By Rob Anderson
MLA Airdrie-Chestermere and Wildrose House Leader

Congratulations and best of luck to Alberta’s newest Premier, Alison Redford. Although it was not Albertans, but rather 35,000 PC members, who selected Ms. Redford as our Premier, the responsibilities she now shoulders are important to all Albertans. I will therefore support her in her decisions so long as they are made in the best interests of Albertans.

I doubt anyone will be surprised that I have a very different view than Premier Redford as it pertains to how Alberta should be governed. Ms. Redford has a very left-leaning view of the world and has advocated for policies including a national daycare program, carbon taxes, greatly increased public sector salaries, direct government grants to companies for the purpose of ‘diversifying the economy’, and a myriad of other Liberal and Joe Clark policy ideas that make me very uncomfortable to say the least.

However, there are some promises Ms. Redford made during her leadership campaign that I and the Wildrose Party agree with. In the final days of her campaign, Premier Redford promised to set a fixed election date for next March (along with a fixed election date law for thereafter) and to call a public inquiry into allegations of PC government intimidation of health care workers over the past 15 years.

These are both good suggestions – the Wildrose, Liberals, NDP and Alberta Party have been calling for both of these actions for months, and in some cases, years. These are not ideas of left or right, conservative or liberal. Anybody who believes in democracy and transparency should agree with both.

That is why Premier Redford’s first 24 hours on the job were so confusing. The morning after winning the top job, Ms. Redford cancelled the fall sitting of the Legislature, announced over $100 million in new funding before even talking to her caucus about it, flip-flopped on her decision to set a fixed election date, and would not commit to launching and completing a full public inquiry into the health scandal prior to the next provincial election.

Now, I am going to give the new Premier the benefit of the doubt. A lot happened to her these last two weeks, much of which she didn’t expect to deal with. And she did reverse her rash decision to cancel the fall session of the Legislature a day after she cancelled it. However, the fixed election date flip flop and lack of clarity on the public inquiry timeline need to be settled without delay.

The debate between the small-c conservative Wildrose and the now liberal PCs as to what course Alberta should ultimately take will be settled at the next election…Ms. Redford keeping her promises on democracy and transparency, however, should not have to wait that long.

After all, if she can’t be trusted with keeping the promises everyone agrees with, how can she be trusted to make the tough decisions that any successful Premier must make.