Premier Alison Redford and members of her new cabinet in a Transylvanian Tory Time Warp. Ron Liepert is at right. Alberta premiers and their cabinets may not be exactly as illustrated, here or during their campaigns. Below left: Ms. Redford, centre, attempts to breathe new life into the Alberta Conservative Party. “It’s just a jump to the left….
“…And then a step to the right!”
We’re in a time warp, people! And Ron Liepert, Tory Riff-Raff personified, is back, bigger and uglier than ever!
Progressively minded Albertans of the naïve sort who, full of hope, bought Progressive Conservative Party memberships so they could vote for the most liberally minded candidate were wailing and gnashing their teeth yesterday. A few of them may even have been, as they say in the media, choking back tears.
Back during the PC leadership race, these nice folks pinned their hopes on candidate Alison Redford, a one-term MLA and former human rights lawyer and who served as Justice Minister in departed premier Ed Stelmach’s cabinet.
Their votes were probably what pushed Ms. Redford over the top on Oct. 1, when the Tories counted the final ballots in their eight-month leadership campaign and she edged out former front-runner Gary Mar, who had foolishly announced he favoured some forms of private health care.
And so Ms. Redford became the leader of the multi-generational ruling PC dynasty and was sworn in as premier last Friday. Today, she revealed her cabinet picks.
It is now apparent (cue the musicians) that if during the campaign she took a jump to the left – far enough to give the far-right Wildrose Alliance something to wail about – today she took a lurch to the right.
In addition to vowing to preserve public health care, she had promised to get rid of some of the “household names” in Mr. Stelmach’s ministry – and tout le monde political Alberta simply assumed this meant Ron Liepert, the perennially unpopular bull in the provincial china shop.
Mr. Liepert was the guy who tried to re-reform Ralph Klein’s “Third Way” when that premier’s attempt to Americanize Alberta public health care went south in the face of voter resistance. Mr. Liepert was the famously short-tempered fellow on whose watch Alberta tried its catastrophic experiment in health care centralization, moved seniors’ care increasingly toward a high-cost private model, saw the crisis in the province’s Emergency Rooms boil over, and brought us Stephen Duckett, the famously undiplomatic Australian, to stir the pot as CEO of AHS.
Mr. Liepert got so unpopular seniors booed him spontaneously when he walked into a room, and Mr. Stelmach eventually shuffled him off to the Energy Ministry to get him out of harm’s way. Mr. Stelmach replaced him with the smooth and competent Gene Zwozdesky, who quickly restored the appearance at least of order in Alberta’s troubled health care system.
Not only that, but Mr. Liepert was among Mr. Mar’s most enthusiastic supporters and, after Mr. Mar lost, loudly proclaimed that he didn’t support Ms. Redford’s promised public inquiry into the sorry state of health care under his gentle hand.
But today Premier Redford astonished everyone by skidding the competent and pleasant Mr. Zwozdesky and makin
g Ron Liepert the Minister of Finance. Thanks to the premier, he now has even more power and greater opportunity to wreak havoc with public services.As Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason warned the Edmonton Journal yesterday afternoon, having Mr. Liepert around in this important job means there will soon be a “rockem-sockem attack” on public spending.
And as Alberta Liberal Leader Dr. Raj Sherman, himself a former Tory Parliamentary Assistant for Health, accurately added, the return of the “one man wrecking ball” illustrates that “you can change the leader, but the party is much stronger than the leader.”
Apparently everyone had forgotten that Mr. Liepert and Ms. Redford also had a political history – when he helped her unsuccessful attempt to knock off nutty uber-right Calgary MP Rob Anders.
Meanwhile, Ms. Redford made health policy consultant Fred Horne the minister of health. Mr. Horne, another former Parliamentary Assistant for Health, is well known as a friend of private health care, and was also mixed up in accusations a year ago he’d made inappropriate comments about the state of Dr. Sherman’s mental health.
So if progressive voters who supported Ms. Redford on the strength of her pledges to preserve public health care were having trouble breathing yesterday morning, they could be forgiven.
Indeed, it looks like we have our very own Rocky Mountain Cabinet Horror Show with Ms. Redford playing the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter, who dresses as one thing (in this case a squishy liberal) but frankly appears to be quite another.
Ms. Redford’s entire cabinet has that Transylvanian Tory time warp feel, with numerous PC retreads such as loony right-wing ideologue Ted Morton (back as energy minister charged with defending tar sands petroleum extraction and low royalty rates), lightweight Stelmach loyalist Tom Lukaszuk (promoted to the heavy-duty education ministry) and Dave Hancock as minister of the massive new Human Services super-ministry – which seems to have been created mainly so that the number of cabinet seats can be dramatically reduced in the months before a general election. Also, of course, she named leadership candidate Doug Horner deputy premier and Treasury Board president.
So much for the power of sisterhood, Ms. Redford only named two additional women to the testosterone-drenched 20-member cabinet.
In fairness, there were some new faces – including several predicted in this space – but none that would startle a reader as voices of moderate progressivism. There are few other than Dr. Morton, Mr. Hancock and Mr. Horner who could be called heavyweights.
As the always useful Daveberta blog observed, at least Premier Redford avoided one of Mr. Stelmach’s first egregious errors by achieving “a respectable geographic balance.”
However, two grimmer conclusions can be drawn immediately from today’s cabinet choices:
- With Dr. Morton as energy minister, there will be no meaningful revision of the royalty rates structure, ever, other than possibly to give even more money to petroleum extraction companies.
- With Mr. Liepert and Mr. Horne as key gatekeepers in cabinet, the public inquiry into abuses in the health care system will never happen in any meaningful way.
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
10 comments:
tismsiI was one of the naive ones but I did not buy any membership. I was a medium size naive. This is worse than the Obama debacle. She went from 'Lets Change politics in Alberta' to 'Well I guess I will have a great pension in 4 years'. Pretty bad indeed. I will not even get into details because makes anyone sick. The next election suddenly became important again.
Dave, I worked in a union for 3 years. I have gotten to know that Unions can be a force for positive change. In Alberta, Unions thanks to the glue sniffing social conservatives, who lie in bed with the corporatracy, the collective movement has been severely weakened as a force for democractic renewal and change. Since most people are socially progressive and financially conservative, it makes sense to back the Gov't that is also the same. That is why the collective bargainers have to stop making deals at the trough with the Tories for the sake of contract negotiations. Democracy has been suffering for so long here. It is fair order of business to want have socially responsible Corporations that observe workers' rights and the right to demand fair compensation. The big caveat here is, you have to step back and ask, purely within the context of enabling progressive and social change, has the labour movement lost its way and given in to seeking only its own interests first? That is a very fair question. In some cases the back door bargaining of the teachers is exactly what pisses people off about the Collective Labour activists...that is they have forgotten that they in addition to having an obligation to themself, also have an obligation to society to be a force of democratic and social change and help to maintain the checks and balances of a healthy society. If the last 32 yrs since Lougheed is any indication, the Labour movement here has lost its way. It needs to get back to doing what it already does for itself PLUS, it needs to again become a force of positive change and rebalancing of democratic change for society at large. That cannot happen, as long the Labour movement only cares about contract and wage negotitations, the rest of society will suffer poor decision making by those that the contracts were negotiated with. I for one, would like to see the Labour movement in Alberta reaffirm itself as a tool for democratic renewal and change and it can do this by politically backing a new party, the ALP. I guarantee you, on behalf of the taxpayers, those that pay the wages, the Labour movement can engage in some political activism and use this as an opportunity to regain and relegitimize its political relevancy within the eyes of the public.
@Anonymous
I agree with what you wrote and I have no doubts that the labour movement is extremelly important for any democracy to function but you forgot to say that just like the corporations, at one point they became very arrogant, rich and powerful and behaved in many cases I remember as if there was no end to wage increases. They did very little for those who had no unions and in general their extremelly high paid bosses did not mind at all to be in bed with mafia and even corporations. Well they are paying the price for that atittude. A lot of people do not trust them. Now the same is happening with corporations and I do believe they will pay a hefty price for this as well especially the CEO who are basically the new aristocracy of the modern world with bonuses that are absurd. Unfortunately these processes are too slow for my liking but they happen and I have no doubts that a revolution is just around the corner. The First World Spring is coming.
To @Anon and @Carlos: unions, by and large, are profoundly democratic organizations, and the myth of "overpaid union bosses" is just that, a myth. Union leaders are elected from the rank & file, and are only re-elected if they act in accordance with the wishes of the members. If union members insist that their union be non-partisan and politically neutral, as is true for all of Alberta's largest public-sector unions (AUPE, ATA and UNA), the leadership must respect that. If the union's membership wants the leadership to focus their efforts exclusively on collective bargaining, which is after all their core function and the reason they exist, they must respect that too.
Dear Carlos and Anon:
Context is everything and the fact is Alberta functions as an authoritian single party state. That means unless you are a part of the party you are SOL.
Until we have democracy and the rule of law in Alberta, it is the law of the jungle. Unions certainly have their small share of responsibility for this, but let's remember it was the crony capitalists who once again used their power and influence to bring us to this state.
Dear Ken
I could not agree more with you.
Hey Ken, yes crony capitalists have to take the responsibility. But as a collective, we cannot define our cause solely by how much money we can make off the public purse. We have to be more than that, if we are not, we empower and provoke right wing entities to attack the labour movement and they use the labour movement's very existence as a cause to attack Gov't jobs, Go'vt workers and how the public purse is being misuesed. Do you understand, what I am saying? The Labour movmment has lost its ability to see the bigger picture with in a long term context. The question is, did you really, if you got your way in contract negotiations?...three or 4 yrs later pass and the Right wing wing nuts plot and build grass roots TEA PARTY movements, because they hypothesize that Labour movements are not Loyal to their boss, the taxpayers, only to themselves! So you have a situation, where Unions get the cash now, but have to deal with the wrath of a public that votes right wing and a potential right wing gov't that is ready to joust with the Labour movement! Its like the Labour movement, is setting itself up for failure if all that it seeks to achieve is financial goals. If the Labour movement chose to seek some moral ground and stick up for tax payers, and pledge to become more accountable and efficient, you will have the people on your side and the corporate neo-cons won't have any leg to stand on and once contract negotations come around, you will have a party willing to walk the walk and talk the talk. The Labour movement cannot go wrong taking the high road, for just 1 Four year term. The long term gain will last many terms beyond that. Just think about. Guy Smith has to take the long view. Much rebalancing of the democratic process can be achieved, as well as restoring the lustrous shine of unions and collective rights. I think collective leaders have to look to the past and side with the people. Union or Non Union, all people want balanced, accountable government. What we have in AB is way out of control. Again Collective leaders can be a force for the change of good, there has to be some moral and political will. It will be an act of heroism on behalf of the general population, if they can embrace a larger vision, not to mention restoriation of a lustrious shine on the Unions and a potential to grow.
Thank you Anon:
I believe you are essentially saying that unions have to rise above simple "Gomperism" where the only demands are "more" and "now."
This is certainly correct, but unions also set the bar for occupational health and safety and have backed courageous whistle-blowers on public health issues.
Unfortunately these other good things the unions achieve are isolated, complicated and don't fit with the 25 second news cycle.
So unions do take the high road, but they are not often seen to take the high road, and perhaps that shows they need, as you observe, to do it more.
My uncle once made a comment along the lines of:
Politics, Religion and Unions are all basically the same, all looking out for themselves
Sadly, I've grown to understand that he was right on the button
Spent some time with the unions, NEVER again, they serve the masters of the local and not the little guy that foots the bill. The home of the incompetent and lowest common denominator, No independent thought or questioning allowed, hell they even tell you how to vote. Votes, sure in the open no privacy, rule through intimidation
But I degress, why must our lefties always attack the right of centre with the constant name calling, are we not ALL allowed opinions?
Alberta Tories = Neo-Con? Conservative? Right Wing? Get a grip, they have been spending like Liberals since Lougheed, and are so far to the centre as to appear Liberal (those fun loving opportunists that they are swinging left or right to get a vote)
Tea-Party? This is Canada NOT the states, and besides, those that want a return to less government, end the nanny state (and hence taxes) are somewhat evil.
Using that type of logic and idiotic rhetoric, I should therefore be able to label anyone who is left of centre as a marxist or maybe even a communist
I truly enjoy the "tax the rich" mantra being spewed. Remember Britain in the 1970's and the flight of capital.
Capital is mobile and will move, and hence there go the jobs, investment associated with it. I see unions wanting as hare of the profits, but will not share in the losses or costs to make a profit.
Alas, rich is an abstract, open to interpretation, thus YOU may be the next rich. Do you own a house/condo/cabin? Then you are rich by some standards
I don't know why some people want to have everyone "equal" to the lowest state, can there be nobody that desires to advance, get ahead, must we be stuck in a state funded dependence?
Besides there will be always be the ruling elite, be they Priests, PM's, union leaders, tribal leaders etc.
There is no perfect system, as each system has corruption, there is no 100% pure and clean ruling organization
@Ken
Collectively the labour movement needs to show that it is a force for the betterment of society as a whole, not just for its members. The collective bargainers need to start taking the high road and not make their financial positioning the be all and end of their success. The Unions need to make Education, Health and Infrastructure a priority, on behalf of the public. It would not hurt if some of the Unions decided to run some of their astute members as MLA's. I really hate deal cutting, just to drink at the trough, that sort of thing has to stop. Deal cutting with the right or the left is not useful. There has to be a principled backing of balanced, centrist ideals. In Alberta, the best party with those ideals is the ALP. We need balance in AB and the Unions can play a key role in bringing about that balance by standing behind the ALP wholeheartedly.
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