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alberta politics: 3 things more important than hal walker that happened today.

Today’s much hyped Wildrose Alliance news conference in Calgary did not live up to expectations. When announced yesterday that leader Danielle Smith would “be making an important political announcement” about the her party, the speculation was rampant. Was Preston Manning signing his endorsement pledge? Was Tom Flanagan going be their campaign manager? Was Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Heather Forsyth going to step down to let Ms. Smith to run in a by-election? Were more PC MLAs going to cross the floor?

The news turned out to be ever so underwhelming. Party president Jeff Calloway has stepped down to allow disenchanted former Ralph Klein advisor Hal Walker to enter the role. Last September, Mr. Walker let it be known to the world that he strongly disliked Premier Ed Stelmach when he widely circulated an email that oozed the with entitlement of a longtime-insder who no longer had the ear of the powerful. The underwhelming announcement sparked a some very entertaining social media satire from the political crowd on Twitter this afternoon (follow #waptopstory to see what I mean).

While the underwhelming story of Mr. Walker and the hilarious online reaction grabbed headlines, do not be convinced that nothing important happened today in Alberta politics. Here are three things that you should be paying attention to:

1) Edmonton-Rutherford PC MLA Fred Horne has announced the start of consultations for a new Alberta Health Act. The Act would seek to merge currently existing health care laws under one piece of mega-legislation. As was the case when the PCs created the Post-secondary Learning Act in 2003, the devil will be in the details of what is left in legislation and what will be moved into regulation (or just left out). In a media release, Friends of Medicare‘s David Eggen said: “The Alberta Hospitals Act, and the Alberta Health Care Insurance Act both provide core legal underpinnings for our public system. If they are repealed and not strengthened under the new legislation, it could open the doors wide for a full two-tiered, parallel private health market in the province immediately.”

2) Premier Stelmach announced on the Rutherford Show this morning that Alberta will not be holding a Senate election anytime soon. The terms of Alberta’s current three Senators-in-Waiting will expire in November 2010, but instead of holding an election to replace them, Premier Stelmach and his cabinet will decide in a closed door cabinet meeting to extend their terms. Aside from being anti-democratic, the move also undercuts the opposition parties who were preparing for a Senate election to coincide with the October municipal elections. The Wildrose Alliance began seeking Senate candidates last week and I am told that the new Alberta Party was also organizing a campaign to support a candidate this fall. At this point, Premier Stelmach might as well appoint the Senators-in-Waiting.

3) Alberta’s new Mental Health Patient Advocate is longtime PC-insider Fay Orr. Ms. Orr worked as a media relation advisor to now Senator Elaine McCoy in the early 1990s and in the 1993 election she was the PC candidate in Edmonton-Norwood (she placed third behind Liberal Andrew Beniuk and New Democrat Ray Martin). Following the election, she served as Premier Klein’s spokesperson and was appointed as managing director of the Public Affairs Bureau in 2000 (a position where current PAB Director of New Media and Internet Communications Tom Olsen described her as ‘the chief of all Alberta government talking heads‘). Soon after that, Ms. Orr served as Deputy Minister for a number of Departments, including Community Development; and Government Services, and until today, the Department of Children and Youth Services.

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Danielle Smith Dave Hancock David Swann Doug Horner Ed Stelmach Janis Tarchuk Laurence Decore Lindsay Blackett Mel Knight Preston Manning Ron Liepert

premier stelmach’s problems are bigger than a cabinet shuffle.

There has been a lot of chatter about what Premier Ed Stelmach can do to reverse the Progressive Conservatives downward spiral in recent polls. According to these recent polls, the PCs now sit at 25% province-wide and in third place behind Danielle Smith‘s Wildrose Alliance and David Swann‘s Liberals in Edmonton and Calgary. Another recent poll framed Premier Stelmach as the least popular Premier in Canada with a 14% approval rating.

Sheila Pratt has written an interesting article in today’s Edmonton Journal about the PCs current misfortune and the new groups of Albertans like Reboot Alberta and Renew Alberta that have emerged. Even Preston Manning is interested in starting something new. Luckily for Premier Stelmach, he still has two years before he has to face the electorate for a second time, but what does the Premier need to do to turn his fortunes around?

Will finally ending the disastrous reigns of Children & Youth Services Minister Janis Tarchuk and Health & Wellness Minister Ron Liepert change Premier Stelmach’s position in the polls? Will moving Education Minister Dave Hancock in the midst of the School Act Review boost their numbers? Will moving Energy Minister Mel Knight to another portfolio halt the Calgary energy sector support that is flowing towards the Wildrose Alliance? Will promoting Advanced Education Minister Doug Horner to Finance Minister improve their image? Will relocating Culture & Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett bring back the PC supporters who were offended over the embarrassment of Bill 44?

Will rearranging the deck chairs change the course of the ship? It is going to take something much more meaningful than a cabinet shuffle to change PC Party fortunes. As I said during an interview with Calgary Today’s Mike Blanchard this week, one of Premier Stelmach’s greatest challenges is that his government doesn’t have a defining purpose beyond governing for governing sake, and it shows.

In his recent book, Rich Vivone accurately pointed out that when Premier Ralph Klein declared Alberta to be debt free in 2004, the PCs began to drift. Aiming to defeat the deficit and debt saved the PCs from being unseated by Laurence Decore‘s Liberals in the 1993 election and it was the defining theme in Alberta politics in the 1990s and early 2000s. In many ways, Premier Klein’s 55.4% approval in 2006 reflected the drift.

Premier Stelmach is far from an amazing orator or political strategist, but one of his greatest strengths is that he is constantly underestimated by his opponents and the media. No one expected him to defeat Jim Dinning and Ted Morton in the PC leadership race or lead his party to win a 72-seat majority in the March 2008 election. The recent polls may spell demise for the near 40-year governing PCs, but with at least another two years to create a defining purpose for governing, their political and electoral opponents would be foolish to write them off just yet.

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Calgary Board of Education Danielle Smith Jennifer Pollock Judy Tilston Liz LoVecchio Peggy Anderson Teresa Woo-Paw

Danielle Smith v. Calgary Board of Education (part 1)

Danielle Smith speaks at an all-candidates forum in Edmonton during the 2009 Wildrose Alliance leadership race. (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Danielle Smith speaks at an all-candidates forum in Edmonton during the 2009 Wildrose Alliance leadership race. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

This post is the first of a multi-part series that will be published over the next week. Part 2 was posted on October 28, 2009, Part 3 was posted on October 30, 2009, and Part 4 was posted on November 3, 2009.

Since the selection of Danielle Smith as leader of the Wildrose Alliance, a number of readers have suggested that I take a closer look at her time as a Trustee with the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) from 1998 to 1999. Not completely knowing what I would discover as I dug through the ProQuest archives, I uncovered what I consider to be a collection some of the most bizarre shenanigans that I have ever seen from Canadian elected officials. My sources largely included articles published by the Calgary Herald and the National Post.

In the first of a multi-part series that will be posted over the next week, here is a summary of what I found:

Danielle Smith Calgary Board of Education
The winners of the 1998 Calgary Board of Education election (Calgary Herald, Oct. 16, 1998)

October 19, 1998: The face of the long-time Liberal-dominated CBE was changed with the election of two new conservative trustees. Elected on the joint platform “Campaign to Make Public Education Work,” Peggy Anderson and Danielle Smith advocated for fiscal prudence and more parent choice, including Charter schools. Both had strong ties to the Reform Party as Anderson was a constituency assistant to Calgary-Southeast Reform MP Jason Kenney and Preston Manning; and Smith, then 27-years old, had interned with the Fraser Institute and was the Executive Director of the Canadian Property Rights Institute (pdf).

Other trustees elected that year included liberals Jennifer Pollock, Judy Tilston, and Liz LoVecchio, and moderates Teresa Woo-Paw, and Lynn Nishimura. In their previous terms, incumbents Tilston and Pollock had publicly clashed with provincial government over school board autonomy and funding.

October 20, 1998: Following the election, a Herald editorial described the CBE as:

‘…a board coping with financial woes, ongoing feuding with the province, the allocation and utilization of scarce resources, the pressure from parents to provide more alternatives under the umbrella of the public system and the need to raise standards and improve the quality of education.

The Calgary public school board’s new roster of trustees has a wonderful opportunity before it to set an example for the community at large by demonstrating an open-mindedness to look for alternative solutions while fostering an atmosphere of mutual respect and collegiality.’

October 27, 1998: Woo-Paw was selected as chair and LoVecchio as vice-chair. Former chair Tilston declined re-nomination. Smith told the Calgary Herald that:

“I look forward to a year of thorough debate . . . within a diversity of opinion.”

December 4, 1998: Due to budget and resource pressures, Tilston suggested sharing space with Calgary’s Catholic Schools. Smith supported the idea of sharing space with community groups, but told the Herald that she though that “the Catholic board has some legitimate concerns,” about “moral decisions” made by the public CBE.

December 6, 1998: Smith proposed the closure of up to 30 schools due to excess space in older, inner-city classrooms. Smith suggested that the money earned from selling or leasing older schools could be used to build new schools and stem the exodus of public school students to Catholic, private, charter and home schooling. Contradicting Smith, LoVecchio told the Herald that she didn’t “know where she’s getting her numbers,” explaining that when a CBE facility is leased to a non-profit group or private school, the Department of Education excludes those students from the board’s utilization rate.

December 7, 1998: Calgary Herald editorial:

‘Trustee Danielle Smith’s contention that the CBE will close schools and then lease the buildings is also fatally flawed. Even if such buildings are rented to day cares, private schools or other users, Alberta Education still applies the space against the CBE balance sheet, but not the students. Previous decisions to lease old schools instead of sell them has simply exacerbated the CBE’s poor utilization rate.

No matter how hard trustees try to wiggle around it, there’s only one solution — some schools must close.’

This post is the first of a multi-part series that will be published over the next week. Part 2 was posted on October 28, 2009, Part 3 was posted on October 30, 2009, and Part 4 was posted on November 3, 2009.

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