Klein put unique stamp on Alberta
CALGARY — Ralph Klein, the plain- spoken, hard- living son of a former wrestler whose homespun conservatism made him one of the most popular premiers in Alberta history, died Friday.
“My beloved husband Ralph has slipped away after 42 years of marriage and 70 years of life,” his wife, Colleen Klein said.
“In his public life, while many will now debate what he stood for, he himself simply believed that public service was important, that it need not be complicated, and that it revolved around people,” she added, in a statement on behalf of the extended Klein family.
But Klein was also devoted to family, she said, calling their home his “sanctuary,” where politics “stopped at the door. If the public will love him for all the things he did for them, his family will forever love him for all the things he meant to us.”
Condolences poured in Friday from around the country for Klein, who had been afflicted with frontal lobe dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.
“Alberta and Canada have lost a unique and significant leader,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement Friday. “While Ralph’s beliefs about the role of government and fiscal responsibility were once considered radical, it is perhaps his greatest legacy that these ideas are now widely embraced across the political spectrum.”
“While Ralph had opponents, he made few personal enemies,” Harper said. Klein was “a man who said what he believed and did what he said.”
Alberta Premier Alison Redford issued a statement on her website Friday, offering her condolences to Klein’s family and praising his dedication to Alberta and Albertans.
“Ralph Klein’s ability to connect with Albertans from all walks of life was absolutely remarkable ... Ralph was a real man of the people,’ Redford said in the statement. “Ralph was a staunch defender of our province as he had a deep and abiding love for Alberta and Albertans. His vision and extraordinary political instincts provided Alberta with tremendous leadership for 14 years.
“His passing is a loss to us all.”
Born to working- class parents, the man who would be dubbed “King Ralph” in Alberta — while also earning national
Ralph Klein’s ability to connect with Albertans from all walks of life was absolutely remarkable.
ALISON REDFORD
ALBERTA PREMIER
notoriety for his take on Eastern “bums and creeps” — rose from being a high- school dropout to the dean of Canadian premiers.
‘ Ordinary’ Albertan
Klein ruled Alberta for 14 years, continuing the fourdecade dynasty of the Progressive Conservative Party in Alberta. During his leadership, the Tory premier slashed government spending, privatized liquor stores, eliminated Alberta’s $ 23- billion debt and presided over one of the province’s most prosperous periods.
He governed the province with a folksy populism, while providing journalists with an endless stream of headlinemaking quotes.
But the “Klein Revolution” also resulted in massive job losses in the public sector and shut down hospitals. It further saw the province ill- prepared for the return of the boom times — an issue that played a big role in his ouster from the power in 2006.
Klein also endured a number of public controversies, including an alcohol- fuelled altercation at an Edmonton homeless shelter in 2001.
Regardless, many people will remember him as the “ordinary” Albertan who — for better or worse — put his unique stamp on the province.
“My dad was a wrestler and he trained fighters,” Klein said following the leadership review that forced him out as premier in 2006. “I got into politics instead, and it’s the same kind of ( thing). Not physically bloody, but it’s bloody.”
Born in 1942, Klein’s climb to the top of Alberta politics was as unconventional as it was surprising.
As detailed in King Ralph, the biography penned by former Calgary Herald columnist and CTV pundit Don Martin, Klein left high school at the age of 17 to pursue a career in the Royal Canadian Air Force. But it wasn’t a good fit and — after receiving an honourable discharge — he enrolled in vocational training at Calgary Business College, where he excelled and graduated with honours. The college offered him the chance to teach and he took it. A year later, he was principal.
After a couple of years in radio, he moved to television. First, he was a weatherman. But two years into the gig, he was assigned to cover city hall. It was around this time that Klein’s first marriage came to an end after 11 years and two kids. He later married Colleen Hamilton.
Klein’s life in politics began in 1980 when his audacious bid to become Calgary’s mayor was successful. In 1981, Calgary succeeded in its bid to become host of the 1988 Winter Olympics.
Impactful mayor
It was the next year, however, that the fast- living, harddrinking mayor gained national notoriety after an address to the Calgary’s Newcomers’ Club.
The Calgary Herald quoted Klein as attacking “a lot of creeps” who were arriving in the booming city without jobs or skills. Admitting to being a bit of a “redneck,” Klein also pledged to use “cowboy techniques” if outsiders turned to criminal activity to make a living.
The so- called bums- and-creeps remark sparked a furor that was only quelled by a tour of Eastern Canada that remarkably earned him a grudging respect. He clarified, but never apologized, for the remarks.
At the time, Calgary was still basking in oil- boom wealth. But with the onset of the federal government’s National Energy Program and world oil price collapse, Alberta’s economy tanked and fortunes melted. Thousands of Calgarians were handed pink slips.
And Klein responded. Teaming up with business leader Art Smith, they broke new ground by creating the Calgary Economic Development Authority. It would aggressively recruit new business to the city. The organization lives on today, boasting of business triumphs around the world.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi recalled Klein’s days as mayor, calling him a “true born- and- raised Calgarian.”
“As mayor, he had a tremendous impact on Calgary as a city government, helping shape both our policy and our culture. Ralph Klein taught us, as Calgarians, that we don’t need to put on airs. We don’t need to pretend we’re something we are not to be a truly great city in this world,” Nenshi said. “His legacy surrounds us, and he will be sorely missed.”
In 1989, Klein set his sights on new goals.
Despite rumours of a guaranteed cabinet post in Brian Mulroney’s federal government, the gregarious mayor accepted an offer from then- Alberta premier Don Getty to join the provincial Tories. The former cardcarrying Liberal won a seat as a Progressive Conservative member of the legislature in the riding of Calgary- Elbow in 1989.
Appointed Alberta’s environment minister and southern Alberta lieutenant, Klein didn’t receive the warmest welcome from caucus when he arrived at the legislature. Many Tories who had spent years on the backbenches labelled Klein a Liberal and resented his rapid ascent up the political ladder.
“It wasn’t a very accepting party,” Klein recalled in Martin’s book. “It was very cliquish.”
On Dec. 14, 1992, Klein was sworn in as Alberta’s 12th premier.
The festive mood was brief. Alberta’s accumulated debt was $ 20 billion.
Klein’s aggressive plan to eliminate the deficit and tackle the debt gutted parts of the provincial civic service, eliminating thousands of jobs. Grants to schools, hospitals, universities and municipalities were frozen.
Just six months after the “miracle on the Prairies” election win in 1993, the Klein Revolution was slashing $ 280 million from health care, $ 245 million from education, $ 140 million in cuts to post- secondary institutions and $ 100 million to social services.
“You’ve got to hunt where the ducks are,” was Klein’s explanation of the budget cuts.
There was an uproar of resistance and protest, but the public largely supported the government’s resolve. By 1995, the deficit was eliminated, aided by improving energy prices.
As Alberta’s economic fortunes improved, so did Klein’s popularity. In 1997, his Progressive Conservatives rolled to a 63- seat majority with Klein as the centrepiece of the campaign. Things couldn’t have looked much brighter for the Tories — until one evening in Edmonton.
In 2001, an intoxicated Klein dropped by the city’s Herb Jamieson Centre, a homeless shelter in Edmonton’s downtown, so he could see for himself the city’s reported homelessness problems. An argument broke out and Klein chided a homeless man, telling him to get a job and tossing money at the man.
Speaking to reporters a few days later, a teary- eyed premier apologized and declared booze a “devil” and “awful beast.”
Deficit eliminated
Klein and the party recovered from the incident and continued working on wiping out the debt — a goal they celebrated in 2004. The $ 23- billion accumulated debt had been paid down in only 11 years, spurred by ever- rising oil and natural gas prices.
“When he walked in the front door of the legislature in that horrible winter of 1992, the finances of the province were in just horrible shape,” recalls Rod Love, Klein’s strategist, chief of staff and closest friend.
“When he left the building in December of ’ 06, the deficit was zero and the debt was zero and the sustainability fund had $ 17 million and the Heritage Fund had $ 14 billion and every other government in Canada copied him,” Love says.
“Mike Harris in Ontario, John Hamm in Nova Scotia. Paul Martin federally. There’s his legacy.”
Love continued: “The notion that deficit financing was the only way governments could operate in Canada in the post- Second World War era was nonsense, and he’s the one who proved it.”
Klein’s last election arrived in the fall of 2004. Within days of the vote, he vowed to stay 3 3/ 4 years, supposedly ending speculation he’d retire within a year of his last election victory.
Critics, however, charged the government with lacking vision and spending without discipline. Klein certainly seemed to be tiring of it all when he infamously flung a Liberal policy book at a legislature page, telling the assembly: “I don’t need this crap.”
Klein apologized to the young female page for losing his temper, but the incident sounded alarm bells for many people.
It all came to a head in the spring 2006 PC leadership review. This was supposed to be his rubber stamp of approval — just like all the others. It ended up being the premier’s Waterloo.
The veteran premier received just 55 per cent support from delegates — a number considered far too low to sustain him as party leader.
Klein was shocked by the result. Yet, he accepted the will of the party. One of his last party acts came a few months later when he congratulated Ed Stelmach on winning the Progressive Conservative leadership.
Finished with politics, Klein became a consultant, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, and he served the first term in the Ralph Klein journalism chair at Mount Royal University.
Health concerns
But even though Klein kept busy, his health was failing. His speech and memory began to weaken, and in 2010 he was diagnosed with the lung condition emphysema. In the spring of 2011, he learned he was suffering from “frontal temporal dementia, consistent with primary progressive aphasia.”
Increasingly, Klein became confined to his Lakeview, Alta., home, supported by his wife, Colleen. He was later moved to a care centre.
News of failing health spurred an outpouring of support from Albertans of all walks of life, demonstrating the special place the former politician had in hearts of many.
Then, last November, Klein received the national recognition friends and supporters had long felt he deserved: admission to the Order of Canada.
With the former premier unable to attend the ceremony at Calgary’s historic City Hall, an emotional Colleen accepted the honour on his behalf. Tucked inside her jacket was her husband’s 1992 leadership campaign button.
“Politics is not a perfect science by any stretch,” Ralph Klein once said during the mid- 1990s.
“If the public is starting to tell you, ‘ Hey, look this is a problem,’ then you’d better do something about it. The bosses are the people. I’m not the boss; I’m just an employee.”
Colleen Klein has asked the City of Calgary to make arrangements for services and memorial ceremonies.