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'Democracy Derailed' in Alberta

Book takes Albertans to scandal school.

By Jeremy Klaszus, 6 Mar 2007, TheTyee.ca

Ralph Klein

Recipe for pork barrel

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  • Democracy Derailed
  • Kevin Taft
  • Red Deer Press (2007)

For over 35 years, Alberta has been ruled by one party: the Progressive Conservatives. The party exerts control over nearly every aspect of government, even those that should be non-partisan. Patronage is commonplace, and the line between government and business has all but disappeared. Opposition parties are marginalized and political infrastructure has been manipulated to serve the ruling party.

These realities and more are pointed out in Democracy Derailed, Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft's latest attempt to rouse Albertans from their political indifference. You see, while Albertans talk big about the federal government, they are incredibly complacent when it comes to provincial politics. Fewer than 45 percent voted in the 2004 provincial election and Conservatives hold almost 75 per cent of the seats in the legislature. (That despite receiving less than half the popular vote.)

Tories' fat catalogue of scandal

If Albertans care enough to tune in, they will find in Taft's thin volume evidence enough to shake them from their collective stupor. Other Canadians, meanwhile, can read the book and shake their heads at the absurdities of political life in Confederation's one-party province.

Taft outlines the ways the Conservatives have brazenly misused their power over the last decade. It's a dark narrative full of scandals that would have ruined a government in any other province:

  • A Calgary hospital is sold to Tory supporters in 1997 for $4.5 million only a few years after the province spent over four times that amount to improve the building. Today, the Calgary Health Region pays over $4 million a year for services provided in that same building.
  • A "consultant" for then-health minister Gary Mar is awarded $389,000 in contracts by Alberta Health and Wellness from 2002 to 2004. The "consultant," Kelley Charlebois, is Mar's former executive assistant, and there is no paper to show he actually did anything for Health and Wellness. Opposition parties raise a fuss. But the Auditor General, after slapping the government's hand in his annual report, refuses to do a special investigation on the contracts.
  • During a 2004 debate about auto insurance, then-premier Ralph Klein tangentially brings up a paper he wrote for Athabasca University about Augusto Pinochet's 1973 CIA-backed overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. Pinochet, Klein says, was "forced" to mount the coup because of Allende's socialist reforms. Alberta's Chilean community protests angrily, but Klein refuses to apologize. His essay, meanwhile, is posted on the Edmonton Journal's website, where a university professor discovers that large portions are plagiarized. The news is splashed all over the media. The Tory learning minister, Lyle Oberg, calls the presidents of the Universities of Alberta and Calgary and asks them to comment on the situation. Within hours, both have written letters to The Journal and Calgary Herald praising Klein's "commitment to lifelong learning."

The list goes on. But while scandals like these are baffling, they don't get traction in Alberta. Each new boondoggle makes headlines for a few days or weeks, before dropping off the news agenda. Albertans, meanwhile, forgive and forget when elections roll around. Since over half of Albertans can't be bothered to cast a ballot, the Conservatives continue to extend their already-lengthy reign.

Critics chilled

Taft argues the Conservatives have eroded democracy by punishing dissent and creating a climate of fear and conformity in the province. He's bang on. The university president's response to the Pinochet essay is but one example.

Taft calls it the "fear factor." Some examples: Social agencies are afraid to criticize policies that harm the vulnerable because they worry about losing their already-dwindling funds. Social workers can't talk because they worry about losing their jobs. Civil servants keep quiet about wrongdoing for the same reasons. (Alberta has no legislation to protect whistle-blowers.)

Even some journalists toe the line with embarrassing eagerness. In January, Premier Ed Stelmach hired two working legislature columnists -- people who are supposed to be his critics -- to head up his communications team. But nothing much has changed there. Tom Olsen of the Calgary Herald and Paul Stanway of the Calgary Sun were peddling Tory fluff long before they were on the government payroll.

Serious journalists, meanwhile, routinely find themselves stonewalled. Any reporter who has filed a Freedom of Information and Privacy request in Alberta knows the government goes to great lengths to keep information out of the public eye. The process gets dragged out as long as legally possibly, or even longer, until pages and pages of censored material are released, often at considerable cost. The Official Opposition, too, encounters these roadblocks. When Taft's caucus FOIPed information about a review of Alberta's labour code, they were told the information would cost $115,000. As one Edmonton journalist observed: "If you've ever dealt with the FOIP laws, you'd be forgiven for thinking the acronym stands for F--k Off, It's Private."

When Albertans change, they change big

Taft has a thankless job. As leader of the opposition in a province awash in oil and gas wealth, he is tasked with rousing Albertans from political indifference and conformity. So far, it hasn't worked. Taft's party is miserably low in the polls. Most Albertans can't imagine any party but the Conservatives in power. Taft knows and acknowledges both facts. "One-party politics has become entrenched in Alberta," he writes.

But if Albertans woke up and gave a damn about what happens in their government, that could change. Albertans have historically put up a party for decades. But when they kick a party out of government, it's a hard boot -- Alberta has never had a minority government. A change of government happens in Alberta once in a lifetime, literally, but when it does, it's quick and decisive.

By showing just how far the Conservative regime has fallen, Democracy Derailed gives Albertans convincing reasons to choose a new government. Whether or not they will actually do it is anyone's guess.

[Tyee]

Jeremy Klaszus is the contributing editor at Alberta Views magazine. He lives in Calgary.

13 Comments:

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  • G West

    4 years ago

    Nice to know, in advance

    Noce to know, in advance, of the kinds of rules and practices in effect in the province to the east, which our own compromised crew in Victoria, have now decided it is a good idea to hitch our future to via the TILMA harness.

    I'm waiting to hear more from Ed on what that portends for British Columbia.

  • onTheOtherHand

    4 years ago

    The media

    The role of the media in sustaining Alberta's "benign dictatorship" cannot be stressed enough. The Calgary Herald is simply the Tory daily newsletter, and they make no bones about it. Radio stations are overwhelmingly conservative. And what little local news we get on TV are about traffic accidents and cats caught up a tree.

    The media are accomplices to all those scandals that Taft mentions. They know all about them, and have never pursued them, obviously not to rock the boat.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    Shutting down the debate

    Our government here in BC doens't even want the 'peoples representatives' talking about the TILMA agreement in Victoria, apparently.

    You can find the debate here:
    http://www.leg.bc.ca/hansard/8-8.htm

    It may not make you any prouder of them than a lot of Albertans are of THEIR government

  • G West

    4 years ago

    The above link is to the website of Hansard

    For the actual debate, you need to click on the Transcript for Monday March 5.

    After a day or two the blues disappear and the debates are archived by date alone.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    The motion:

    THis is the motion that our "democratic" government in Victoria refused even to debate:

    Motions on Notice

    DEBATE IN LEGISLATURE ON
    TRADE AND LABOUR AGREEMENT
    WITH ALBERTA

    M. Sather:For the benefit of this House and that may be watching on television, the motion reads:

    Be it resolved that this House urge the BC Government to introduce the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement between British Columbia and Alberta to this House for full debate before it comes into effect on April 1, 2007.

    Whose idea of democracy is it to turn down a debate between our elected representatives of such a motion?

    I'd really like to know if there is anyone left in this province who can listen to these guys without feeling sick about what's happening here?

  • mcdull

    4 years ago

    B.C. News

    wow I thought I was reading the plan for B.C. where the News ignores the raids on the parliament buildings. The New West Minister health woes go to the middle of the paper. Talk showspraise the government for turning Betty into a Criminal. 10 months is what she deserves. Don't criticize the Lieberals and don't point out that the rest of B.C. outside the lower mainland and Victoria exist and deserve good highways and hospitals and schools.

  • Frank

    4 years ago

    BC?

    BC is indeed almost as bad as Alberta. The cozy relationship between the media and the Socred-Libs is as bad here as it was in Alberta when I lived there.

    The media knows who butters their toast, advertisers. They could care less about balance.

    Which is why its funny when I hear the usual suspects whine that the Tyee isn't balanced. boo-hoo

  • freebear

    4 years ago

    One Party Alberta

    I lived in Alberta for 9 years (1989-1998) so no surprises there with King Ralph!

    Perhaps the opposition parties should fold their tents and see what the electorate think of that!

    Mainstream media is a joke! With enough infotainment shows you would think regular newscasts would not bother with any entertainment news. Of a one hour newscast how much is actually news?

    Even more galling is when King Ralph gets an honourary degree, when he never finished high school I believe!

    The same King Ralph who admitted after leaving that they had no plans on how to accomodate the tremendous growth in North East Alberta (Ft/ McMuray and the tar sands).

    Good government? As long as Albertans are getting paycheques they will continue to be apathetic!

  • Elliot

    4 years ago

    fyi; the poster named gwest

    fyi; the poster named gwest has been posting under several aliases at the same time and using those aliases to defend his position and to support his arguments. you may want to be aware of this before you engage in debate with him. the editor is well aware of this situation but continues to allow him to post under the gwest alias.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    Elliot

    This is news? Been around here long?

    Only thing mistaken about your observation, my friend, is that it's not 'several' it's only two (2) G West and Alcibiades.

    Which are both aliases for ME. And who Me is, is none of your business - unless you want to contact me privately at an email address that has been prominently displayed from time to time all through the last 12 months.

    Were you on auto pilot El?

    And David Beers, as I've pointed out severally and clearly - knows all about it. He can even check the last time each of these labels posted 'anything' at all. When they started posting and how often each of them has done it during the last year.

    Everything written under either of those labels is freely accessible to anyone who cares to take the time and consult the record in the archives. I think it is a consistent and honourable one - and I'll stand by it any time.

    I welcome any observers here who're interested to compare it with Elliot's.

    Now, can we get back to the subject at hand and forget about your wounded pride - or whatever it is that's troubling you?

    If you suggest one more time that I've done anything different than that, I will bring it to an editor's attention.

    Good bye El.

  • naudah

    4 years ago

    Democracy derailed

    One doesn't have to look farther than Alberta to see the result of a corporate state: loss of democracy, continued assaults on the environment, incompetent MLAs and government, crumbling infrastructure, and the list goes on ad infinitum. It amazes me, as former senior juronalist, what the government gets away with in this province. This government is aided and abetted by a compliant, docile press, that has yet to do any hard interviews or investigative reporting -- and there are a lot of snakes under the rocks. The electorate is as bad: dumb and docile. But then Albertans are easily bribed, needing only beads and trinkets to be happy.

  • fpass

    4 years ago

    Democracy Derailed

    None of this is news. C.B. Macpherson examined the issue in his 1953 book, Democracy in Alberta: The Theory and Practice of a Quasi-Party System (University of Toronto Press). Macpherson, a Marxist, suggested that the peculiarities of Alberta politics could be attributed to the absence of a multi-class society. The vast majority of Albertans were independent farmers or ranchers, and there was no need for a multi-party system in a province where the majority of the population believed they shared common interests.

    Macpherson's thesis has been severely criticized, but it's still a good read..

  • G West

    4 years ago

    fpass

    Haven't read the book. The social credit movement under Aberhart and later Ernest Manning, was in power there from 1935 to 1971. Thus Macpherson must have been talking about them.

    There's an interesting split between Alberta and Saskatchewan in this respect - and it can't just be explained by resource revenues.

    The reform movement in Saskatchewan coalesced around the CCF and they were first elected in 1944.

    I wonder if there have been many books about the differences - the basic population and geographic situation being so similar?

    Thanks, fpass, I'll look for the book

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