Win or Lose - We Still LoseThe By-Elections on Tuesday On Tuesday, June 12, provincial by-elections will be held in Calgary-Elbow and Drumheller-Stettler to replace the seats vacated by former Premier Ralph Klein and former Deputy Premier Shirley McClellan. How the ruling PC Party does is being considered a key test for Ed Stelmach, who just started his seventh month as Alberta's latest Premier.
Now, I like Ed and I think most people who've met him and talked with him on a one-on-one basis come away with a positive impression of his capabilities and his genuine desire to make Alberta a better place for all. But that message seems to be getting lost in this world of 15-second soundbites, Mayors who want to be Premier and media outlets determined to 'report' Alberta's superheated economy being almost as bad as the Great Depression!
But the grim reality for Premier Stelmach is that whether his party wins or loses the outcomes on Tuesday, it's still going to be painted as bad news.
Drumheller-Stettler
What I don't know about this riding could fill volumes. But what I do know is that rural by-elections in Alberta usually produce out-of the-ordinary results. The only separatist elected in Alberta's history from the WCC party was elected from Olds in a by-election and in a much more recent by-election in Wainwright, a Liberal MLA was elected, only to be tossed out a short time later when the riding went strongly PC in the following general election. In the last election in 2004, the incumbent, Shirley McClellan, won two-thirds of all votes cast and over four times as many votes as her nearest opponent from the Alberta Alliance. What's notable is that the then (and current) Official Opposition party, the Alberta Liberals, did not run in that riding.
No one is expecting that kind of result on Tuesday and most PC's are just hoping/praying for a win, whatever the margin. Personally, I think the prayers will be answered just because a 53% margin of difference is too high a mountain to overcome in one go. But in the larger sense, it doesn't matter, because even if the PC candidate, Jack Hayden, wins, the story is going to be all about the impressive gains made by the Alberta Alliance (and they will make big gains). So even if Premier Stelmach's party wins in Drumheller on Tuesday, the focus is going to be on the 'threat from the right' and the 'challenge in rural Alberta' to a Premier whose strongest base of support is considered to be in rural Alberta. Of course, it's quite possible that the Alliance could win, particularly if the Liberals do well in third place. But really, the story dynamics don't change in that case, they just become more emphatic.
Calgary-Elbow
I know this riding better having worked politically in it about a decade ago. Calgary-Elbow is not, by far, the safest seat in Calgary for the PCs, even under its former incumbent, Premier Klein. To me, the only thing that keeps this race close is the difference in the actual candidates. The PC candidate, Brian Heninger, is a successful local businessman, with strong roots in the constituency that go a long way back making his first try into electoral politics, while his opponent, Craig Cheffins, has twice run for office as an alderman and lost both times. Personally, I think this election's a coin-toss with 'heads' being the local guy comes through for the PCs. But it's equally possible that Elbow voters will choose to shoot the messenger for 'tails'.
But, once again, none of this stops this by-election being a lose-lose for Premier Ed. If the PCs hold on, it will be painted as a good local candidate pulling through despite being dragged down by a Premier who's unpopular in Calgary; and if the PCs lose, it will be hailed far-and-wide as a "stunning indictment" of the new Premier.
So, in both cases, win or lose, Premier Stelmach and the PC Party still lose. In my opinion, It's not so much a leadership thing (yet), but it's largely a function of having had no effective opposition for well over a decade now. The party has gotten lazy and 'sloppy' and hasn't really been punished for it yet (Calgary Varsity aside). Those of us who hoped that new leadership would energize things, have been disappointed so far. To turn things around, we need to do two things.
First, we don’t just have to set the agenda, we have to own it. There’s an adage in politics that a new government has a window within its first 18 months to get things done, before inertia grinds things to a halt. If that’s true, then six months, or one-third of that time is gone, and we don’t have a lot to show for it. While I understand and appreciate that the Premier wants to consult and plan carefully, time’s a-wasting! In other words, if Ralph Klein had spent his first six months in office in consulting and planning, I’ve no doubt there would have been no ‘miracle on the prairies’ to follow…
Adding to our failure to 'own the agenda' is our inability as a party or a government to communicate effectively either through the media or 'over' them directly to the people. Right now, rehashing old announcements (last week marked the fourth time a new hospital has been ‘announced’ for southern Calgary), full-colour brochures (like the June 2007 ‘Report to Albertans’, which likely went straight into the garbage or, if we’re lucky, the recycling bin) with pretty pictures and vague progress reports, endless news releases that rarely have anything ‘newsworthy’, and road-trips by the Premier around the province just aren’t going to cut it.
Something needs to be done. In both these areas. And by September at the very latest.
Otherwise, the PC Party’s going to wake up one morning soon and find out that the Liberals have learned to stop ‘opposing’ and have become what Stephen Harper made of the federal Conservatives (or Decore made of the Alberta Liberals in the early ‘90s), a government-in-waiting. At that moment, the PC Party’s days are numbered and the party’s over.
Labels: Alberta, Politics
