It’s been a year today since a Gang of Albertans met for a day in Red Deer to consider if Reboot Alberta should be revived given the recent election of the UCP Majority Government.
It became clear that resistance to the emerging (now well established) UCP Totalitarian Political Agenda was needed but that would not be enough. We sensed the need for a transformation due to internal and external realities. That was well before COVID was even a consideration. That has now changed everything for everyone for a very long time.
The focus was set at Building a Better Alberta using a pragmatic public policy approach where Albertans, as citizens, not partisans, would take more responsibility for personal action in ways that benefit Alberta’s people, places, and the rapidly evolving economy.
Focus Areas were identified where efforts would be taken to build personal capacity for an effective applied citizenship approach towards Building a Better Alberta.
Pragmatic Public Policy development with an evidence-based human-centered design thinking approach was preferred. This model is seen as superior to the out-moded hyper-partisan, ideological, adversarial “debate” approach to public policy development.
Healthy People includes Albertans taking personal responsibility for a wellness approach to human health as well as the traditional medical model. Support for the foundational single-payer, universal access, comprehensive care principles of the Canada Health Act. These are seen as contributing to enabling citizens to build personal capacity to contribute towards the greater good as we strive towards Building a Better Alberta.
Social Fabric for Reboot Alberta is about the citizen-based promotion of community-based social cohesion founded on inclusion, diversity, caring, compassion, collaboration, and facilitating personal development, including through public education. Citizens need to be more aware, better informed, effectively engaged, and assertively activities to advance democracy.
Robust Ecosystems are central to Reboot Alberta’s efforts to Press for Change. Albertans have serious citizenship responsibilities for the responsible development and sustainable operations of our natural resources, especially in the energy sector. This is because Albertans are the legal Owners of those natural resources. Reboot Alberta is seeking a Triple-Bottom-Line integrated approach to genuine wealth creation that expands our environmental stewardship obligations and serves the Greater Good prosperity aspirations of Albertans.
The As-Built Infrastructure is a crucial change opportunity for Albertans. It can reduce GHG emissions by retrofitting, upgrading, and incorporating new materials in all kinds of physical structures, including transportation. Improved operational efficiency by reducing costs, adds to economic outputs, expands productivity, enhances human health and safety.
Economic Resilience is short-term adaptability and a long-term transformational challenge. The impacts demanding resilience include COVID, market prices, and geopolitical demand-supply manipulations, exponential technology disruptions, demographics, investment competition, skill-demand changes and the rising Climate Change pressures. Reboot believes the way forward is an integrated collaboration design-thinking approach that includes the private, public, and plural (not-for-profit) sectors.
It’s been a strange year for all of us. Reboot Alberta is now a revived “brand” in kindred social media circles and a Facebook Group page that has grown to over 1200 members and a private email distribution list of just under a 1000 Alberta Influentials.
MOVING ON:
It is time to get past the anger, angst, and aspersions and into real action. Reboot has been slow in getting up to speed to enabling a wide-spread applied activated Alberta citizenry. We have developed some key strategic relationships and incorporated as an Alberta Not-for-Profit Corporation with a social enterprise culture.
We have started some civic-education initiatives to help citizens with some on-line learning about becoming and being a force to Press for Change in our Political Culture.
We have made a commitment to become a Collective Impact organization and have 2 of the 3 foundational elements established. We have Champions who are bringing strategic collaborative assets to the Cause. We have a sense of Urgency because of the impacts of the UCP political agenda and Totalitarian tactics that are ruining Alberta and our Democracy.
What we lack is the necessary and adequate level of Resources to deliver effectively. Those resources include citizens with community organizational talents and sufficient personal time to contribute those skills to the cause on a project and-or an extended basis.
The other key resource is money, and we do not have that…yet Volunteers can accomplish a great deal but, to be effective, we need a sustainable operational infrastructure to support those volunteer efforts. There is a Donate button on www.rebootalberta.com if you can help it would be appreciated.
It’s been a tumultuous year and the next year will be even more volatile. So Stay Tuned, Stay Attuned, and Do Not Tune Out.
