| Jim Dinning leapt out of the starting blocks last week and left all other challengers for Ralph Klein’s job eating dust. He criss-crossed the province, shook hands from Medicine Hat to Peace River, talked to Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs. It was like the kick-off to an election campaign rather than a leadership race.
I caught up with him at a noon-hour event in downtown Calgary billed as a youth rally. About 120 young (under 30) professionals were chowing down on free lasagna and salad, and Dinning was working the crowd – chatting, laughing, obviously enjoying the fact that the small room was packed to overflowing and everyone seemed eager to talk to him.
A young woman told me that almost everyone who is anyone in the Conservative party is working in the Dinning campaign and then she pointed out the young party bright lights dotted around the room. She said she didn’t know much about provincial politics because she had moved here from Halifax. But she’d been in Calgary long enough to work on MP Lee Richardson’s campaign in Calgary South Centre, and now she wanted to work for Dinning.
Like her, most of the dozen or so people I talked to were already active Conservative party members, or friends of Dinning’s children. Only one young woman said she had come to check him out – the rest were committed fans. My guess is that many of the people in the room worked for Harper Conservatives during the last federal election and they sense another victory is in the works. One serious, well-suited young man told me that there would be much more synergy between Stephen Harper’s federal government and a Dinning provincial government than there is with Premier Klein at the helm, and that would be a good thing.
Other than that, our current premier was hardly mentioned at all. When Dinning got up to speak, he didn’t mention him either. He focused instead on the future, on the bright possibilities for Alberta and the people who call it home. The slate was wiped clean, the whole room sank into an amnesia that these staged events are intended to produce. The Dinning campaign is definitely not about continuing the Klein legacy. It’s about a fresh start for the Alberta Progressive Conservatives, just as it was for Klein when he campaigned to replace the unpopular Don Getty.
Surrounded by a new take on the orange and blue logo of the Alberta PCs, Dinning was enthusiastic, confident, acting as though he were already premier. And he dropped an idea that was a definite hit with this crowd – he proposed cutting provincial income taxes in half for everyone under 30 years of age. According to data provided on the Dinning campaign website (www.jimdinning.ca), the average annual income for Albertans between 20 and 30 is $25,000 which means they pay $856 in provincial taxes. With his plan, this would be cut to $428. Those who make more money and therefore pay more taxes will end up with even more money in their jeans. And according to Dinning, the Alberta government is so awash in money the lost tax revenue would amount to only a dint.
Is it a good idea? It certainly has the potential to draw young people to Alberta at a time when there is a shortage of workers in all sectors. And kudos to Dinning for putting out a new idea with lots of data to back it up. But isn’t it just another version of the Klein government’s flat tax? Won’t young people who already make a good deal of money benefit a lot more than those who work hard at low-paying jobs? Or those who are going to school and working at the same time? Isn’t it just another way to reward the well-to-do and keep the poor in their place?
That was certainly the mantra of the Klein government and I’m not yet convinced that Dinning will do things much differently. Let’s not forget that Dinning was the mastermind who developed the plan to eliminate the provincial deficit and debt. The budget cuts he implemented as provincial treasurer were fast and deep – so unnecessarily deep that the public education and health care systems as well as infrastructure are still playing catch-up.
Dinning’s had an extensive career in both government and the private sector. But too often it appears that he uses his insider knowledge of government to advance his private sector interests. When he left the Klein government in 1997 he immediately became a vice-president at TransAlta, the chief beneficiary of utility deregulation.
When Dinning was chair of the Calgary Health Region, he enthusiastically endorsed Klein’s plans for private hospitals. And after he left the CHR board, he joined the board of AgeCare, a for-profit long-term care provider half-owned by Dr.Kabir Jivraj. Jivraj was chief medical officer for the CHR when Dinning was chair and came under fire for also owning private surgical clinics that had contracts with the CHR. AgeCare now has a contract with the CHR to provide long-term care.
Dinning also has Rod Love on his team, the same Rod Love who was once Klein’s chief of staff and was recently awarded an untendered contract for $42,000 by the CHR.
Compared to Klein, Dinning is full of vigour and new ideas. He genuinely seems to want to open up debate and discussion in a province that sorely needs it. The young lawyers, accountants and sales execs gathered at the Metropolitan Centre last week were buzzing with enthusiasm. But Dinning has a history and not everyone in Alberta has amnesia. Whether he can outrun that history remains to be seen. |
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