The Battle is on (again) for Alberta's Political Soul
Calgary establishment also had a hand in Manning's exit from premier's office
Edmonton Journal, Saturday, February 12, 2011 – David W. Watts
In the week after Christmas 1967, a friend of mine took a "walk in the snow" with Ernest C. Manning on the family farm near Camrose. Alberta's longest-serving premier had won his seventh mandate from the voters that year: a landslide that gave his Social Credit Party 54 of the 65 seats in the legislature.
But the premier was anything but jubilant. His assistants had been polling and studying the province's changing demographics.
"I can't be premier of this province anymore," Manning told my friend. "The new oil money in Calgary doesn't care about the things we stand for."
Six months later, Manning announced his retirement. Three years later under his successor, Social Credit was swept from office by the Progressive Conservatives who have governed ever since.
I told this story to Premier Ed Stelmach after a constituency meeting in Lamont last year. He replied, "Now you know why I couldn't live with my conscience, or with Albertans, if we capped the price of oil at $40 a barrel."
The "new oil money" in Calgary isn't new anymore. It is the establishment that has had an open door to the offices of Alberta's first three PC premiers and, with Stephen Harper in Ottawa, in the Prime Minister's Office. Stelmach did not disappoint this oligarchy. He was never one of theirs from the beginning. Ten days after Stelmach won the leadership over Calgarians Jim Dinning and Ted Morton in 2007, Danielle Smith was approached by a group of Calgary business interests to lead what became the Wildrose Alliance. In the first speech after her leadership was confirmed, Smith sang out, "Premier Stelmach, you won't know what hit you!"
But since her anointing, this master of the sound bite has been almost bland, limiting herself to "big tent" bromides, and saying "We'll do it better." Presumably she has been honing and hounding her best salvos for the next provincial election where, it was hoped, Stelmach would wither and crumble before her onslaught live on camera.
Until the Morton coup. For frustrated fiscal conservatives and their followers in the PC caucus, this offers the chance to break through their cautious front line, circle around the WA adversary and deliver a pre-emptive strike at the polls before 2011 is out.
Ideologues can appeal to Unite the Right. But the group that courted Smith and opened up this fault line probably doesn't care. They are self-interested realists, not purists. Wise corporate investors make 60 per cent of their political contributions to the government and 40 per cent to the opposition. They're under no obligation to dance with the one who brung them. If she can't waltz to power, they'll make a deal with the leader of the palace coup.
But there's much more at stake than appearances here: Whether it's a man or a woman, a northerner or a southerner, academic or advertising executive at the helm. Both Smith and Morton are baptized and certified by the establishment Ernest Manning called the "new oil money" in 1967 that hastened his retirement. What are the things Manning said "we stand for" and he stood down for in the Brave New World of corporate feudalism he saw coming?
Manning believed in the free market, but he did not believe in the unfettered free market. He was not prepared to let oil companies run roughshod over peoples' rights and lands in the boom after Leduc No. 1. He invited farmers who felt aggrieved by drilling operations or inadequate cleanup to write him personally, and his top civil servants spent many hours addressing the complaints of individual landowners.
Manning opposed public medicare as imposed by Ottawa. He did not oppose public health care. He had earlier established hospitalization insurance and the privately administered MSI (Medical Services Incorporated) program to cushion patients from the cash register.
COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM
Manning believed in a compassionate conservatism based on the biblical injunction to "tend the widow, plead for the fatherless and provide for the poor." He called this "social conservatism" and it focused not on abortion, crime and punishment of offenders -- what the term has come to mean -- but in ensuring society protected its most vulnerable members.
He was not prepared to traffic in human need or farm this out to others to do so. His government built hospitals and seniors homes and provided welfare for those who needed it. These were good quality services, not Cadillac, but not bottom-line either. In these values, Stelmach is more like Manning than any of the other premiers since.
In the non-choice of Smith, Morton or whoever emerges to satisfy the cabal that launched the challenge, the mantra is "nothing sacred, everything for sale."
Under a sophisticated secularism is a calculating social Darwinism expressed by the young Scrooge when he meets his future partner: "I say the world is a hard and cruel place, Mr. Marley. We must steel ourselves to survive it, lest we be crushed under with the weak and the infirm."
Whether that future is the steely gaze of a Morton or the velvet voice of a Smith, the world is an equally hard and cruel place. Where that is leading us is seen when the old Scrooge is shown a boy and a girl, both orphans, by the Ghost of Christmas Present. When Scrooge asks, "Is there nothing that can be done for them?" his own words and choices echo back to haunt him: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Let us hope, pray, resolve -- whatever word makes sense to us -- that we, too, can awake from ignorance to make a real choice of futures.
Stelmach's mistakes have been of strategy and tactics -- not values. He would have been more successful had he been more ruthless; if he had moved to purge rather than conciliate those in his party who opposed him. We will respect his humanity if we use the window he has given us to make our next choice based on values rather than surface appearances.
Time to give the Legislature building back to MLAs
Now most space under the dome is not devoted to members' use
David Watts
Edmonton Journal
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Alberta's legislature grounds have grown over the years: northward a block from 97th Avenue, adding reflecting ponds and a water play area. The opening of Centennial Plaza will add another block, with 100 fountains and a skating rink in what was once a parking lot.
But while our legislature grounds have grown, the legislature building has not. Rather, its legislative office areas have shrunk. Most of this space is now used for functions unrelated to members of the assembly.
The "Leg" has become an executive building, its wings largely filled with cabinet ministers' offices. Rooms that once housed individual MLAs are now part of executive suites for the political and administrative aides ministers want at their fingertips.
Ministerial convenience has come at a cost. Consider: backbench members of any party, including the governing Progressive Conservatives, wishing to meet a minister must walk to the legislature from the old Agriculture Building, now the legislature annex. Once inside, a three-term MLA's access to the minister can be controlled by a student still in their teens. Or a school class learning about government comes to meet their MLA and finds their member's office is not in the legislature building but somewhere else.
It's tempting to blame this on "government arrogance" or resort to other partisan rhetoric that would be false. Larger executive staffs in the legislature building began in the late days of Social Credit. Had Wildrose or Liberals won last election, Danielle Smith or Raj Sherman would likely have continued the practice to keep rookie ministers' staff on a short leash.
Re-tenanting the marble halls began under veteran premier Ernest Manning. A graduate sociology student, hired by the government to assist policy development, was given an office in the legislature building on the corridor just right of the main entrance, with the title "Special Consultant to Executive Council." This led to mutterings by veteran members about "young whippersnappers" and "wet behind the ears."
Today those veterans are gone, and not only those individuals, but most MLAs who used to have offices in the building simply for having been elected to the assembly. If a member still has an office there - except in the basement - it's likely because they're a member of cabinet. In that case, they'll have their own entourage of political aides and advisers.
The assembly has tripled in size, from 25 to 88 members, in the past century. But the number of basic offices in the building permitted an assembly three times the original number. With a smaller assembly, deputy ministers had offices in the building too.
The original floor plan did not crowd ministers, deputies and backbenchers into rooms of the same size. Ministerial offices six times the size of basic MLA offices were located in the corners of the second, third and fourth floors, providing for a cabinet of 12, including the premier.
Offices for the lieutenant governor, speaker and clerk of the assembly, and the leader of the opposition, were in the main section of the building.
Downsizing the cabinet, the assembly and ministers' staffs to a previous level is probably not an option. But with new space coming on-stream in the former Federal Public Building in the next two years, we have a chance to get it right.
Present plans are to move MLAs there from the legislature annex building, at the end of its serviceable lifetime.
But instead of allocating space in another legislators' building, why not use the top floors of the Federal Building for ministerial staffs and give the legislature building back to the members we elect to represent us there?
Ministers could still have larger legislative offices for aides needed for work in the assembly. But a majority of their kitchen cabinet staff does not need to be under the Dome.
They can be based elsewhere and make the five-minute walk to see their minister as required.
Let's mark the Leg's centennial by giving it back to the legislators.
And let's follow that up by visiting our MLAs in their offices once they're restored to the halls of power.
Principality of Alberta
EDMONTON JOURNAL, Friday, December 19, 1980
First Prize Winner( $100) David W. Watts
Edmonton.
WHEREAS the rapacious hordes of Eastern Canada and their leaders have committed untold abominations against the loyal and upright folk of Alberta, to wit:
ARTICLE ONE: EMBLEM – The flag of the Principality shall be a Canadian beaver suspended in the talons of an American eagle, the whole to be superimposed with the monogram of Imperial Oil Limited upon a field of black crude.
ARTICLE TWO: ANTHEM – The national anthem of the Principality shall be the traditional spiritual “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning”.
ARTICLE THREE: TERRITORY – The territory of the Principality shall encompass that of the one-time Province of Alberta, together with any adjoining realms that may subsequently see the light (or lack the heat) and come to us on bended knee, and which we in our beneficence may see fit to expropriate or acquire by purchase.
ARTICLE FOUR: CURRENCY – The national currency shall be the Petro-dollar, which shall be payable in crude to the bearer on demand.
A fixed percentage of the Principal Gross Product of each year shall be deposited in a Heretic Bust Fund, the purpose of which shall be to ward off socialists and other dissenters and potential rapists of the Principality.
ARTICLE FIVE: PREMIUMSHIP – Supreme invective authority shall be vested in the Office of Premium. The Premiumship of the Principality shall be purchasable and payable in cash (in Petro-dollars) by the highest bidder. The holder of the Office shall have family connections with the petro-stocracy, and shall hold office for life or, until in God’s (i.e., his own) good time, He may deign to abdicate in favour of a successor.
ARTICLE SIX: INVECTIVE COUNCIL – There shall be an Invective Council composed of Minions selected by the Premium, to hold office at His pleasure. The function of this Council shall be to rail at the twin bogeymen of Socialism and Eastern Canadian Interests, while preparing the Principality for the infinitely preferable fate of seduction by American multinational ones.
ARTICLE SEVEN: REGISLATURE – There shall be a Regislative Assembly of Members acclaimed to ratify and extol the decrees of the Premium and Invective Council, and to assure a fresh supply of Minions therefor. A maximum of five Members may be designated to sit in Opposition to the Government Carcass, wherefrom they shall mount token criticism of the decrees enacted.
ARTICLE EIGHT: ACCLAMATION – One year in every four there shall be an Acclamation of all Members of the Regislature, save for those who have gone to their just reward in the Halls of Patronage, and those who have incurred the displeasure of the Premium, who for so doing shall commit electoral hara-kiri.
ARTICLE NINE: EMENDMENTS – Emendments to the aforegoing shall be enacted by fiat of the Invective Council upon the receiving of a vision by the Premium.
ARTICLE TEN: HUMAN RITES – There shall be five human rites upon which the Regislature may pass no law:
1. The Divine Rite of Premiums shall take precedence over all other rights and privileges.
2. The Maximization of Profits may be pursued unhindered by all parties deemed to be in The Big League.
3. The Maxilarization of Prophets shall be the rite whereby all far-seeing critics of the regime shall be chewed up and ingested thereby before the pose a threat thereto.
4. The Rite of Dissent may be exercised once per year by one Member of the Government Carcass of the Regislature, who shall then undergo the Rite of Human Sacrifice.
5. The rite of Human Sacrifice shall be enacted annually in the Budget upon all individuals and interests not having sufficient profits, assets or standing to be included in The Big League.
EDMONTON JOURNAL, Friday, December 19, 1980
First Prize Winner( $100) David W. Watts
Edmonton.
WHEREAS the rapacious hordes of Eastern Canada and their leaders have committed untold abominations against the loyal and upright folk of Alberta, to wit:
- forcing us to speak their language and to commit other unnatural acts at below street prices;
- blaspheming our Premium, failing to treat him with the reverence which is due His Highness; and
- denying to us the equal voice in the Parley of Canada to which we, by our virtue and affluence, are entitled;
ARTICLE ONE: EMBLEM – The flag of the Principality shall be a Canadian beaver suspended in the talons of an American eagle, the whole to be superimposed with the monogram of Imperial Oil Limited upon a field of black crude.
ARTICLE TWO: ANTHEM – The national anthem of the Principality shall be the traditional spiritual “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning”.
ARTICLE THREE: TERRITORY – The territory of the Principality shall encompass that of the one-time Province of Alberta, together with any adjoining realms that may subsequently see the light (or lack the heat) and come to us on bended knee, and which we in our beneficence may see fit to expropriate or acquire by purchase.
ARTICLE FOUR: CURRENCY – The national currency shall be the Petro-dollar, which shall be payable in crude to the bearer on demand.
A fixed percentage of the Principal Gross Product of each year shall be deposited in a Heretic Bust Fund, the purpose of which shall be to ward off socialists and other dissenters and potential rapists of the Principality.
ARTICLE FIVE: PREMIUMSHIP – Supreme invective authority shall be vested in the Office of Premium. The Premiumship of the Principality shall be purchasable and payable in cash (in Petro-dollars) by the highest bidder. The holder of the Office shall have family connections with the petro-stocracy, and shall hold office for life or, until in God’s (i.e., his own) good time, He may deign to abdicate in favour of a successor.
ARTICLE SIX: INVECTIVE COUNCIL – There shall be an Invective Council composed of Minions selected by the Premium, to hold office at His pleasure. The function of this Council shall be to rail at the twin bogeymen of Socialism and Eastern Canadian Interests, while preparing the Principality for the infinitely preferable fate of seduction by American multinational ones.
ARTICLE SEVEN: REGISLATURE – There shall be a Regislative Assembly of Members acclaimed to ratify and extol the decrees of the Premium and Invective Council, and to assure a fresh supply of Minions therefor. A maximum of five Members may be designated to sit in Opposition to the Government Carcass, wherefrom they shall mount token criticism of the decrees enacted.
ARTICLE EIGHT: ACCLAMATION – One year in every four there shall be an Acclamation of all Members of the Regislature, save for those who have gone to their just reward in the Halls of Patronage, and those who have incurred the displeasure of the Premium, who for so doing shall commit electoral hara-kiri.
ARTICLE NINE: EMENDMENTS – Emendments to the aforegoing shall be enacted by fiat of the Invective Council upon the receiving of a vision by the Premium.
ARTICLE TEN: HUMAN RITES – There shall be five human rites upon which the Regislature may pass no law:
1. The Divine Rite of Premiums shall take precedence over all other rights and privileges.
2. The Maximization of Profits may be pursued unhindered by all parties deemed to be in The Big League.
3. The Maxilarization of Prophets shall be the rite whereby all far-seeing critics of the regime shall be chewed up and ingested thereby before the pose a threat thereto.
4. The Rite of Dissent may be exercised once per year by one Member of the Government Carcass of the Regislature, who shall then undergo the Rite of Human Sacrifice.
5. The rite of Human Sacrifice shall be enacted annually in the Budget upon all individuals and interests not having sufficient profits, assets or standing to be included in The Big League.