September 25th
Lorne Gutner, Edmonton Journal

Even before the Alberta Progressive Conservatives have chosen a successor to the hapless Ed Stelmach, there is apparently already a quiet movement afoot to unite the right in Alberta. Why? I understand the worry, but I don't share it.

Ken Boessenkool, a Calgary-based government-relations consultant, policy wonk and longtime Conservative activist, is fronting something known as the Alberta Blue Committee. He has promised its members will reveal themselves next week and that Albertans will see them as "politically active, smart, young people," mostly between the ages of 35 and 45, whom either the Tories or Wildrose Party would see as attractive candidates for cabinet posts depending on which party wins the next provincial election.

Boessenkool, a former economist with the prestigious C.D. Howe Institute, former staffer for Stockwell Day when Day was in the provincial cabinet, and close adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is worried that if the schism on the right in Alberta persists, our province could end up being governed from the centre-left. His theory goes something like this: If the Tories limp home during the next election with a minority, they may look to the Liberals or NDP or Alberta Party to keep them in office rather than making nice with Wildrose. The price, Boessenkool fears, will be more programs, more spending, more deficits and, perhaps, even more environmental regulations that could cripple energy development in Alberta and hobble our economy.

The fact is, we in Alberta are already governed from the centreleft. We already have the highest per capita spending of any province. The provincial government spends nearly 40 per cent more per person than the federal government. Despite its reputation as fiscally conservative, the Alberta government spends $10 - very nearly $11 - for every $6 spent per capita by Ottawa.

The Stelmach government's royalty grab of 2008 would have made any NDP provincial government proud. It was so economically clueless, and drove enough conventional oil business into Saskatchewan and elsewhere, that "the patch" still hasn't recovered.

The government of freedom-loving Alberta has clamped down on happy hour and imposed the most restrictive distracted-driving law on the continent. It has announced it will take back oilsands leases to create ecological preserves. It is investing billions in sequestering carbon emissions underground (essentially pumping air into dirt) in the name of slowing global warming and climate change, it taxes the emissions of the province's largest businesses and it has all but extinguished property rights for rural landowners whose farms and ranches are desired for utilities right-of-ways or resource exploration.

Stelmach even mused about imposing rent controls early in his tenure, an idea that most lefty economists have now conceded drives down rental construction and does nothing to reduce housing prices. Thankfully, Stelmach let that suggestion drop before it became public policy.

It isn't very hard to imagine most Stelmach-government initiatives being introduced by Ontario's Liberal government, or B.C.'s, or even by Manitoba's NDP. Even the rhetoric of the provincial Tories has at times mimicked that of their left-of-centre counterparts, such as when Stelmach argued higher royalties were necessary because "Big Oil" wasn't paying its "fair share." That could have come straight from the playbook of the late Jack Layton.

"I am - along with the other people involved - very concerned we don't have a single conservative alternative," Boessenkool told the National Post this week. Of course, he meant we have two. I, on the other hand, am convinced Alberta already has only one conservative alternative - the Wildrose Alliance.

If, as seems likely, the Tories elect Gary Mar as their next leader (and by default Alberta's next premier), they will be selecting the most small-c conservative of the three candidates remaining. But that's not saying much. It's like declaring Mar the tallest person in a Pygmy village.

I like Mar's position on health care, provided he hasn't backtracked from it entirely. Early in the campaign, Mar was promoting a position he had also espoused while he was provincial health minister, namely a greater role for the private sector in health care delivery. If there is to be any improvement in care in Alberta, at least some of the advancement will have to be made by the private sector since it will be impossible, as baby boomers age, to tax Albertans enough to pay for all the care our population will demand.

Near the end of the Tory leadership race, Mar appeared to be backing away from this stance. He is the safe choice for Tories, the status quo choice. He is popular within his party precisely because he will not shake things up. When he wins, it is unlikely he will change the Tories enough to win back the 40 per cent or more of their supporters who have already abandoned them for the Wildrose.

If Mar continues the high-spending, intrusive policies of his predecessor, I suspect he will continue to force conservatives out of the Tory party, which means after the next election a Wildrose minority will be trying to entice enough Tory MLAs to defect to give them a majority on the right.

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