If I were the leader of a dynastic
political party that hasn't had to actually fight an election in 40
years — in the face of the challenge mounted in Alberta by the NDP,
and the voter anger I would have encountered at every stop on
this election campaign — I'd probably monger all the fear I could.
The sky will fall, I'd say, all the
drilling rigs will be pulled out of Alberta into Saskatchewan, and
they'll horizontal drill 300 km west under the border and suck out
all our oil. The NDP will tax you into poverty and then offer you a
minimum wage job at $15 an hour.
Because I'd know that the first order
of business for an NDP cabinet will be to get a thorough look at
Alberta's books. I suspect they'll find stuff an outsider would never
see under our so-called freedom-of-information laws. And these people know
from experience parsing the bits that have come through their own FOI
requests in the past, when red flags appear.
And I'd be so scared, that in my lowest
moments I'd monger all the fear I could. But I would hope in the end
that I had the strength of character to stand up and face the storm
to come, if worse came to worst.
It came to the worst for placeholder
premier Jim Prentice Tuesday. And his character was not up to the
challenge of losing.
Now, if you think I'm kicking a man
when he's down, please think about this: Jim Prentice was handed the
premiership of the longest-ruling, richest elected government in the
British Commonwealth, on a platter.
He won his Calgary-Foothills riding in
a by-election cakewalk last October. He asked for — and won again —
the right to speak for the people of Calgary-Foothills in our
legislature by almost 1,400 votes on Tuesday. His riding has been a
Tory stronghold ever since the Tories started running there, back in
1971.
If you think a person in that position
is down, I suggest you talk to some NDP, Liberal or Alberta Party
operatives, on the subject of grit, and perseverance. Because
Prentice showed neither in defeat Tuesday.
They were still counting ballots in
some ridings Tuesday night when Prentice told Albertans: “My
contribution to public life is now at an end.”
What, was he contemplating something
extreme, like a medieval Japanese samurai general who lost a critical
battle? No, he's likely going to take a vacation far, far from
Alberta, and see if he still has any friends in the banking industry.
Just who did the Progressive
Conservatives elect as a leader? Whose interests was he sworn to
uphold? Yours? Mine? The party's?
His own?
A real fighter would have sworn to
return to fight again. Especially a fighter who, at least until
recently, had the backing of Alberta's top-flight CEOs. Especially a
fighter who believed in the cause.
Remember Bob Clark, the Olds-Didsbury
MLA who became the rather lonely leader of the Social Credit Party?
He — like a few of the newly-minted NDP MLAs elected Tuesday —
was in his early 20s when he was first elected in 1960. He was
education minister for a time under good old Ernest Manning.
When the roof fell in on the party, and
it was down to four members, Clark stuck with it. He took the
leadership, and was there while the last crumbs of Socred support
disappeared in the face of the Tory juggernaut. An unelected Werner
Schmidt took over the leadership in 1973, but Clark stayed on as a
regular MLA.
Schmidt resigned in 1975, after a poor
showing for the party in that election, and Clark — still elected,
still representing Olds-Didsbury — stood up once again. He was
there, fighting, until 1981.
For that, he was made Alberta Ethics
Commissioner, a post he'd hold for 11 years after leaving elected
politics.
That's what grit looks like.
Or talk to the Alberta NDP about
perseverance. How long were they a joke in legislature hallways and
Tory party fundraisers? How were these fuzzy-headed sandal-wearing
noodniks treated during the Ralph Klein years and after?
But as for Prentice, if he couldn't
have it on a silver platter, he didn't want it at all.
Which is an apt metaphor for what the
Alberta Progressive Conservative Party has become.
You need to believe in something other
than power itself, to govern. The power of Jim Prentice's beliefs are
rather much in question now. He called a hasty election solely for
the purposes of retaining power, and hastily left the field when it
didn't go his way.
No doubt the party will be
soul-searching in the next years, asking itself existential questions
the opposition learned to deal with a long time ago.
But the one Albertan who needs a look
in the mirror right now is Jim Prentice.
Follow Greg Neiman's blog at
Readersadvocate.blogspot.ca
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