Showdown for Ralph -2 days

We are now two days away from Premier Klein's big address to the Tory Party.

I have no idea what will happen but I do know this is going to be a critical moment of history for our province. While being in another party you are still fascinated by the drama of it all. Will he or won't he survive the Oberg moment?

Having spoken to one of the leadership contenders prior to the budget I was pretty sure he was going down... but now I have no idea. Oberg has thrown a real monkey wrench in the plans of the Dinnings and others that were plotting in my opinion to hit the Premier with the cold truth.

Now I am less sure that they can pull it off. With Oberg's bounce their might just be enough ill will against Oberg that they might stick a fork in the idea. It will be a very interesting day on Friday.

I will be on CKUA Sunday to comment on the whole thing so tune in at 12:00 pm to here the debate.

For those who might be interested...

I am making my return to the small weekly print this week. The Temple City Star (my old newspaper) is going to be publishing my column again starting this week.

Should be fun. I hope.

In the meantime it should be a interesting week next week with our new Office companions being next door.

Our new near roomie

Well a little birdie told me that our office is going to have a next door neighbour. Current PC Leadership candidate Lyle Oberg will be parked right beside us in the Legislature Annex.

Why do I think he will not feel best pleased :)

Tom Olsen loves the Alliance

Calgary Herald columnist Tom Olsen is at it again...
During the 2004 election he predicted the Alliance would get 0 seats. He almost had real egg on his face when we came within 150 votes of having two seats.

So now he is dissing us again over Oberg.... see below. Warning this article is not free and I have only taken the part that refers to the Alliance if you want more you would have to suscribe to the Calgary Herald.

Party of one looks to double up with Oberg
TOM OLSEN

EDMONTON- The Tory caucus might not want him, but Paul Hinman does. The Alberta Alliance leader (and sole Alliance MLA) said he wants to talk to Lyle Oberg about forming a caucus of two in the legislature.
Hinman’s among those who believe Ralph Klein’s long, slow retirement ride puts the Tory party in danger of falling into the Socred trap.

Alberta Social Credit gave way to the Progressive Conservatives under Peter Lougheed, who sent the worn-out party on the road to oblivion in 1971.

There’s been some suggestion the PCs could be on the same track. This theory posits that Ralph’s long goodbye could turn the party into a dinosaur the electorate will throw over.

One big problem — there’s no viable Conservative alternative with a Peter Lougheed-type man-for-the-times waiting in the wings. With apologies to Hinman, it ain’t him.

With Apologies to Tom... how would he know?

In 1967 Peter Lougheed was looked at as yet another failed challenger to the crown of Ernest Manning. Manning was unstoppable. He won every election as Premier since 1944. He was simply too powerful to be beaten.

But early in his mandate in 1967 he decided to step aside and allow a leadership race for his spot rather than give it to any heir apparent.

With various ministers and others vying for his crown Manning was seen to be leaving a strong leader a great advantage over the Official Opposition, of six, led by Peter Lougheed.

No one in 1968 thought that Harry Strom would be beaten by the upstart and that did not change right to the call of the election. Yet Lougheed basically stole the Socreds platform, stuck a younger face in front of it and won.

His wonderful slogan which caused the win (no sarcasm of course) was NOW! Not exactly a grabber but hey whatever works.

A strong campaign, a telegenic leader and a old and tired party facing it and the PCs won.

The current Tory party is very much the 67 Socreds at this point. They avoided one near death experience when the Liberals under Decore almost stole Klein's thunder. Now! lets see if the big blue machine can survive the next leadership contest. I am dubious.

But of course I would be.

Leadership puts a smile on opposition faces

Leadership chaos looks set to continue again and again over the next few weeks, months, years? Who knows. I said to someone if they thought our six month leadership race is difficult they have not seen nothing yet.

I will be blunt. I do not know Dr. Oberg. I know what I have heard and little else. I respected the gang of six back in the day but I am not sure what the guy is like now.

I will say yesterday he did not talk to Paul before the press conference. I am guessing he is waiting to see the response amongst the party before abandoning ship. But, let me be extremely clear. How exactly can he work with a caucus who beat him over the head twice for three hours each? As well how welcoming would that caucus be to Dr. Oberg if he DID win the leadership?

With all that in mind I know what I would suggest for the independent member from Strathmore-Brooks but we shall see.

It will be an interesting couple weeks.

Crazy couple of weeks keeps me hopping

Sorry for ignoring the blogging...

We have been busy getting our health reforms framework done.

Then last week I had to get ready for our Stakeholder meeting with Iris Evans. It was very educational.

I hope to see more from all this when we get to the election but right now we are being ignored in general. I think the Leadership (prior to thursday) was already causing massive ignore mode for us.

Just look at the budget. Our best media coverage was on CBC Radio Canada, in french... sigh. So far we get media from the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Sun and that was about it. Until yesterday...

Do not worry I will cover the Lyle Oberg thing momentarily.

Oh crap

Well, what a week this has been.  The Premier makes national attention Monday by releasing, FINALLY, his Third Way health reforms.  He then makes a complete “crap” of it because he could not get control of his temper on Wednesday.

Let me be very clear on a few points:

1. I did not see the incident with the Premier throwing the Alberta Liberal Health Platform.


2. I did however attend the news conference later that day and the next day.  I did watch question period from my office but the camera (as the media pointed out) did not face that direction.

So with that in mind here are my thoughts.

According to the Liberals they say Klein received their health policy book from a page (a legislature gopher in effect for the MLAs, they are generally high school and some university students).  He looked at it then said, “I don’t need this crap,” and then Premier Klein tossed it over his shoulder nearly, or actually hitting the page who had given it to him.

The Premier insists he did not hit her but nearly did.  In talking to someone on the Tory side of the house they said the Liberals provoked the response by holding up their policy book every time Klein said he wanted ideas from the opposition.  I am struggling to understand that argument.

The reality is he just got upset and threw a fit because the Premier has never liked Question Period.  As someone on that side of the house once said to me, to the Premier the Legislature is like “High Latin Mass” you do the motions but do not understand much of what is going on.

Personally, I agree with what Paul Hinman said on this (I know you are not surprised)
From the Calgary Herald:

Alberta Alliance Leader Paul Hinman, the lone representative of his party in the house, said he was not happy with Klein’s apology.    “How impersonal to phone her up at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.,” Hinman said. “Had I done that, I would have been so embarrassed I would have (found) her and apologized personally, face-to-face.”

The big key to this in my opinion was that the page was still working until 5:30 pm that day.  Why did the Premier not apologise in person?  Is it because he did not realize that shooting the messenger is not allowed, especially in public?  Or was he shamed into it after the exposure the incident got on the 6pm news.

Oh and in the meantime there are some real issues that could have been dealt with about this Third Way if only we had the chance.