WHAT THEY SAID
Heather Welwood, president of the Alberta School Boards Association while Hancock was Education Minister: “We didn’t agree on things, but we worked together to respect each others’ opinion. He tried very hard to bring people together to talk about issues in an open manner ... Looking at caucus now, I would say that he will probably try very hard to bring people together onto the same page. There will be people who will be kicking along the way, but he will continue to try.”
Larry McLennan, Hancock aide during the 2006 PC leadership race: “David is a very principled individual, very honourable individual, and certainly all my involvement with him has indicated he’s a very honest individual ... He’s very much about consensus, he’s very much about team-building. I think that’s why he’s lasted as long as he has — people respect him.”
Alain Hepner, criminal defence lawyer and president of the Calgary Bar Association when Hancock was justice minister: “He was a moderate, he was accommodating, and I think he was well-respected as a justice minister because of the way he dealt with things. He wasn’t into pounding the table and saying, ‘this is the way we’ve got to do it.’ He just wasn’t one of those guys.”
Jack Janssen, Hancock’s executive assistant, 1999-06: “He put a lot of emphasis on family. So we worked very hard to find that time for him. It’s not easy when you’re a busy cabinet minister and a political figure. In Edmonton, he was a person many people wanted to talk with. But we guarded very jealously his family time and often times worked around it — but not at the expense of getting the work done that needed to get done.”
Laurie Blakeman, Liberal house leader while Hancock was Tory house leader: “I really enjoyed the time that I spent with him, up until a couple of years ago, maybe right at the end of the Stelmach time. He just stopped co-operating. I don’t know whether he stopped respecting the opposition or he just didn’t have to worry about them. But that whole entitlement thing — ‘We are the anointed and it doesn’t matter what you do’ — that really kicked into place.”
Len Webber, independent MLA who was a member of the PC caucus with Hancock. When Webber left the PC party 10 days ago, Hancock called him a “sad man.” “He certainly knows the business of politics, that’s for sure. Interim leader, fine. But certainly not a candidate for premier ... I think we need to get new people in there with new vision and new ideas for the province. I think maybe he has outlived his expiry date.”