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Continue readingAuthor: Ken Chapman
Ken Chapman: Disruptive Technologies and the Skills Revolution
As part of my work with GO Productivity I have been all over Alberta conducting workshops on the impact and implications of disruptive and emerging technologies on small and mid-sized businesses. Key questions we canvassed participants on was around the changing skills needed to work in a digitized and automated
Continue readingKen Chapman: We’re Just a Bunch of Monkeys
I wanted to write something in anticipation of the inevitable Left vs Right commentary that will be forthcoming on the Alberta Budget debates. However, I have not really read the Budget…yet! Pretty hard to be authoritative under those circumstances. Still the polarized arguments and tropes from the adversaries are very
Continue readingKen Chapman: Are Alberta’s Policy Makers Agile Enough for Emerging Technologies?
I have been travelling the province facilitating workshops on the the impacts and implications of emerging technologies in our economy. These technologies are also called disruptive and exponential by some folks, depending on if you have a half empty or half full mindset. NEW SKILLS & NEW COMPETENCIES:The underlying motivation
Continue readingKen Chapman: Alberta Party 3.0… How Did It Come to This?
The Only Sure Thing in Alberta Politics is There is No Sure Thing.The on-going volatility of the Alberta political culture is not smoothing out with Stephen Mandel’s recent Alberta Party leadership victory. That volatility is likely to become more vociferous and starkly apparent as the adversarial win-lose, right versus left
Continue readingKen Chapman: Trans Mountain Pipeline: Politics With a Purpose
Can We Build and Operate a Sustainable Pipeline?I am very much in favour of the Kinder Morgan TransMountain pipeline project. As an Albertan, and therefore the owner of the natural resources it will transport, I acknowledge the special benefits as well as the concurrent burden associated with it. To me
Continue readingKen Chapman: Looking at the Alberta Party Leadership
A New Day and a New Way? With the retirement of Greg Clark as leader, there are four phases to the leadership change process within Alberta Party. First was to find quality and committed candidates. Done! Membership sales was next phase that closed on February 12. Done! Now the candidates have
Continue readingKen Chapman: Is There New Political Compass Emerging in Alberta?
What is the New Political Compass?The concept of a New Political Compass, one that moves beyond the linear spectrum of Left vs Right was introduced in 2008 by Dr. Paul Ray, the co-author of “The Cultural Creatives.” The research this post references is based on American data but I think
Continue readingKen Chapman: What Do We Do Now?
The Political Paradox that is Alberta The political paradox for Alberta is that, while we have had majority governments since 1971 we have had unstable governance since about 2004. In that election year Ralph Klein kept a majority government but was loosing popular support. He gave up 12 seats that
Continue readingKen Chapman: Why Are Alberta’s Energy Sector Wages So High?
Alberta has the highest average weekly wages in Canada. The Oil and Gas employees make twice what average industrial wages are in other sectors. Here is a link to an ATB top line analysis on these facts. The last 3 years in the energy sector has relied on a “new
Continue readingKen Chapman: Deal With Dark Money PACs Before Any Bye-Election Call
So Mr. Kenney, the leader of the United Conservative Party has a chance to get a seat in the Alberta Legislature through a bye-election, with the retirement of one of his “faithful.” Premier Notley has to set the date within six months of the retirement of the former Member. Given
Continue readingKen Chapman: The Closed Nature of the UCP Kenney Party
I’ve been doing some reading about values and mindsets and applying some of these learnings to political organizations and trends. In the previous post I spoke about Arrested, Closed and Open mindsets and related them to the Alberta NDP, UCP and Alberta Party respectively. I want to delve a bit
Continue readingKen Chapman: What is the Future of Progressive Politics in Alberta?
I posed this question in a blog post last March when Mr. Kenney won the PC leadership. A lot has happened since then. The PCs and Wildrose have “united” under the leadership of Mr. Kenney. Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean seems tentative about serving under Mr. Kenney. The Alberta Liberals
Continue readingKen Chapman: Can Alberta Conservatives Win in 2019 and Deny Climate Change?
Abacus Data has a new on-line survey of 1534 Canadians randomly selected from a panel of 500,000 Canadians. They weighted the responses to “match census data to ensure that the sample matched Canada’s population” demographics. Not sure that weighting is reliable or even possible. The Harper government killed the long
Continue readingKen Chapman: Greg Clark Steps Down as Alberta Party Leader
In a surprise move the Alberta Party is in the hunt for a new leader. With recent consolidation of the uber-right in the UCP there are a lot of free-floating former progressives in the former party of Lougheed who are looking for a home. The Alberta Party has had
Continue readingKen Chapman: USA Style Dark Money Has Come Into Alberta’s Politics
Alberta’s laws on reforming Election Financing has come a long way since the Notley government came to office. We really needed to “clean up our act” on donor disclosures, contribution limits and political accountability. But recently, in Alberta, we have seen the arrival of American-style Political Action Committees (PACs). They are being formed and
Continue readingKen Chapman: Albert’a Political Uncertainty Continues
First a disclaimer. I don’t think we can rely on “opinion” polls done through the Internet as being representative because they are not random and often “weighted” by taking a small response segment and over-valuing it in an attempt to be more reflective on the population distribution. The result is
Continue readingKen Chapman: KEITH OLBERMANN ON TRUMP PANICKING
Keith Olbermann, formerly on NBC I believe, is doing an informative series of Video Blogs on Trump administration. He is worth a watch…and a careful listen. Even worth a YouTube subscription. Interesting that Russia is the largest number of links to this blog since I started commenting more on Trump
Continue readingKen Chapman: Does Donald Trump Know Anything About Public Policy?
David Pakman is a vlogger (video blogger for the uninitiated). He has a very interesting series of posts on the capacity of President Trump to actually do the job of President. He runs some transcripts of answers to questions Trump at a newspaper editorial board. It shows just how incapable
Continue readingKen Chapman: Is There a Future for Progressive Politics in Alberta
There has been a recent takeover of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta by the former Federal HarperCon Cabinet Minister, Jason Kenney and his social conservative base. This has to be the final wake-up call for Alberta progressives. The rise of an American-style Alt-Right and old-style Social Conservative political culture
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