Three strikes end Redford era
Leader’s sudden resignation may end PC dynasty
Redford may still get the last laugh ... The party may have pushed her out the door, but her sudden departure has pushed the party over a cli . — Ted Morton
Why is Alison Redford gone as Alberta premier? It’s not because of the alleged misuse of government aircraft. Yes, that was the trigger, but it touched off three deeper, more dangerous political landmines.
First, Redford never had the support of the Progressive Conservative party, top, middle or base.
She secured the October 2011 leadership race not by engaging the PC faithful, but by going around them. She won by promising $500 million of new spending on teachers, nurses and other public-sector workers; Albertans who would otherwise never vote PC, but became “Two-minute Tories” just by buying memberships at the door on the last day of voting.
The night Redford won the leadership, she suddenly found herself in the penthouse of the PC Château, but the rest of the hotel was empty. So job No. 1 was — or should have been — winning over caucus members and the rank-and-file.
But that never happened. Whether it was cabinet ministers, backbenchers or party volunteers, they never warmed to her off-putting personal and political style. She rammed through her “new idea” — never even discussed during the campaign — of lowering the impaired driving limit from .08 to .05, over strenuous caucus opposition. This all but guaranteed the defeat of most rural PC MLAs in the next election.
Next came budget 2012. Already badly in the red for the fifth year in a row, the province was driven deeper into deficit by adding $500 million of new program spending to pay for Redford’s leadership campaign promises. She made it clear it was her call and that she didn’t appreciate being challenged. Those who did soon regretted it. That pattern went on.
By last summer, disillusioned PC staffers at the legislature were cracking dark jokes about the Ed Stelmach era as “the golden age.” By fall, Redford had survived the mandatory leadership review, but her team’s aggressive full-court press — and thousands of dollars used to round up 77 per cent of the votes — left a bitter taste for many members.
Finally, as the fallout from the $45,000 South Africa trip and other alleged misuses of government aircraft began to swirl around her, Redford retreated into the premier’s office, now staffed almost exclusively with people imported from her old Joe Clark networks in Toronto and Ottawa. Most knew little about Alberta or Albertans, several had hardly been anywhere outside the legislature and the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald. While this Ontario-- ization was not reported by the media, it did not escape the notice of MLAs and PC volunteers, who saw it as yet another sign of Redford being out of touch.
The third and final strike was the new accounting rules introduced in last year’s provincial budget. The new three-prong accounting system — operational spending, capital spending and savings — just didn’t wash. You can’t say that you’ve balanced the budget when you are borrowing billions and only saving millions; the math doesn’t work. This may not have captured the full attention of Albertans too busy working and taking care of their families to pay attention to arguments over accounting rules, but it didn’t escape the notice of the thousands of PC volunteers and constituency board members who remember the Ralph Klein years and the pain of the necessary spending cuts mingled with the pride of balancing budgets and eventually paying off the $22-billion debt.
For many PC faithful, and I was one, this was our hallmark; the PC brand. We may agree to disagree on social issues, but when it comes to paying our way and telling Albertans the truth about how much we’re spending and how much, if any, we owe the banks — that’s untouchable. Redford and Finance Minister Doug Horner threw that brand overboard. In one fell swoop, Alberta went from leader to laggard in public accounting clarity and integrity. For many veteran PCers, repealing the accounting rules of Klein and Jim Dinning was the final straw.
So when the opposition parties and media began to attack Redford about misuse of government aircraft, it should have been a time for all good PC party members to rally around their leader, because that’s what a party does. But they didn’t. With so much on the line in the last few weeks, not one veteran PC cabinet minister from either the Klein or Stelmach era stepped forward to support Redford. So left alone in the eye of a storm that grew more violent by the day, she left — exasperated, exhausted, yet still defiant.
But Redford may still get the last laugh on her detractors. The party may have pushed her out the door, but her sudden departure has pushed the party over a cliff. The province needs a premier and the party needs a leader; not in six months, but now. But who’s left to lead? There are no obvious saviours in the current cabinet. Perhaps a new messiah from outside the party? But what’s left to lead? Financially exhausted, ideologically divided and now missing a huge chunk of its old rural/conservative base that has gone to Wildrose, you’d have to ask: Why would an intelligent, successful outsider agree to take over such a train wreck?
Perhaps the four-decadeold Tory dynasty is finally collapsing. If so, those PC MLAs who pushed Redford out had better start reading the help-wanted ads. Indeed, some already have.