These challenges include:

Balanced development: Dealing with the negative side-effects of our booming energy economy, in particular, labour shortages, housing shortages, the stress on infrastructure, inflationary pressures, and the plight of those Albertans being "left behind".

Environmental conservation: Harnessing the incentives and tools of the marketplace which we have so successfully applied to the development of this province's economy to the equally important task of conserving this province's magnificent environment.

Fiscal management: Controlling provincial spending, keeping taxes low and royalties market-sensitive, and saving/investing sufficient non-renewable resource revenue to adequately provide for the future.

Health care and education: Overcoming the obstacles which currently prevent Albertans from achieving the best health care and educational services in the world.

Leading on the national stage: Vigorously, but wisely, asserting Alberta's growing influence on the national stage - for the benefit not just of Albertans but for all Canadians.

The 'Democracy Deficit'

The challenges facing Alberta include one other, deciding how to respond to the most disturbing aspect of the recent election, one that I am sure concerns Premier Ed Stelmach and ought to be of concern to us all, and that is the challenge of Alberta's "democracy deficit."

Despite a change in the leadership of the governing party, despite a sustained effort by the official opposition to present itself as an alternative, and despite the activities of new parties, almost 60 per cent of the electorate, or 1.5 million Albertans, did not vote in the provincial election.

Did they stay home because they've never had it so good and are satisfied with the status quo? Did they stay home because they wanted something that none of the parties appeared to be offering? We don't know for sure, but whatever the reasons, they need to be ascertained and addressed in the months ahead.

Alberta needs the benefit of the thinking and involvement of the vast majority of its people to deal effectively with the major challenges facing our province.

Forty-one-per-cent participation is simply not good enough.

And although the Progressive Conservative government received a healthy 53 per cent of the popular vote, 53 per cent of 41 per cent is only 22 per cent of the electorate as a whole. In order to implement solutions to the major challenges facing Alberta, I am sure the government itself will desire the active engagement and support of a far greater percentage of the Alberta electorate than that. This is yet another compelling reason for
wanting to re-energize democratic discourse and participation in Alberta.

So what can be done to re-energize democracy in Alberta?

Alberta Citizens' Assembly

What I would like to propose is that Alberta, with the concurrence of the provincial government, organize a citizens' assembly, to be focused on two broader tasks:

Ascertaining the reasons why 1.5 million of our fellow citizens opted out of the last provincial election, and proposing measures to secure their re-engagement. And employing those measure to re-energize public discussion and debate on one of the big challenges facing Alberta, whether it be the environment, health care or Alberta leadership on the national stage.

An Alberta Citizens' Assembly is therefore proposed specifically to address our democracy deficit, to seek to re-engage the 1.5 million Albertans who chose not to vote for a representative in the Alberta legislature. And to provide non-partisan input to that legislature on some key issue of importance to us all.

An Alberta-Wide Primary

I would propose a democratic process for selecting the delegates to the Alberta's Citizens' Assembly. I propose that we organize an Alberta-wide primary, something like those statewide primaries that the U.S. use to select delegates to the conventions that select their presidential candidates. Only with distinctly different content and features drawn from our own political traditions and values.

The Alberta-wide primary would be scheduled for a certain date in the near future. All Albertans would be invited to register with a central registry and to vote, all on one day in all 83 provincial ridings, on delegates to represent them at the citizens' assembly to be held shortly thereafter.

To participate in the primary, you need not buy a party membership. No selling memberships at the door or packing of a school gymnasium with instant supporters to get someone's second cousin nominated instead of the person most capable of making a constructive contribution to the citizens' assembly.

And who would you be voting for? Who would get their name be on the ballots? Those of people recruited by local recruitment committees and people like yourselves.

Team Alberta

Thirdly, who should organize this Alberta-wide primary and citizens' assembly if enough Albertans, if enough people like you think they are worth proceeding with? My suggestion would be that a well balanced steering committee from across the province, composed of experienced and respected citizens concerned about the democratic deficit in Alberta, be struck and tasked with the job. Perhaps we should call it Team Alberta.

The "Team" would need to hire a support staff and raise a substantial amount of money to finance its activities, including a major advertising campaign to explain and promote the primary and the assembly.

Most importantly, Team Alberta must be well balanced, with respected representation from northern and southern Alberta, and respected representation from urban and rural Alberta, to insure a united effort to re-energize Alberta democracy, not one that pits north against south or urban against rural.

What is my personal interest?

Let me state, categorically, that I am not putting forward these proposals with the intention of entering provincial electoral politics on a partisan basis.

I feel that I can make a greater contribution to the future governance of our province and our country through my present work with the Manning Centre for Building Democracy and wish to continue to do so.

Please do not think that I am in any way indifferent to the political future of Alberta or the state of democracy in this province. How could I be?

I am more than willing to be personally and actively involved in their promotion and implementation. In implementing these three proposals, Albertans would be using the tools that democracy itself provides, freedom of speech, freedom of association, citizens' assemblies, and broadly-based electoral processes.

(Preston Manning is the President and CEO of Manning Centre for Building Democracy and a very well respected Canadian. This is an excerpt of a speech given on March 11, 2008 to the Small Explorers and Producers Association (SEPAC).

The speech was edited by Dennis Cambly in order to give the reader an overview of Mr. Manning's thoughts on the recent Alberta election. The full text can be read here.)