Citizen Engagement by Reboot Alberta Progressives.

A qualitative survey of sorts

Will Progressive and Moderate Albertans Rise Up and reinsert their values into Alberta’s political culture?

What's holding them back from getting organized and activated to take up the fight? Is it apathy or indifference? Is it arrogance in believing that the odious elements in the Smith Base will soon die off or self-destruct.

Or is it time to show up, step up, stand up, and act up? The overly impactful and influential people who are setting the Smith-UCP policy agenda are in control. They are changing the very nature of the province and threatening our social cohesion, our economy, our environment, our freedoms, and our democracy.

They are the fundamentalist religious zealots in Take Back Alberta. They are the anti-Canada, pro-American Separatists in the Alberta Prosperity Project. They are the Ayn Rand Libertarians in the Republican Party of Alberta. They are the Old Stock Conventional Oil Oligarchs.

Progressive, pluralist Albertans must wake up and assert their Wild Wokeness to defeat these odious, self-serving forces.

They must design, develop, and deploy the ways and means to apply sustained political pressure for the changes the

y want to see in their public policy, government programs and political processes.

In Reboot Alberta, I decided on a starting place to get this ball rolling. I wanted to know more about where the heads, hearts, and hands of REBOOTERS are when it comes to their citizen engagement.

What were REBOOTERS thinking about their provincial politics? How were they feeling about changing our politics? What were they doing to Press for Change as citizens?

To that end, I surveyed the participants in the Reboot Alberta Facebook Group in March. We received 392 replies from all over Alberta. Since they responded to the survey, I am presuming that the sample was likely to be more engaged than average.

WHAT WE FOUND

Here is what we found. REBOOTERS are highly politically aware but struggle to see how they can influence change. There are 93% of of them who recognize that government decisions impact their lives, and 68% feel they can make a difference on those impacts. Those are encouraging results. That said,...there is an obvious disconnect between awareness and feeling empowered.

THE PASSIVE PROGRESSIVE

Next, I found that their civic engagement was mostly passive. People want a voice, but civic participation remains very limited, so they are mostly spectators. Some of them are pretty good keyboard warriors, but they exist in a social media echo chamber with little real influence on policymakers.

That results in Likes, Shares and Retweets, but it doesn't represent a commitment to showing up, standing up, speaking up, and acting up enough to make a difference.

Ninety percent of them follow political issues, but their engagement is mostly observational. They need to get out of the political bleachers… and step onto the field…where the action is.

Without tangible ways to take direct, determined action, the desire for impact and influence risks turning into frustration and disengagement. If it hasn't already for many of them.

WHERE TO FOCUS

The policy priorities from the survey were clear. The survey results were used to determine the discussion areas for the Reboot Alberta RISE UP ALBERTA CITIZENSHIP ENGAGEMENT WORKSHOP.

They are government transparency…, education funding…, healthcare access, and all related aspects thereto. Public trust in the systems surrounding these issues hinges on the accountability, transparency, and integrity of policymakers. And those folks don't get any benefit of the doubt from Progressive Albertans these days

As POGO famously said decades ago, “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.” That captures the reality of Passive Progressives in Alberta these days.

I want to close with this resonant insight I feel can generate some Progressive citizenship incite in Alberta.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Bucky Fuller