I don't normally do politics on this blog but I used to write a regular column on Canadian Politics for Suite101, an early online magazine and article publisher. I wrote this piece about then Alberta premier Ralph Klein in 2004. Given Mr. Klein's passing last Friday, I thought I'd re-post it. Hope you enjoy.
Not to worry - my regular writing column will appear this Thursday as usual.
The Tao of Ralph
He's done it again.
For the fourth consecutive election, on November 22 Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta brought his provincial Tory party to a resounding majority in the Alberta Legislature. Oh sure, the size of the majority has been reduced - slightly. But that's quibbling: the fact remains 'Rowdy Ralph' has led his party to four victories personally, while his party is celebrating its tenth consecutive electoral victory in the nation's most prosperous province.
Naysayers may argue the Albertan Tories have primarily cashed in on the electoral dearth of serious strong alternatives and there's an element of truth to that notion: can you name the current Liberal or New Democrat leader in the province? For that matter, can you name any Grit or NDP member of the Alberta legislature for the past ten years? Twenty? Ever?
Fair rhetorical comment but ask yourself the similar question of Mr. Klein's own party: other than its legendary leader can how many other Conservative MLA's stumble immediately off the tongue?
What is it about Mr. Klein that endears him so to the electorate? What is that je ne sais quois quality - though he'd never call it that - that makes him so compelling a figure not only in provincial politics but also influential on the national stage?
On the surface it may be a cinch to define. Straight-talking to the point of boorishness, its easy to assert that Klein's willingness to say what he's thinking - or speak when he clearly hasn't been thinking - appeals to a populace, tired of the ethos of the eastern intelligentsia, who want their politicians to cut to the chase, eliminate the bull and say what they mean.
But that's an oversimplification not only of the man but also of the Albertan. To much of the rest of the country, Alberta is viewed through a Bonanza lens as some kind of wild west, comparatively lawless, cultureless wasteland. Klein, with his swaggering, bravado style (who can forget the talk of building a metaphorical wall around the ranch...er...province) and occasional apparent alcohol induced pronouncements - once making an impromptu stop at a homeless shelter on the way home from a dinner event and loudly slurring to a shelter's inhabitant to 'get a job!' - often does little to assuage the stereotype.
But Alberta is more than tumbleweeds and people who drive only really large vehicles and view Shania Twain as a serious artist. This is also the province of figure skater Kurt Browning, renowned Royal Ballet dancer Lynn Seymour, journalist Arthur Kent, folk singer Joni Mitchell, writers as diverse as W.P. Kinsella and Sharon Pollock, Emily Murphy and the rest of the Famous Five who blazed the way for women's rights in Canada.
Hardly a hillbilly haven.
In national politics, Klein's confrontational style has often earned him the scorn of political parties of all opposition stripes. In the last federal election, KIein's unannounced, hypothetical plans for reforms to the interpretation of the Canada Health Act in Alberta - putting aside the fact the Act is a federal jurisdiction - became a platform in the Paul Martin's campaign. The NDP's Jack Layton and the Bloc's Gilles Duceppe even went out of their way to attack Klein, despite the fact Klein wasn't even running.
Even the media couldn't resist attaching itself to the Albertan leader, dogging him for his thoughts on how Canada's health care system needed to be fixed and pestering him to see what kind of advice he was offering to federal Conservative leader Stephen Harper, as though Klein was the grand old sage every Conservative politician turned to for electoral advice.
Yet Klein, often portrayed by the rest of Canada as the chief cowboy, has consistently won the confidence of Albertans for nearly a quarter century since first being elected mayor of Calgary in 1980. And immediately upon being elected to the Alberta Legislature under Peter Lougheed he headed the environment ministry where, contrary to the pistol shooting oil baron he is often the described as, enacted some of Alberta's most progressive environmental legislation it had seen to date or since.
Clearly Klein has much more under his Stetson than that for which he is given credit. Unlike politics in, say, British Columbia, where the ideological swings are enough to make one seasick , Klein and his Tory party have navigated the much more varied constituencies of the province with more political savvy than most.
To the conservative base: focus on business expansion and being the first to eliminate the provincial debt. To the more centrist: as the profits have increased from booming oil and gas sectors, an increased commitment to funding public schools and universities and permitting some of the greatest freedom for educational innovation in the country.
Still, longevity in office does tend to breed complacency. It's part of the reason the Americans are such fans of term limits at almost all levels of government. Klein's pathetically lackluster performance during the campaign showed a leader whose political acumen was in need of a shakeup, and the loss of sixteen seats in this government over the last sends a message to the Tories the needs of the electorate were not being met by a party that may have drifted too far to the right for an increasingly diverse population.
And most importantly, in the next couple of years, the Tories need to find someone with as much charisma, cachet and political sharpness to capture the imagination of Albertans and the rest of the country in the same way, as Ralph Klein prepares to ride off into the electoral sunset before his final term is done.