Life after Redford
What went wrong, what happens next
Leadership process
Alison Redford may have been doomed from the beginning when she came to power in 2011 through a controversial leadership selection process that allowed anyone in Alberta to cast a ballot. Like Ed Stelmach before her, Redford was not the top choice among a majority of people who voted in the race, nor was she the top choice among the longtime PC faithful. She won only because she had the most second-place votes, and was largely carried by irregular Tory supporters such as teachers, health workers and young parents who purchased their PC membership cards moments before voting. Redford’s initial group of backers included just one MLA, Art Johnston, who was on his way out of the legislature. As such, she came to power as an outsider, put in charge of a party and caucus that had not selected her. According to some, that bad fit never really improved. “She did not have a good relationship with caucus,” Calgary MLA Neil Brown said this week. “I think some of the leadership platform she ran on from the outset was in opposition to where the party had been going.”
Broken promises
When Redford led the Progressive Conservatives to their 12th straight majority, she did so in part by emphasizing the “progressive” in the name of Alberta’s governing party. She appealed to union members and moderates to vote for the PCs in a successful attempt to stave off a Wildrose win. “The PC party of Alberta has a proud history of being progressive and conservative, and as we go forward from this place tonight, we will honour both of those traditions,” she said in her election night victory speech. But the coalition of moderates who backed her quickly felt abandoned after the Redford government — challenged by a sudden and significant drop in oil revenues — tabled an austere budget that took aim at the post-secondary sector and public-sector salaries. It marked a dramatic shift from a politician who had campaigned on bringing change to Alberta. Her popularity in the polls took a nosedive and by Wednesday — when she announced her resignation — a new poll indicated support for the Tories at an all-time low of 19 per cent.
Entitlement and defections
In the fall of 2012, Redford introduced a new disclosure policy she touted as Canada’s toughest, so “the people that we serve can truly hold us accountable for every dollar that we spend.” The words now seem prophetic. While the Redford government made good on its promise to disclose government expenses and salaries, some of those damning expenses bolstered the growing narrative of the culture of entitlement enveloping the governing PCs. Expensive international travel missions, swanky hotel lodging for Redford’s aide in Edmonton, the improper use of government-owned airplanes and of course, the notorious $45,000 South Africa trip all made fodder for critics to attack the government. It was that perceived entitlement that became an easy target not only for opposition attacks, but also for Tories Len Webber and Donna KennedyGlans, who would defect from caucus in the days before Redford’s resignation. “People don’t like a culture of entitlement. They’re egalitarian in Alberta. They want this to stop,” Kennedy-Glans, who had been a member of cabinet, said when she crossed the floor to sit as an Independent.
An effective opposition
The upstart Wildrose had only one seat when Danielle Smith (above) took over as leader in 2009. They would gain seats through floor-crossings, but it wasn’t until the spring 2012 election that Alberta’s official Opposition grew to the 17 seats it holds today — mainly by shoring up support in the rural areas that had previously voted for the Tory candidate. On the other side of the political spectrum, the NDP doubled their seats, and combined with the Liberal’s five MLAs, made for a 26-seat strong opposition that was the most effective Alberta had seen in decades.
“I think the opposition parties have done a superb job of keeping the government on its toes and they have been relentless in pursuing egregious breaches of the government’s policies, in the areas of accountability and expenses,” MacEwan University political analyst Chaldeans Mensah says. “I think there was a problem in failing to recognize that these policies did not make the government immune … it could be used to hold the government to account and this is what the opposition did.”
Internal party politics
One of the final nails in the coffin for Redford came last weekend when PC party executives, undoubtedly unnerved by their sharp drop in the polls, decided to exercise more control over their unpopular leader by subjecting her to an ill-defined “work plan” to clean up her behaviour. Whether intentional or not, the move had the effect of undermining Redford’s authority and allowed the opposition to question who was really running the government. Tory caucus members, who never really warmed to Redford’s style, began airing their grievances publicly by crossing the floor (such as Calgary MLA Len Webber, above) or by openly musing about doing so. PC constituency executives then joined the bonfire. Many had already indicated dislike for Redford by failing to contribute to a party fundraising initiative, but took a far more aggressive step by organizing meetings in Calgary and Edmonton this week to vote on whether to demand the premier’s resignation. Abandoned and restrained by her own people, Redford was put in an impossible situation.