BT Calgary Blogs

When word surfaced this past Friday that Ralph Klein, at 68 years old, now confronts a disease which will surely take his life somewhat sooner rather than later, my instinct was to immediately post some reflections about the man who was indeed King Ralph, for a very long time.  But the very word “reflections” speaks to taking a bit of time for marshalling  thoughts, and so with a considerably troubled mind, I did that over the weekend.  And I decided brevity, in this case, would be the soul of my observations.

Frontal temporal dementia is a savage affliction, not dissmilar to other diseases of the brain – including Alzheimer’s – and it means Ralph will quite rapidly lose his awareness of self, friends, memories – and Colleen.  And all of us will lose a great deal, as well, because with this long goodbye now in play, we can be certain there  probably will be no other politician like Ralph, ever. 

He was not without fault:  the drinking, the lifestyle, the occasional flares of temper were all well-documented, but they’re incidental to the plain truth that by his governance, policies, and undeniable longevity in politics, Ralph was larger than life and in fact was the personfication of Alberta for almost 20 years.  And before that, he was the political portrait of  Calgary, the mayor frequently described as a “chubby” former TV reporter, not that that had anything to do with his shrewd political instincts. 

Ralph has always said his legacy to Alberta was the retirement of the provincial debt, which of course the Stelmach crowd has reversed, but that’s another story.  The fact is the debt was paid off, which left Alberta the only province in Canada owing nothing to anybody.  Political historians will now begin to assess whether the slaying of the debt was in fact the greatest chapter of Ralph’s tenure, and perhaps some of them will decide it was not. 

But there will be no debate about two things:  first, that Ralph had an enormous impact on Alberta, and second, that he deserved a fate better and more rewarding than the one now awaiting him.  Politics, they say, can be a cruel mistress – but in some cases, life is worse.

The three stooges, together with the fellow who until Friday was the Prime Minister of Canada, have only been at it for a couple of days now, but I’m already tired of the whole lot of them.  The problem is that by the end of their five-week election campaign, I’ll be shot through with fatigue because try as I might, there’s no getting away from my fascination with politics, the game, the antics, the daily verification that democracy is the most rotten and useless system of politics, by far, except – as Winston Churchill put it – for all the others mankind has attempted through the ages.

I must confess I didn’t think the opposition loons would actually go ahead and toss the Harper government out of office, what with one poll after another after another putting Stevie and the Conservatives well in front, with the Liberals making up no ground and the NDP parked, as it’s always been, in distant third.   But Iffy Ignatieff and the Grits apparently decided in a moment of profound delusion that Canadian voters actually care about some aging lobbyist of questionable ethics, about allegedly hidden spending estimates for revising crime and punishment laws, about refitting the armed forces with jet fighters, while the nation, as the Liberals would have it, languishes in something approaching abject poverty. 

I wouldn’t argue the Tories have performed like choir boys and girls, and in fact it may well be they were in contempt of parliament, but is that reason enough to force the country into a $300 million dollar federal election which the population, by immense majority, has said it doesn’t want, and for which it feels there’s no need?  But Iffy – with Jackie Layton and the NDP joining the parade – marched into the House of Commons this past Friday, and together they brought the government down.  (The third stooge, otherwise known as the parliamentary leech from Quebec got in on the act, too, but then what does Gilles Duceppe care about Canadian democracy, except that it ensures he and his Blocheads get regular paycheques from all of us, plus perks, plus pensions?)  

Anyway, it’s just a bit rich for Iffy and the Grits to be braying on about government ethics, since the Liberals were the crowd who brought us that whole slick advertising scam in Quebec a few years back.  Millions of dollars greased thousands of palms around the province – and in fact some of that money still hasn’t been accounted for, let alone recovered.  And Jackie Layton seems to be most upset because the Prime Minister wouldn’t talk to him about possible amendments to the federal budget, which simply means Harper wouldn’t give him any room to wiggle out of this stupid election.  But you have to ask where it’s written down that a PM is obliged to negotiate with a pipsqueak third party which has never attracted more than one vote in five?  It’s not, of course, so Layton found himself painted tightly into a corner – and had no option therefore but to go along with Iffy’s motion of non confidence. 

The worst thing about all of this, though, is that politics in Canada is no longer driven by questions of competent governance, or clearly defined policies, or political philosophy.  It’s become a personality conflict, because Iffy and Jackie simply do not like Stephen Harper.  In fact, their distaste for the PM is so intense and so visceral that this useless election circus now besetting us is directed entirely against the man, and not his government, because they don’t like his attitude, don’t like his imperial bearing, don’t like his refusal to talk with them when they come knocking at the door. 

I have news for Iffy and Jackie.  It’s for us, the Canadian people, to determine if we don’t like Stephen Harper and to then decide if that is so, whether we don’t like his government, either.  Every poll in the last six months, including a spate of them in just the past two days, has said quite clearly we’re okay with Mr. Harper, and with his government.  That’s not to say we’re in love with the guy, but we do find him a good deal more appealing than Iffy and Jackie.  But their dislike of Harper is so deeply embedded they’ve become irrational about him – which is why we now endure an irrational election.

When Ed Stelmach won the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party just over four years ago, he did so as nobody’s preferred choice, and just about everybody’s last.

The first ballot results at the leadership convention to replace Ralph Klein, on November 25th 2006, delivered a mere 15% of Tory delegate support to Stelmach.  Jim Dinning and Ted Morton were both leagues ahead (Dinning at 30% and Morton with 26%) and so the natural assumption was that the second round of voting would be a slugfest between those two – with Stelmach out of sight and out of mind. 

As matters evolved, Dinning and Morton spent the week leading to the second ballot banging and hectoring away at each other, while Stelmach quietly marshalled his largely rural forces for the showdown on December 2nd.  The result was that while the heavyweight pair neutralized each other, Stelmach ran up the middle – and won the race with a vast majority of so-called “second choice” votes.  Not first.  Second.  But even on that basis, the results were convincing enough, as Stelmach viewed them, for him to proclaim that “nice guys actually do finish first.”

They don’t.  The legendary major league baseball manager, Leo Durocher, was right on the mark when he said “Nice guys finish last.”  Stelmach’s victory, as it turns out, was a fleeting thing because from the very beginning of his premiership, the Tory government was constantly on the defensive, always reacting to events instead of introducing them, plodding and stumbling from one crisis to another, bleeding steadily and sometimes profusely from self-inflicted wounds.  In the circumstances Stelmach’s removal was inevitable:  the only issue was the timing of his departure, which turned out to be considerably sooner rather than later.  In little more than four years, notwithstanding an enormous majority election victory in 2008, Stelmach was elbowed aside by an increasingly restive caucus and party, both of which were disturbed to begin with, and then later fully alarmed by precipitous decline in the opinion polls – and nearly matching ascent from the Wildrose Alliance. 

It’s an uncompromising game, is politics, and it always, inevitably takes out even the most entrenched and hitherto unassailable party leaders.  Margaret Thatcher in the U.K.  and Jean Chretien in Ottawa, and of course Ralph Klein in Alberta were but three examples of repeat election winners who had little difficulty convincing the voters of their value, but were singularly unable to persuade their own parties that they should remain in charge and in office. 

Stelmach’s dismissal by the Alberta Conservatives was more abrupt:  he won a single election only, but that wasn’t enough to assure the Tories he could win another, and so in the broad scheme of things political, Stelmach has indeed finished last.  In fact so hard was his fall that within a month of his decision to resign, no fewer than four of his formerly loyal and stalwart cabinet allies were running full bore for his job. 

In the meantime, the Premier putters on but nobody takes him seriously any more, inside the Tory part or out.  Actually, two of the contenders to replace him – Doug Griffiths and Alison Redford – have been implicitly critical of their former boss, and in Redford’s case, pointedly so.  In so many words, she has said both the health care and finance files in Alberta have been reduced to untidy shambles in the past four years – at enormous cost to the government’s credibility, and worse, to its prospects for re-election. 

In other words, not only has Ed Stelmach borne the indignity and embarassment of being forced from office by, among others, his own choices for cabinet posts, he’s also now taking flak from a couple of them.  That’s maybe the unkindest cut of all, but then again, it’s what happens to nice guys who finish last.

If the major elements of legislative democracy are a Premier and cabinet ministers who in the first instance will govern openly and candidly, with the presumed objective of a better life for citizens  (to say nothing of their votes), and in the second will confront opposition critics who might suggest the Premier and ministers aren’t doing a very good job of it, then what we have in Alberta at the moment is nothing less than abdication of responsibility.

Premier Stelmach is the invisible man these days, out of sight, out of touch, and unwilling it seems to tackle a series of  difficult issues which press against his government from all sides.  In fact, his sole line of defence has been to declare that the forthcoming session of the legislature will be delayed until February – in a province where there are already fewer sitting days than in any other legislature in Canada. 

Given the circumstances facing the Premier and his ministers, it’s perhaps not to wonder that Stelmach has no desire to face off against the opposition members across the aisle.  They would be all over the Stelmachians about the continuing morass in Alberta health care:  they would doubtless wonder why the federal government has seen fit to assume ownership of environmental monitoring in the oilsands:  they would wonder what gloom in the budget numbers would cause Stelmach to retreat from his prior assurance that the current $5 billion dollar deficit will be in balance by 2012-13. 

Stelmach has internal headaches as well, with a ministry and caucus sharply divided on the composition of the next provincial budget, this spring.  One side of the debate, which apparently includes finance minister Ted Morton,  argues for seriously reduced spending, the other for staying the course and letting the deficit linger.  If wagers were placed, they would favor Morton, who has significant influence and power – but that doesn’t alter the fact that internal fighting is in play.

But the most daunting issue staring Stelmach in the face is the sense, the impression among Alberta voters that his government has no steerage, wallows aimlessly in the political swells.  That would explain for us why the foundering ship Tory  is rapidly being overtaken by a much faster and more agile vessel known as the Wildrose Alliance Party.  The Tories and WRA are in a statistical deadlock, now, in one opinion poll after another – and Stelmach’s popularity rating is plummeting downward even as that of Wildrose leader Danielle Smith ascends. 

It doesn’t help either that Stelmach, after treating himself to a 30% salary increase about three years ago, is the highest paid premier in Canada at slightly less than $230 thousand dollars a year.  And his cabinet ministers happily dove into the treasure chest, too, so that a good many of them now rank as the most handsomely paid of their kind in the country.  Alberta folks are wondering where’s the value for money;  where’s the Premier;  and what’s he doing? 

The answers to those questions would be, in order, there isn’t much value for our tax money at all;  the Premier isn’t anywhere except out of sight;  and….nothing.

Three card Monte is an illegal scam, with an upturned fruit or vegetable box and a grinning dealer, which used to pervade the streets of New York City and every so often  still does.  In some ways, it’s not dissimilar to the old county fair con which invited suckers to find the pea under the thimble – which of course it was not.  Monte on the other hand involves an invitation  to the unwary to pick one card of three atop the box, and then after the dealer does a sort of whirlygig shuffle, to triumphantly point out the chosen card.  Of course it’s never there:  up a sleeve, probably, or maybe squirreled away under the wooden box, or most likely slipped under one of the original three.   

So it is with the salaries paid to Alberta politicians:  you think you see what they get, know what they get, only to discover you don’t because a lot of the compensation is hidden away – just like the pea or the Monte card.  In fact, the political payment racket in Alberta is composed of several add-on bits and pieces.  Stipends for the Premier and cabinet ministers, for example, are spooned into the mix; there are further dollops of cash for committee work; there are contributions to ministerial and MLA RRSP accounts.   But at the root of the scheme is something called a “tax free” allowance.

These various add-ons explain why Premier Ed Stelmach was paid a base of slightly more than $78,000 last year but in total collected $227,284.  Only in the byzantine realm of political compensation can you find such sleight of hand, although actually, the worst of these sweet little deals – the tax-free payment game – is now extant in only two provinces.  Alberta and Quebec play on with the public purse, but every other province, and the feds, got rid of the tax perk years ago because it was not transparent, and was seen to be unfair to ordinary Canadian mortals who are obliged to answer in full the annual call of Revenue Canada.

Alberta politicians, though, happily swarm to the trough so that most of Stelmach’s cabinet ministers are now pulling in upwards of $200,00 a year.  And do not turn to Liberal opposition leader David Swann for redress, because he’s in on it, too.  Notwithstanding the resounding ineptitude of his leadership in the past couple of years (MLA and administration defections, and becalmed if not at slow astern in the polls) Dr. Swann has offered no suggestion that he would have the tax-free compensation bauble examined and perhaps eliminated.  Not at $203,000 into the old bank account last year.

(There was a time, many long years ago, when politicians were miserably paid, but were also forced to carry – without expense accounts and/or allowances - all  the costs of office administration, travel, maintaining a constituency shingle, entertainment, postage. Hence the “tax free” allowance which back in those days was justified because it relieved otherwise impossible financial burdens for members of parliament, and the provincial legislatures).

Eddie, Davy, all the rest of you in Edmonton.  It’s 2011 and you’re now covered for those expenses, entertainment, constituency offices, travel, and postage.  You don’t need the tax perk, but it sure looks to me as if you bloody well want it and won’t let it go. 

It would be nice, really nice, if all the rest of us in Alberta could have it, too.  But we can’t because we’re just regular working folks, well removed from the rarified and artificial world which you seem to think makes you better than us.

You’re not.

She was a woman of enormous courage and determination, was Elizabeth Edwards, bent upon defeating the breast cancer which first appeared six years ago.  She was also a woman enduring not only the relentless intrusion of a disease which would in the end take her life, but also marriage to a wretched excuse of a husband named John Edwards.

He’s the pretty boy U.S. Senator so enamoured of himself that he attempted to attain the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States not once, but twice.  He is also the man who embarked on a flaming affair with a 40-something tart, with whom he fathered a baby girl even as his wife bravely fought for her life. 

John Edwards is a man with no conscience, no shame, no morals, no values.  But in the end,  if there’s any story combining tragedy and triumph both, we have it in the long physical suffering and emotional anguish of  Elizabeth Edwards:   tragedy in that she died one month ago today, but also triumph because she got him.  She neatly put the shiv into her philandering and useless husband. 

Ms. Edwards, by way of a distinguished law career, and then as a best-selling author, arrived at her death bed as a woman of very considerable and independent wealth.  Six days before she died, she rewrote her will – and removed from it any mention of John Edwards.  She cut him out, left her fortune to her children, and in so doing left John-boy a man of modest means at best, free now to marry the mistress with whom he cavorted during most of his wife’s six-year struggle against the cancer.

What’s the saying?  What goes around comes around?  Indeed.  It may be that John Edwards will actually go on and do something productive with his life, whether married or not to his strumpet.  I doubt it somehow, but I also don’t care because I’m content with the delicious knowledge that Elizabeth Edwards, the woman scorned, got him but good.

Seems to me there could have been no better outcome for a loser like Johnny.

We’ve had before us this past week a sterling example of a witless dolt who represents the worst of embedded male attitudes, and presumed male dominance in the United States Navy, notwithstanding what might be described as its co-ed personnel composition of the past 20 years or so.

Owen Honors was until very recently captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, a flagship carrier in the American naval fleet.  Honors is also the man who assembled a series of lewd and crude video “skits,” which were then broadcast to the crew – men and women – as part of the onboard Saturday night movies.  (Honors was actually playing at video production about four years ago, when he was the Enterprise executive officer – second in command – which means he wasn’t exactly a petty officer.  XO is a very high rank).

At any rate, the weekend movies on Enterprise featured Honors himself in pantomime masturbation, Honors uttering sly and deft slurs against gays, Honors and some of his officers in thinly disguised scenes of sexual assault, Honors happily displaying a shower scene involving two women crew members. 

The tapes then lay dormant, while a couple of years later Honors was promoted to captain of the Enterprise.  He remained so until a newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia (home port to the Enterprise) got wind of the tapes, got hold of them, posted them on its website, whereupon all kinds of public revulsion broke over the navy and its top brass.

But the worst of it was that the Navy at first countered with a couple of shamblng news releases, stating the videos weren’t actually all that raunchy,  just harmless little clips designed to relieve the monotony of long tours at sea, and not really worth any fuss and bother.  But the public furor didn’t subside and so the Admirals  in the Pentagon suddenly emerged from their somnolence, ordered full astern, revised their tale of innocence abroad – and relieved Honors of his command. 

The real question, though, emerges from the initial navy reaction.  You have to ask what else might be expected of a military institution riven, as most are, with mysoginist Luddites?  And further, whether the U.S. navy is populated, perhaps to an alarming degree, by juvenile jerks whose idea of “entertainment” is in-house production of soft porn?  It seems to me the answer is Yes, with further evidence arising from the continuing majority opinion in the American navy – and the U.S. military in whole, actually – that gay men are somehow not men, and should they wish to serve ought not to voluntarily confess to their sexual orientation.  In return, the real men “don’t ask”.  

Owen Honors is without question a pinhead, but he’s also prima facie evidence that the U.S. Navy has a long way to go before its preaching about equality, maturity, and sexual inclusion actually becomes practice.

Years ago, it was Brigitte Bardot – the French sex kitten - cuddling a Newfoundland seal pup.   She was  Star Power in the relentless campaign to end the offshore  Atlantic seal hunt, even though for a century and more it had been the primary, and in some cases only income source for hundreds of Newfoundland residents and their families.

Farah Fawcett was enlisted, too, as a celebrity poster girl for anti-seal activists – although I suspect that before venturing onto the floes, neither she nor Bardot had the slightest notion of Newfoundland’s whereabouts, its history, its desperate economic struggles.  No matter:  they were more than happy to join the fortissimo chorus of denunciation and abuse against a large group of Canadian citizens who were guilty of nothing more than trying to make a living.

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I’ve no doubt that nearly 20 years beyond the fact, Kent Hehr still endures the occasional long night with no sleep, wondering why it had to be him?  Why a random bullet from a drive-by shooting left him a quadraplegic, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life?  Why urban violence struck him because he was merely a victim of the terrible confluence of  ”wrong time, wrong place?”

Hehr has borne the consequences of that dreadful evening, in October 1991, with a great deal of determination and fortitude.  He  graduated from university in the highest ranks, became a well-known Calgary lawyer, and then latterly, the Liberal MLA for Calgary Buffalo in the Alberta legislature.  His biography would not be out of place in John F. Kennedy’s book titled “Profiles in Courage,” because that’s exactly what Hehr’s profile has been, and in many respects still is.

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Those of you who regularly drop in on this space will know I seldom agree with Alberta Liberal leader David Swann, never mind Brian Mason of the NDP.  But their reaction to a freshly minted government report about health care in this province was right on the mark:  lacking substance, airy-fairy, loaded with vague principles, more idle talk, wisps in the health care breeze.

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