Want to hear something shocking about Alberta's Solicitor General? He thinks the Alberta government consists of only the cabinet and the premier. All of those other Progressive Conservative Party members elected to the legislature have nothing whatever to do with government, Frank Oberle, Alberta's Solicitor General and minister of Public Security, told me recently over the phone.

I challenged him on his position, that the government is the cabinet - that is, cabinet ministers and the premier - and he challenged me right back. The rest of the caucus are just warm bodies who give the premier and cabinet a majority government to push through bills and legislation and the rest of caucus can be ignored.

I called Oberle last week to ask him why Premier Ed Stelmach, who had just one month left in his premiership, would push through a 20-year provincial policing contract with the RCMP even though there were more than seven months left before the contract had to be signed.

Oberle explained that while the contract - which will rope the next premier into a deal with the RCMP until March 31, 2032 - was officially signed only on Friday, Aug. 19, he had approval for the contract by the "whole government" as far back as March 17.

That's funny, I said because I knew several backbench MLAs who were never consulted about the RCMP contract; it was simply announced as a done deal.

This is what Oberle said: The vote on March 17, "was a full cabinet vote. It wasn't just by one person. So I had the support of the whole government and so we went ahead."

My response was, no, you had the support of the cabinet at that time, not the whole government. The caucus is the whole government.

He chuckled patronizingly. "The caucus is part of our party sitting in the legislature. But the government is formed at the cabinet table. Those are all the people responsible for running the government."

Wow! Who knew? Apparently, not many of those backbenchers, though they certainly felt that way most of the time. That's why there have been so many defections and near-defections from the Ed Stelmach government.

What a difference leadership makes. I was struck just a few days after speaking to Oberle how different his understanding of government is from that of former premier Peter Lougheed.

In Don Braid's excellent piece about the Aug. 30, 40th anniversary of the Progressive Conservatives coming to power, Lougheed is quoted as having a very different view of who should hold more power - the cabinet or the entire caucus (all elected PC members of the legislature.)

"For many of Stelmach's MLAs, the biggest irritant was that cabinet made crucial decisions without allowing caucus to vote. That violates a key rule laid down by Peter Lougheed four decades ago," wrote Braid in his Aug. 28 feature article.

Speaking without reference to Stelmach, while talking about his own era, Lougheed said, "I took the view that caucus was dominant over cabinet. That's very important.

"The caucus is elected by the public at large. The premier picks a cabinet. So it's really important that when you come to an issue, and the caucus takes a different view from the cabinet, the caucus view should prevail. That is crucial," said Lougheed, who was the PCs' first, and some argue, best premier.

Clearly, no one ever passed that bit of wisdom on to Stelmach.

In Braid's column, even Don Getty commented on Stelmach's disdain for caucus and insularity with cabinet."He could have had a better relationship with his caucus, to inspire them, be their leader, get them to work with him."

In Stelmach's government, the democratically elected members who did not get tagged by Stelmach to be one of 22 cabinet ministers, were invisible to him.

Rick Orman, a former cabinet minister in Getty's government and a candidate for the PC leadership, told the Herald's editorial board Thursday that one backbench MLA tried to get a meeting with Stelmach for four months and never even got the courtesy of a reply. He had to send the premier a letter via registered mail, just to have his meeting request acknowledged. That took four months.

Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Rob Anderson, who along with Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Heather Forsyth, left the PC caucus to join the fledgling Wildrose Alliance Party on Jan. 4, 2010, says he's not the bit surprised by Oberle's comments.

"That sounds par for the course for Stelmach's government. There's no such thing as a free vote or even a free discussion by caucus on most issues," said Anderson Friday.

As for Oberle, he also claimed that PC leadership candidates Ted Morton and Alison Redford were both sitting around the cabinet table on March 17 when the draft RCMP contract was voted on by cabinet. Except they weren't. Morton stepped down as Finance minister in January, which led to Stelmach announcing his resignation as premier, and Redford stepped down from her Justice portfolio in February.

You'd think Alberta's top cop would get his facts straight when he's on the record.

Stelmach's ignoring of his caucus shows not just indifference and contempt of the role of every elected member in the legislature, but to all Alberta voters.

Making caucus supreme over cabinet may sound technical and like inside baseball. But it is vital to a healthy democracy.

Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it