, 2009.

There are two things that really stand out as “missing” on this. The first is that we know they elected new board members at the Oct 2009 AGM. When I look at the list of directors, the new ones are not registered. (I won’t be posting that document as it has everyone’s home address on it.)

The second thing is there is no mention of Bylaws or Special Resolutions being submitted as required by the Act. To illustrate what it would look like here is a portion of the same report from the WAP.

I also received a copy of the bylaws on record with the Registrar, but they were dated August 1985. I thought surely there had been some update or amendment since then. I emailed the registry office and asked if there was a more recent copy of the bylaws, perhaps they missed sending me a couple of pages. (There were over 60 pages, so it was possible). This is their response.

No changes to the bylaws have been filled.

What does this mean you ask? Well, it means the Alberta Party is still operating under their original bylaws (constitution) they filed in 1985 and not the one they circulated at the 2009 AGM. (The one I have posted)

As we already know from 15(2) of the Society Act:

No rescission or alteration of or addition to a bylaw has effect until it has been registered by the Registrar

Unfortunately, it also means the October AGM was not valid. In the bylaws that are in effect the quorum requirement is as follows:

My head count at the meeting was 37. Of that 2 of us were observers and 2 were children of one of the members. In Charles' letter to me he says it was 40% of the membership. 40% would be 40 people. At the meeting they reported the total membership in good standing was 99. I am not going to split hairs over whether it was 33 or 40 people; the fact is it wasn’t the required 50 people.

With the meeting being invalid, it means any resolutions passed are also invalid. In order to get their desired resolutions past they will have to have a meeting of members and meet the quorum requirement as per the above. If their membership numbers are now up to 500, they will need to have 250 people at the meeting.

Then they will have to "actually" file the Special Resolutions and they become effective once the Registrar approves them. And as I mentioned in my previous entry; I highly doubt they will approve a resolution that contravenes the Society Act itself.

There might be one silver lining to this black cloud though. They don’t have any policies! The bylaws in effect don’t mention policies or even make reference to how they would be developed.

They do however have principles:

Looks like there might be a couple in there the Renew people could get behind.

I will be posting the full text of the bylaws, but will blank out the names of the original signators. If any member of the Alberta Party or the Renew Alberta group would like the full report (that I paid for LOL) from the registry search, I will gladly email it to you. You can find my email address in my blogger profile.

Albert Party President responds

I have received a comment from the Alberta Party President, Charles Relland. So that it doesn't get lost in the mix of comments I am posting and responding to it here separately.

Ms. Morgan,
Thank you for your interest in the Alberta Party – an interest that brought you to the first portion of the Annual General Meeting of the party last October in Red Deer. Unfortunately, your recent blog entries are factually incorrect and it is important that I set the record straight:
First, Mr. Erickson ran on a platform that clearly stated that he wanted to bring the Renew Alberta team into the Alberta Party.
Second, the portion of the Annual General Meeting that you walked away from saw the presentation of my Omnibus Motion #10-24-09-20, overwhelmingly passed by the party membership who were in attendance at that meeting, and who represented more than 40% of the total membership of the party. This motion completely negates the points you have made in your blog postings. For your reassurance, and for the information of your readers, I quote two pertinent portions of this motion:
Whereas the Constitution can only really be applicable to our Party after we sustain some growth, to work in practice, (and the Party, since 2005 is trying to follow it in principle), we have to admit to ourselves that we have to concentrate on growth with our secondary objective [that] of making the Constitution workable…"
And
“… That the Provincial Board may make any operational policy, between General Assemblies, to regulate the provincial affairs of the Party, including, but not limited to the bylaws and sections of the Party Constitution…"
The party constitution and the omnibus resolution give the board clear authority to suspend the party policies.
Third, and most significant, the board of the Alberta Party proceeded with this course of action because traditional policy development simply doesn't work. Clearly, we intend to be a new type of party. We are inviting the involvement of all Albertans.
I suspect that your vehement opposition to the Big Listen is based entirely on the fact that you have no interest in seeing the Alberta Party broaden its base of support and actually listen to people who may disagree with your own point of view. Fortunately for you, there is a party (in which you apparently hold an official position) which will accommodate your narrow minded, old-school political perspective.
Yours truly,
Charles Relland,
President
Alberta Party

Charles,

Thank you for taking the time to clarify some of these important discrepancies. Glad to see you are still the President.

Other than a blog entry by Robert Leddy, nothing can be found on any platform that Edwin may or may not have run on.

I have five pages of resolutions in your name and I am not sure I can match any of them up with what you have described. Would you be good enough to state specifically the motion number? And even the page number, as there motions 1 thru 9 on one page and then 1 thru 6 on another page. That is to say there are 2 motions that are each number 1 thru 6.

Better yet, why don’t you post the reworded constitution so everyone can see what rules you are now operating under. If you can’t post it, just email it to me; I will gladly post for you.

Charles, I thought you knew me well enough to know that I am not opposed to listening whatsoever. And I am very much in favor of more players in the political arena; especially from the left.

My narrow minded, old-school political perspective…. Now that truly is funny; when I have been criticized for being too “progressive” for the WAP.

And no, I don’t hold an official position with the WAP (apparently or in fact). You really must get up to speed or find better sources for your information.

Take your constitution and "shove it".

That is basically what the board of the Alberta Party have told their members. As reported in today's Calgary Herald. The Alberta Party, has thrown out its policy book to embrace a new centrist political group.

From the Alberta Party Constitution:

ARTICLE 8: ASSEMBLIES (MEETINGS OF THE PARTY)
(g) Resolutions at a Party Assembly, unless otherwise in the Constitution provided, shall require a majority of the votes cast to be carried (herein called a “Majority Vote”). A resolution establishing or amending Party policy or objectives to be carried must receive not only a majority of the votes cast but bust also receive a majority vote of the delegates from a majority of the recognized Constituency Associations.

The AP held their last AGM in October 2009 and I can confirm there was no motion to "remove all policies". Nor has there been any "assembly" of the members since then.

So who exactly are the individuals that decided they could reign supreme over a duly registered constitutuion? The board elected in October consisted of:

Name / Twitter
Irene Burd
Edwin Erickson @edwinferickson
Connie Jensen @cjensen48
Midge Lambert @midge_l
Robert Leddy
Charles Relland
Walter Sandusky
Fred Schorning
Howard Thompson
Kathryn Upton
Ron Upton
Ashley Valberg @linoleumbob
Bob White
Elaine Young

At the October AGM the party reported having 99 members. It was then they also decided to call a leadership race. As we know now, Edwin Erickson was the only one to put his name forward and by all reports was "acclaimed" the Leader.

Ironically, it was Edwin, who at that meeting made the following motion;

"....moves that the new board strike a committee to organize a policy convention to be held at an appropriate time."

So it appears the no such committee has been struck and of course no policy assembly date set. It would seem Edwin now feels it is quite alright to override the party policy and even motions he, himself proposed.

My brief entry yesterday sparked a few phone calls and I can now confirm that not only were members not aware of the flushing of the policies; at least one board member was also caught off guard.
Which casts a pretty dark cloud on Erickson's statement: "Unanimously our Board has decided to suspend our old policies...."

This whole mess actually doesn't seem to stop of flushing the policies. This quote from Chima Nkemdirim;  "The party has a “statement of principles” in place (www.renewalberta.ca) that serves as the bedrock of the party."

The Alberta Party already has their principles embedded in their constitution, but if we are to believe this statement it would appear the board has also altered the Constitution without the required member input and vote.

Nkemdirim goes on to say;

"The nuts and bolts of policy, however, will come from the membership."

REALLY??? And what exactly is that worth if the board thinks they can just throw them out the window whenever the feeling strikes them?