| This week, Fast Forward takes a look at the state of politics in Alberta now that Ralph Klein has announced he’ll resign this fall. Next week, Fast Forward will profile the candidates fighting to lead the Conservative Party.
With Alberta’s wildly popular premier poised to exit the provincial stage this fall after almost 14 years as King Ralph, politics in Alberta could turn out to be more interesting than they have been in years.
Is it possible that the Conservatives, who have been in power for 35 years, could actually have to fight to win the next provincial election? Or will they vote in a strong new leader who will easily ascend to the throne?
TUNNEL VISION
Steven Patten, a political scientist at the University of Alberta, says that while it’s been a trend in the province to have major political changes every 30 years or so, he thinks it’s "very unlikely" that will happen in this case.
"It would take sort of a combination of something going really wrong and one of the other parties capitalizing on it particularly effectively," he says.
But Patten says Klein’s reign was notable for its lack of vision, which did hurt the party, and Patten predicts that a Conservative leader who demonstrates strong vision could restore votes that were lost to the party in the 2004 election, when it lost 12 seats and its share of the popular vote decreased to 46.8 per cent from 61.9 per cent in the 2001 election.
"Ralph Klein had a vision that was about tackling the deficit and the debt, but there was a lack of vision beyond that, and one of the reasons it’s been hard to govern is there wasn’t clear enough priorities on where the money would be spent," he says.
Yet Patten adds that the opposition parties weren’t able to take enough advantage of the government’s weakness to have a good shot at replacing it.
University of Calgary political scientist David Taras isn’t so sure the next election will be a cakewalk for whoever replaces Klein.
"I think the party has to renew itself and if it doesn’t renew itself, I think there’s a chance it could lose. I think people want to see a new face for the times. They want to see new policies and want to see planning. I think Alberta’s changing and they need to see a party that’s changing," he says.
Taras says not everyone is benefiting from the strong economic times, and people are worried about the impact of rapid population growth and a booming economy on their standard of living.
"Rural Alberta’s definitely getting poorer. It’s being vapourized," he says. In Calgary, he adds, a recent poll showed that 47 per cent of residents no longer felt they had a middle-class lifestyle.
"The cost of housing is extraordinary. A lot of people feel themselves falling behind in terms of electricity costs, fuel costs, housing costs. It’s not a great time for everybody," he says.
"The growth is bringing challenges and a lot of people are beginning to wake up to the fact that there are negative sides to the growth and growth has to be managed really well."
TIME FOR A CHANGE
Some Conservative leadership contenders agree that the party needs renewal before it enters into the next provincial election.
"The November election really told me a lot about our party and where we were headed. We dropped some 200,000 votes from the previous election, which in Alberta is staggering," says leadership candidate Mark Norris.
He says he’s running for the leadership because he’s concerned that without a new leader that can connect with the younger generations, "we will go the way of every other party that has spent 35 years ruling Alberta and then wakes up in oblivion."
Leadership candidate Jim Dinning says the party has to change to reflect a changing province.
"The party needs to reflect the depth and breadth of Alberta. The last time there was a leadership race, the province had two-and-a-half million people. Today we’ve got three-and-a-quarter million people. The province is changing and we need to make sure that the party truly reflects the makeup of Alberta and truly reflects the energy of Albertans. To do that we need party renewal," he says.
Meanwhile, the imminent departure of Premier Ralph Klein and the likelihood of a fractious leadership race have bolstered the spirits of NDP leader Brian Mason and Liberal leader Kevin Taft, who see the political landscape as being wide open.
OUT OF GAS
Taft says the exit of Klein from Alberta politics opens up a whole new era in the province.
"He has been the defining presence in Alberta politics for almost 15 years…. Whoever follows him as a Tory leader is going to, frankly, look pretty small following in Ralph’s footsteps," he says.
Meanwhile, he adds, the party itself is "out of gas" after being in power for 35 years.
"I think the Conservative Party is completely preoccupied with their own leadership issues and their own internal politics and they’re not paying attention to governing Alberta. They are in dangerous waters for themselves. It’s quite a divided party…. Because of those problems the opportunities that we should be grabbing in Alberta are not being taken," he says.
Taft admits that it will be a huge "uphill climb" for any party to boot the Conservatives out of power, but says there are many issues of concern to Albertans that the government isn’t managing well, including the lack of infrastructure for a rapidly growing population.
"In Calgary, there are about 40 neighbourhoods without schools. People ask, as they should, how is it in a province as wealthy as Alberta we can’t afford to build schools for little children? Why is it in a province as wealthy as Alberta that we have the most overcrowded hospitals in the country?"
Taft says the Conservatives have also been weak on balancing protection of the environment with economic and population growth.
"The petroleum industry is interested in every square inch of Alberta – and fair enough, that’s their business. It’s the role of government to say this is a sandbox you can play in and that is a sandbox you can’t play in. We need a government that is prepared to set the rules and enforce them. Industry will happily live with that as long as they’re reasonable rules. Everybody’s looking for rules and right now when it comes to issues of land use or petroleum drilling or all kinds of issues, it’s a free-for-all because this government has failed to set a land use strategy in place to address these issues," he says.
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
Mason says "all bets are off" as far as who wins the next election now that Klein’s gone.
"I think that the Conservative party has been in decline for a number of years," he says. "It’s been sustained by Ralph Klein’s personal popularity – you take him out of the equation and I think there’s no guarantee they’ll win a majority government. I think we’ll approach things with a fresh slate and I think it will be time for Albertans to reconsider their political allegiances."
Mason agrees with Taft that the environment is one of the most important issues and that it has been badly managed.
"We’ve got all this wealth, but we’ve got mounting environmental problems," he says. "I don’t think the Conservatives will ever properly grapple with the environment because they think the land, water and resources of the province exist to be exploited for profit."
Mason says Alberta needs to transition itself from being a provider of fossil fuels to being a producer of green energy.
"I think the vision is… to use the tremendous wealth that’s pouring into the province from oil and gas to build a green economy for the future… so that will ensure we can protect our environment but also the future economic prospects of future generations of Albertans," he says.
Mason also wants to see the Conservatives stop trying to increase privatization of health care in Alberta.
"Alberta needs innovation in health care. It needs government to find a way to reduce waiting lists, improve outcomes through innovation in the public system," he says. "In the past they’ve used increasing costs to take us down a road to privatization that will only increase the costs more. It’s time they started working with public health care providers and the public to improve the system."
Mason says there’s no doubt that a change is needed in the province.
"The government has been asleep at the wheel for two or three years now, and now it’s going onto life support because these are the final days of the Ralph Klein regime." |
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