MANDEL LOOKS FOR POLITICAL SWEET SPOT
Popular former Edmonton mayor and MLA brings credibility to Alberta Party
“Oy,” says Stephen Mandel, easing himself onto the edge of a riser.
“I was playing tennis yesterday and I think I pulled a tushy muscle.”
It is a vintage Mandel moment. The naughty boy charm. The casual but careful reminder that while he may be 72, he’s still more than active. And the signature Yiddish slang. (In case you needed a translation, your tush, or your tuches, is what you’re sitting on. And I don’t mean your chair.)
Yes, it’s the Stephen Mandel Show, rebooted, as the former Edmonton mayor and former Progressive Conservative health minister sets out to reinvent himself yet again.
On Wednesday, Mandel gathered a diverse and multicultural group at the Boyle Street Community League to announce his bid to lead the Alberta Party.
Diverse, not just in ethnicity or age. There were former Progressive Conservatives, former Liberals, even a former Wildrose party operative or two. They’d gathered to hear Mandel pitch himself as the right guy to lead a non-ideological party, aiming for “the sweet spot in the middle.”
And while Mandel is the oldest candidate in the race, the campaign launch was about reaching out to millennials, from the hipster-street “faux graffiti” campaign signs, to the choice of the Imagine Dragons song Believer as his dance-to-thepodium soundtrack.
As mayor, Mandel had a positive genius for building consensus, to charming — and occasionally strong-arming — councillors to vote with him. Witty, bright, mercurial, he could be warmly generous one moment and volcanically furious the next. Passion? Vision? They were never in short supply. With his profile and experience, he’s given the Alberta Party an instant shot of credibility, especially in Edmonton where the party has never gained much traction.
But Mandel is running not just against the other leadership contenders, but against his own shadow.
When he retired as mayor, he was still hugely popular. That’s no easy trick — after three terms in office, most mayors have worn out their welcome.
Yet even Mandel’s municipal supporters were surprised when he was named to Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservative cabinet, before he’d even run as an MLA. He won a quick byelection easily. But when Prentice swallowed up most of the Wildrose caucus, then called a snap election, Mandel was among the Tories punished for their hubris. He lost Edmonton-Whitemud, collecting just 32 per cent of the vote.
He’s still facing a backlash from people who see him as part as the crony-ridden old PC machine and from those who see him as a PC interloper trying to take over the Alberta Party.
It wasn’t very pleasant to lose his seat in 2015.
“People were very mad and frustrated. I know how angry they were. I was at the doors. You have to respect that.”
And maybe, he concedes, it was time for a change.
His seven months as a Tory cabinet minister don’t define him, he insists. He never felt entirely comfortable in the PC caucus, he said, where his colleagues included MLAs and ministers with views far more socially conservative than his own.
“I’m an Albertan, which defines me more than the time I spent in the PC party.”
But if he has no time for Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, he’s no fan of Rachel Notley’s NDP either. Both parties, he argues, are far too ideological.
“Much of what they do is driven by dogma. Much of what I do is driven by practical considerations.”
He favours a carbon tax, for example — but not the NDP version. He thinks there is a role for government in the economy, but one that leaves more room for entrepreneurship. And how would he slay the deficit dragon? By making some strategic cuts, he said, but more by growing the economy.
The last few months have been difficult for the Mandel family. In November, Mandel’s adored daughter Rachel Mandel died of lymphoma. She was 40, the mother of a young son. But Mandel bristles at any suggestion that getting back into politics might be therapeutic, a way of coping with grief.
“It was a terrible loss. I think no one should ever suffer such a thing,” he said. “There is no therapy for the loss of a child, for the loss of our grandson’s mother.”
In a moment, though, he’s focused on the fight ahead and on Calgary, where he travels Thursday. While his natural political base is Edmonton, Mandel seems sure he, and the Alberta Party, can win in Calgary, too.
“Calgary is a very progressive, dynamic city. I don’t know where people get the idea that it’s a right-wing city. Without question, they’ll be open to listening to ideas of what can be done.”