20 years of Daveberta
I've been writing about Alberta politics since 2005 and it's been a wild ride
It was 2005.
After a short stint on the dysfunctional Calgary Board of Education, former Fraser Institute intern Danielle Smith was in her fifth year as a columnist and editorial board member at the Calgary Herald. Smith joined the Herald a few years earlier while the journalists who worked for the paper were on strike.
Harvard-educated Naheed Nenshi was teaching non-profit management at Mount Royal College in Calgary. Nenshi was recovering from an unsuccessful first campaign for city council the year earlier and was about to build his profile as a civic affairs columnist in the same newspaper that employed Smith.
And somewhere on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton, a young political science student named Dave plucked away at his laptop keyboard writing posts to publish on his new blog, Daveberta.
A lot has happened in the 20 years since. Time flies when you're having fun.
I never expected or planned to still be writing about Alberta politics today but it turns out that it was something I enjoyed doing and people enjoyed reading, so I kept it up. And I’m glad I did.
Alberta politics was never boring
We’re frequently told that Alberta politics used to be boring but the past twenty years have been anything but monotonous. The political landscape in our province has seen upheavals that would leave someone from 2005 totally gobsmacked.
Back when I launched the blog, the Progressive Conservative Party was entering its 34th year as Alberta's natural governing party and Ralph Klein was in the final years of his premiership. The PC Party still dominated the provincial politics but Klein’s long success had led to lazy and directionless government. By Alberta standards, the PCs had been dealt a humbling blow when they lost 13 seats, including three to Kevin Taft’s Liberals in Calgary and one in the rural south to the Alberta Alliance, in the November 2004 elections.
Klein was reluctant to leave after 13 years as Premier but his retirement was inevitable. It was time for a change. The tire kicking, infighting, backstabbing, and electoral churn that finally forced him out would make Alberta politics impossible to ignore for the next two decades.
The week that I launched Daveberta in January 2005, former Western Canada Concept leader and Neo-Nazi defender Doug Christie was traveling through Alberta trying to start another western separatist party after the Separation Party stalled at 0.5 percent of the vote in the 2004 provincial election. With Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberals narrowly re-elected, the right-wing fringe was once again agitating for independence. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
In the room when it happened
Writing about Alberta politics for so long has meant that sometimes I got to be in the room when big things happened.
I was in the air hanger on Kingsway Avenue when Ed Stelmach won the PC Party leadership in 2006 and I was in the Legislature press room when he announced his resignation in 2011.
I was at the Black Dog Freehouse when Don Iveson was elected to Edmonton City Council in 2007 and at the Matrix Hotel when he became Mayor in 2013.
I was in the Legislature rotunda when Premier Alison Redford resigned in 2014 and at the Expo Centre when Jim Prentice won the PC Party leadership a few months later.
I was at the Legislature in 2010 when Danielle Smith welcomed floor-crossing PC MLA Rob Anderson’s into the Wildrose fold and at Government House in 2014 when Smith stood beside Prentice to announce that she, Anderson and most of the Wildrose Caucus were crossing the floor to the PCs.
I was at Global Edmonton studios when Prentice told Rachel Notley that “math is difficult” and was at the Westin Hotel a few weeks later when Notley’s NDP shocked the nation by winning the 2015 election — Alberta’s first change in government in 43 years. Four years later I was at the Edmonton convention centre when Notley conceded to Kenney’s United Conservative Party.
And those are some of the big ones that stick out.
Not some obscure fat frat boy with a sticky-up haircut
I’ve done a lot of political commentary and the odd time I’ve actually been part of a political story — the biggest being in 2007 after I received a letter from Premier Stelmach’s lawyer, Tyler Shandro, accusing me of misappropriating the Premier’s personality after I purchased edstelmach.ca for $12.99 and redirected it to Harry Strom’s wikipedia page.
Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh wrote that I was “…not some obscure fat frat boy with a sticky-up haircut,” a hilarious description with sticking power that followed me in the years to come (it was mostly funny because I weighed about 120 pounds at the time, was not a frat boy and didn’t have sticky up hair).
It was a slow news week and it turned into a pretty big political story that got a lot of attention and did a lot to boost Daveberta’s readership.
From blogging to online publishing to podcasting
Online writing has changed a lot over the past 20 years.
Back in 2005 there was no Substack and no social media like exists today. Website traffic to my blogspot hosted blog was generated through word of mouth, blog aggregators, RSS feeds, primitive search engines and links shared from other people's blogs and websites. Online publishing in the early to mid-2000s felt like a bit of a golden age of blogging, mostly because of the sheer number of people who were trying it out.
Social media dramatically changed online publishing, and for a while the temptation to tweet frequently distracted from actually writing about politics. But that changed when the companies that owned the social media platforms adjusted their algorithms to block traffic to outside sites. That’s when I decided to move to Substack so readers could get Daveberta directly into their email inboxes.
Today, Daveberta has more than 7,500 free subscribers and more than 500 paid subscribers (thank you!).
Tracking candidate nominations in every provincial and federal election in Alberta since 2008 has been a lot of work but very rewarding, as has hosting the annual Best of Alberta Politics Awards.
Hosting the Daveberta Podcast has been a thrill. With the help of my talented producer and good friend Adam Rozenhart, we’ve been able to record more than 90 podcast episodes since 2017, many with our beloved former co-host Ryan Hastman (who is now hosting The Alberta Edge podcast on The Hub).
Daveberta Podcast guests over the years have included Notley, Iveson, Nenshi, Jason Kenney, Amarjeet Sohi, Janis Irwin, Michael Janz, Paula Simons, Zain Velji, Lianne Bell, Mack Male, Erica Barootes, Chris Henderson, Justin Archer, Sarah Hoffman, Kathleen Ganley, Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse, Gil McGowan, Jamil Jivani, Annalise Klingbeil, Dr. Jared Wesley, Andrew Leach, Trisha Estabrooks, Barry Morishita, Dr. Elaine Hyshka, Brad Lafortune, David Climenhaga, Jeremy Appel, and many others.
Why did you name it Daveberta?
Obviously, Daveberta is a portmanteau of Dave and Alberta. The name Daveberta was inspired, somewhat cheekily, in response to Paulberta t-shirts donned by Paul Martin delegates attending the 2003 Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention in Toronto (I was a delegate and once owned a Paulberta t-shirt, though I’m not sure what happened to it).
I figured Daveberta sounded better and, as a third-generation Albertan, it felt more authentic. Turns out it stuck.
Thank you.
Thank you to everyone who keeps on reading and listening to the podcast and who has subscribed to Daveberta on Substack.
To celebrate 20 years of Daveberta, I’m happy to offer free subscribers a 20 percent discount on an annual paid subscription ($40/year down from the regular $50/year). Paid subscribers get full access to all Daveberta newsletters and columns, full episodes of the Daveberta Podcast and a shout out on the podcast, and special Alberta politics extras.
I can’t promise that Daveberta will still to be around 20 years from now but it continues to be a wild ride and a remarkable pleasure and privilege to share my thoughts, observations and analysis of Alberta politics with you.
Thanks for joining me on this ride.
Dave
📸 Here are a few photos from the years
Thank you for 20 years of intelligence and candour. I appreciate your determination and professionalism in the face of the downright lunacy of Alberta politics.
Congrats on 20 years, Dave. It's been a privilege being a small part of the Daveberta universe!