Progress and respect
As I reflect on my weekend at Reboot Alberta, I’m reminded of my initial impressions and how I still hold them to be true. The diversity in the room (gender, age, political leanings) sticks with me. I don’t think I’ve ever been to another political event like this one. And that leads me to my final impression of the day itself:
I was surprised by how respectful everyone was.
There was no shouting or outward appearances of anger what-so-ever. As a matter of fact, people were downright nice. In the group discussions that I participated in not one person dominated any conversation, no one cut others off, no one interrupted. Not once. Maybe I’m jaded, but I was downright shocked by this fact. I participate in many different boards and group discussions on a regular basis and I have never seen a group so genuinely respectful of the opinions and contributions of others.
Perhaps what most shocked me is that this was a quickly established state of being for the participants. In my experience, you usually have to arrive at this point of kindness by some form of organized ‘punishment’ – if you will – in response to someone’s poor behaviour – be it intentional behaviour or not. I’m sure we’ve all been there: one person talks too much so someone says “let’s hear from someone else” etc. Not so in this group. It was respectful right from the very first moment.
And everyone was encouraged to contribute too. Round tables to start every conversation appeared to happen simply naturally; therefore everyone has participated before the conversation had even really started! Everyone who had something to say was given the opportunity.
Now you might be thinking this is just me trying to paint a pretty picture. But it’s not. I had to constantly remind myself this is a group of highly political people. Almost all of them A-type personalities too. These are the kinds of people you normally would picture yelling at one another during Question Period, or passive aggressively trying to further their cause by undercutting the other guy during a conversation or in a comment section. None of this happened though.
I certainly was expecting some bashing of the current political process. I mean, after all, we were all in the room to begin with because we felt some form of dissatisfaction with the current political realities (or climate or whatever word you want to use) in Alberta. I expected I would be all too early dismissing individuals as ‘not worth the trouble’ after they blurted out another near-sighted, one dimensional, unhelpful comment about “the conservative bastards” or “those fucking lefties”. But nada. Nothing. And keep in mind there were die-hard members of pretty much every political party in the room. This is not the kind of behaviour you’d expect when they get into a heated debate. There wasn’t even any name calling, unintentional slander or jokes gone wrong. Sure, there was the odd comment about how each party interacted with various communities, but again, even when the conversation turned to discuss a negative, everyone was unbelievably respectful.
I still haven’t decided what to make of this ‘respectful’ state of being I witnessed. It’s not what I’m used to seeing in political discussions. But I have a feeling it might just be a fundamental part of what being “progressive” is all about.
Look out Alberta, you’re about to get “rebooted”: First Impressions
You could tell before we even got to Red Deer there were a lot of expectations about Reboot Alberta. You could read it in blog posts and in twitter conversations and in blog post comment sections. There was a buzz.
Why? Because this is the kind of conversation that does not happen very often.
A lot of the buzz was about “the left-wing conference” or creating a new party or things of that nature.
So for me, the first order of the day was to throw all of those expectations out the window.
This turned out to be a relatively easy thing to do. My first impression was that of the amazing diversity in the room. There was almost an equal split of young and old(er). I actually found this surprising because of my other public development experience with the younger-skewing CivicCamp and ChangeCamp. In an almost ironic turn, during a conversation I had with one of those older participants, he confided in me he was surprised there were so many young people. (The exact opposite of my impression!) He, being a political stalwart, expressed how he’s never had a political discussion with so many young people at the same time. He stuck me as shocked there are so many young people in the province who care about politics. And quite frankly: the direction Alberta is heading.
And yes, it’s important to note there are more women (again both young and older) than I thought there might be too. As well as visible minorities. (Apparently I thought it was only going to young white males. I was wrong.)
The other thing that helped shatter my expectations was the diversity of political leanings in the room. It was stated at the beginning of the day that there are active members of every single political party in the province in the room. There are former cabinet ministers and MLAs, former candidates, campaign managers and die-hard supporters. This added a layer to the discussions that was invaluable. Instead of it being a conference about policies, it immediately became a conference about engagement.
This is why I found the afternoon sessions so profoundly useful.
During the morning a lot of ideas were discussed. In a typical un-conference-seemingly-random manner. But during the afternoon it was “action’s” turn as the format switched to just four discussion groups: the four ways to effect change.
The four ways identified and discussed were:
- From within the current political system and current parties
- From within the current political system through a new party
- From outside the current political system through an organized movement
- From outside the current political system through individual actions
Seeing these four “ways forward” – as I’ve come to call them – was a revelation for me. That’s it, just four ways you can effect change. How simple can it get?!
Much of the discussion during these groups focussed on what each of these areas could accomplish in the name of change. I know the new party vs. from within current parties either-or generated a lot discussion in particular. But it was during the discussion result presentations that it dawned on me: what would happen if we took all four of these ways forward AT THE SAME TIME?
Any one of these ways forward could effect change. However taking all four paths at the same time could all but guarantee the desired change.
Certainly all four groups were heavily attended, so my guess is, you may very well see all four of these ways forward actually undertaken.
And if that’s the case, look out Alberta, you’re about to seriously get “rebooted”. The whole game is about to change.
How not to administer a vaccine program
Markham Hislop has a great op-ed piece on his South East Calgary News site right now. He presents his case for why the Alberta Government does not deserve the criticism they are being shellacked with right now over their handling of the H1N1 vaccination program.
If there is one thing I hate it is people being blamed for things they do not deserve blame for. If there is a second thing I hate it is unwarranted hysteria. But in this case I’m going to have to disagree with Markham. The reason Albertans feel like they are embroiled in a Ron Leipert created mess is because we are.
Here’s why:
The reason the Alberta Government is taking so much flak right now isn’t because lineups were long or because we are running out of vaccine or because the public is in a state of hysteria. It is because the Government had a plan to begin with (vaccinate only high-risk cases) and then didn’t stick to the plan (vaccinate everyone). That’s on them and no one else.
Not following their own plan ended up creating confusion. First, beginning in the Legislature. The premier was saying one thing (that their vaccinating everyone) and the health minister was saying another thing (vaccinating only high risk). Then the health minister said the opposite of what he first said. Then he went back to his original story. The only place to determine what is going on is too look at what is actually going on. This everyone agrees on: everyone who was showing up to a clinic was getting a shot. No one was being turned away.
In order to only be vaccinating the high-risk cases, you can’t be vaccinating everyone. That should be obvious.
Around this point it became clear the media has no idea what is going on either and slowly – or quickly if you think a couple days is quick – the public began to feel like the clinics were a free-for-all. This feeling was then compounded by announcements of shortages and it really did become an ‘every man, woman and child for themselves’ rush of humanity to the clinics to ‘get while the getting was good’.
Alberta Health Services continued to oblige by giving everyone who showed up a shot – whether they were high-risk or not.
Then there is the added layer of the long lines created by only having a handful of clinics. Please remember, a handful of clinics was all that was needed to only vaccinate high-risk cases. This was part the plan. When they started accepting anyone and everyone the lineups became long and AHS did not have the capacity to manage those lineups, thereby exacerbating the free-for-all hysteria.
In both these cases the underlying reason for the problem was the Government’s inability to stick to the plan.
This helps put the Calgary Flames vaccination in a different light. Think about it from the Flames perspective. You’re a team doctor, you see everyone being accepted at the clinics and you don’t want to send your players to wait in 8 hour lineups, for time management and public safety reasons. So you call AHS and explain your rationale. They look at the lineups and agree: it is not a good idea to have Flames players waiting in line too. They see everyone is getting the shot so there is no reason to exclude these ‘everyones’ from getting the shot and schedule a separate session for the players and their families.
Now we see the Alberta Government actually having the gall to be criticizing citizens, saying it was their fault the line-ups were long, that things devolved into irrational hysteria, and that we’re running out of vaccine so quickly. This infuriates me. The only thing the public did was show up to get a vaccine shot they were told everyone eventually should get. If you didn’t want them to get it now and you wanted those folks to wait to get the shot THEN WHY DID YOU GIVE IT TO THEM?!
Any parent will tell you that is just reinforcing bad behaviour. And of course the next person will expect to be treated the same.
You’ll notice no one is criticizing the Alberta Government for this week’s clinics. It’s because they had a well thought out plan and are sticking to it. People who are not children under 5 and pregnant woman are being turned away. I applaud the Government and AHS for this. That’s the way it should have been on day one.
The question does have to be asked though: if our Government is incapable of following it’s own instructions on such a straight-forward program how can we trust them to manage more complicated things?
There is one thing that would fix all this – not the minister’s resignation, that won’t do anything – but an apology from the Health Minister for he and his employees not following their own plan and creating a mess of things. The provinces’ chief medical officer has already done this for his part. And again I applaud for the honesty and wherewithal he’s showing now.
But if Ron Leipert won’t offer a heart felt apology and admit his department made a mistake by screwing up on something so fundamental, he should be fired.
PS – Speaking of being fired… even though I can see where things went array as clear as day, MLA Art Johnson offers this gem of a quote: “The government had a plan and stuck with it, but people stood in line who shouldn’t have.” Umm, no you didn’t. And how dare you.
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