ALBERTA TORIES: THE RODENTS BEGIN TO LEAVE

Not only are the Alberta Tory rodents scampering towards the nearest deck, today a couple of them even jumped over the side of the ship. Fish Creek MLA Heather Forsyth and Airdrie-Chestemere MLA Rob Anderson announced that they had finally given up on Special Ed and had become proud new members of the Wild Rose-Alliance caucus. With the defectors joining Calgary Glenmore MLA Paul Hinman, the new party now has three members in the legislature.

For Ed and the tired and bedraggled Tories the chickens are coming home to roost big time. Forsyth was one of the Calgary ministers Ed purged upon his takeover of the party. She had been both Solicitor General and Minister of Children’s Services in a high profile political career that began with her first electoral victory in 1993. The protection of children was a major interest for her and even Reader’s Digest recognized her contribution in the area by naming her a Canadian Hero in 2002. But it didn’t matter to Ed and the boys. Calgary had taken enough from the cookie jar. It was the yokels' turn.

Forsyth must have smarted from her fall from being a prominent and senior minister to being relegated to the chair of the moribund Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and positions on such lowly committees as Private Bills, Privileges and Elections, and Orders and Printing. How much lower can you get?

Anderson is a new kid on the block having been elected in the spring election of 2007. He is reported to be a very bright guy who worked as one of the suits for the same downtown Calgary blue-chip law firm that pays Ralph Klein a tidy sum to tell dinosaur fart jokes while yukking it up over scotch with their clients in oak-paneled board rooms.

Forsyth said that she became a turncoat because Alberta needs a stable economy and fiscal policies that will “bring back investors confidence, lower taxes, and once again the Alberta Advantage needs to be back on the agenda,” and that she had confidence that she and the Wild Rose Alliance “can work together to build the province that Albertans deserve.”

Anderson’s statement accused Stelmach and his pals of failing to address his constituents’ concerns and of muzzling him in speaking out about the issues. Thus, he said, he was going to speak more forcefully for the people who elected him and added, “I have no interest in investing any more of my life and taxpayer’s money defending poor public policy that has been developed by a small band of out-of-touch government appointees and insiders.” I presume he was talking about Special Ed and his band of yokels.

They are the first of what is likely to be a steady procession of Alberta Tories abandoning what was once the proud party of Peter Lougheed for more promising prospects. Conservatives, after all, have proven more than once that they believe that “if the guy that brung ya falters on the dance floor, well then, we’re outta here,” such as when Socreds bolted from the party of Harry Strom to the party of Peter Lougheed. The best recent example was the fate of the federal Progressive Conservative Party in the wake of the unpopularity of Brian Mulroney and the ineptitude of his successor Kim Campbell. In the West, PCs switched and voted en masse for Preston Manning and his Reform Party and the old federal PCs were kaput.

The Alberta PCs blew their only chance of survival by not having the courage to dump Stelmach at the leadership review convention in November. Now they are stuck with him until the next election. Is there a chance of Eddie leaving before then in favour of a new and more attractive leader? I don’t think so. There is no messiah on the horizon. And besides, he and his yokels still have the cookie jar, which was what it was all about in the first place.

See: http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/01/04/12341791.html

SPECIAL ED'S TORIES: INTO THE DEATH THROES

For the discerning and keen observer of the passing political parade it is high drama. For the partisan who believes his party has been kept from power for years, indeed generations, by an increasingly incompetent political monolith that cruel fate has smiled upon, it is payback time. For the Alberta Liberals and other opposition forces, it is unbelievable.

Is it political hara-kiri? Is this grotesque Vegreville Gothic scene really happening? Has this cowpoke Alberta Government slipped its own neck into the noose they had made for the rustlers - i.e. the people of the perceived rich and pampered Calgary? The answer is yes to all three questions. Special Ed and the revenge of the hayseeds from north eastern Alberta are wounded and bleeding. They don't quite realize it yet. The shock of taking power is masking the pain. But the pain is coming, and soon.

We've seen it before. Ernest Manning passing the mantle of leadership of the once formidable Social Credit Party in 1969 to nice, pleasant and borrrrrring Harry Strom, a salt-of-the-earth, God-fearing farmer from Southern Alberta. The wrong guy at the wrong time. Peter Lougheed (yes, that Peter Lougheed that the dumb and dumber Alberta neocon Tories of the Klein years vilified as being a liberal), led his party into a golden age. The farmer never had a chance. By 1971 Lougheed was Premier, and Strom was a footnote. The pundits and the Alberta Tories couldn't believe it.

We saw it also with the catastrophic succession of Kim Campbell to the Federal Tory Leadership after Muldoon in 1993. The frowning, babbling, lightweight pseudo-neocon who believed that a political campaign was no place to debate issues carried her Party to a two measly seats in the Federal Election. She was toast, and so was the venerable Federal Progressive Conservative Party toast. Neither would recover. Neither the pundits nor the Federal Grits could believe it - at least not the size of the Grit victory.

The Federal PC's were dead and for good. Those who believe that the present Federal Conservative Party is the old Federal PC Party better shake their collective heads. John Diefenbaker would be lynched by Bush's pal Steve and his pals like Stockwell Day, Jason Kenney, Vic Toews, and Jungle Jim Flaherty. Dalton Camp would be confined to Devil's Island. Joe Clark has gone into self imposed exile no doubt fearing for his physical safety.

This weekend's Provincial Tory Convention in Edmonton was a political disaster for Special Ed and his Government. First of all, they trash Joe Lougheed in his bid to become Party President. You see, young Joe, an attractive and ambitious young lawyer, has two strikes against him as far as the Stelmach boneheads are concerned. First of all, according to the present day 'Special Ed' Tories, his father was a liberal who spent beyond our means (translation: he maintained infrastructure and services, and never divided the electorate by playing one group off against another). Secondly, young Joe was from Calgary, and how many times do the Special Ed guys have to tell you that these days, Calgary is out. St. Albert must be in. Lougheed lost to a St. Albert party hack.

The Special Ed squad also chose to do nothing about massive rent increases. This is a problem throughout Alberta, but particularly so in Calgary where greedy landlords, including old Klein pals who bought the Holy Cross Hospital for a song, are sticking it to the little guy like there was no tomorrow. And with rent increases of 50% and upwards and $1000 per month or more, there is an increasing number of modest income tenants or hopeful home buyers who have decided that there is no tomorrow in Calgary. It may be in Regina, Saskatoon or Swift Current, but not in Calgary.

Special Ed spelled out his solution at the Convention. It is - get this - to sic the hirsute Ray 'King Kong' Danyluk, his Housing Minister, after the greedy landlords. Danyluk, who has the appearance of real muscle in the Tony Soprano sense of the term, has yet to offer any suggestions to resolve this crisis, even though it has been percolating for many months. Special Ed though gave us hope. He said that the solution is for King Kong Danyluk to get the Landlords in line by 'moral suasion and intimidation.' Eddie added, "He's (King Kong) a pretty big guy. Maybe people will listen to him." I kid you not!

The conventioneering Tories weren't finished with the venerable cowtown who gave the Province both the now non-person Lougheed and the clown Klein. Special Ed in his cumbersome, bland oratory, actually brought a thousand of his neanderthals to their feet - and that is no small achievement for Eddie - and a 40 second standing ovation. Why? Do you think it might have been the announcement of the construction of a hospital or some schools or the upgrading of highways? No. They cheered him for attacking Calgary's Mayor Bronconnier - known as 'Bronco', to his exponentially increasing numbers of supporters in his home town. What did Eddie do to get this awesome reaction? He belittled Bronco's argument that Special Ed's strings-attached offer of millions of bucks to the cowtown, most of which was for pet Provincial projects, would delay the westward extension of the LRT.

What Eddie and his rural army from Northeastern Alberta together with their arch-rightist pals fail to recognize, is that the Calgary problems are symptomatic of urban and rural problems in the whole Province. Calgary's problems are Edmonton's, Lethbridge's, Medicine Hat's, Grande Prairie's, Red Deer's, Fort McMurray's, Drumheller's, Hanna's, Pincher Creek's, Redwater's, Barrhead's and Peace River's. They are driven by a crying need for schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and some relief for tenants, affordable housing, and much else. All of this has been brought about by mindless neglect. Which continues and which is being recognized by Albertans in the four corners of the Province.

Kevin Taft is licking his chops. He's going to be Premier after the next election and you can say you heard it here first.

SPEAKING OF DEAD FISH

I have had occasion within the last few days of speaking intimately - at separate times and in Calgary - with a couple of former power forces of the ancien regime de Le Roi Ralph - in a civilized atmosphere with good booze (but expensive) and comely service. Although they have been politcally misguided for many years,they are bon vivants who have done well financially representing the flotsam and jetsam of favour seekers, promoters, flim-flam artistes, and other riff-raff who curried favour with the Klein Government.

Although they like the new Premier - in that they find him benign and possessing of a certain hayseed charm - they are of the view that the 'Strom Syndrome' is probably in play. For those of you who are not familiar with the 'Strom Syndrome,' its like the 'Frank Miller Syndrome' only with an Alberta farmer in place of an Ontario hamlet Rotarian. Either way, it means a change of Government. Harry Strom was an upstanding but boring southern Alberta farmer who replaced Ernest Manning as Leader of the Social Credit Party in 1969. Alas, he faced the cool, smooth, urbane Peter Lougheed in the General Election of 1971, and it was curtains for Strom and the Socreds. They have only now recently come back to life in their 'Conservative Party' incarnation under Bush's pal Steve Harper.

Likewise with Frank Miller, who replaced the cool and smooth 'Buttermilk Billy' Davis, only to go down to defeat to David Peterson which, come to think of it, was no mean achievement for Frank. Something like Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson. It gave new meaning to the expression 'Cinderella Man.' That last crack was subtle, but you get my drift.

So, according to my two unimpeachable sources, the future is bleak for Fast Eddie. But that ain't all - as Stevie's pal Bush would say. No. The big story is that both of these gurus predict that Calgary Elbow - Ralph's Riding - will go to the Grits! No Contest they say. For the Tories, Elbow is history!