For more than a century, Albertans have been endowed with gifted political leaders of many parties.
My career as a political journalist began on a perfect autumn afternoon, Sept. 5, 1969, walking down into the Old Man River valley in west Lethbridge.
The sky was a cloudless azure blue, the temperature was almost hot, the golden aspen leaves were chattering in the imperceptible breeze.
In the middle of a group of Lethbridge, Alberta and university dignitaries walked a farmer, Premier Harry Strom, a man of few words. He presided over politics like he was still on his tractor seat.
Before that afternoon, I didn’t take political writing seriously. I owe it to Harry Strom for changing that.
Two years later Strom called a summer election for Aug. 30, 1971.
For CBC Radio I presided over five, half-hour radio forums in southern Alberta during that election, and met Peter Lougheed who came to the studio for the Calgary West session.
Lougheed was gracious with his political rivals and an articulate interlocutor of an urbane, secular, pragmatic conservatism.
He expected Strom to be re-elected but, to his surprise, he won 49 seats to the Socreds’ 25 and formed the first government of the 44-year Progressive Conservative political dynasty.
Ralph Klein was a television newsman, and my neighbour, when I was Calgary city hall bureau chief for The Albertan newspaper.
I wrote about him as mayor of Calgary after 1980 and premier after 1992.
He came to me, among others, for advice when he was going to enter provincial politics. He was being courted by the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties and sought many confidential opinions to inform his decision.
Maverick Ralph hid his disciplined political work ethic behind an easy-going lifestyle.
I once asked one of my daughters which political party she favoured.
“The party-hearty party,” she said. “You know – like Ralph.”
Ralph’s mastery of people was combined with an unerring ability to judge people, work with teams and delegate the right things to the right people.
Alberta has had great opposition leaders. Some would have been able premiers. Liberal leader and independent oilman Nick Taylor was the funniest.
Asked by a reporter on an election eve what was the first thing he’d do if he defeated Peter Lougheed the next day he said, “ask for a recount.”
The next day, he was asked why his party hadn’t done better, he answered, “The other Liberal (Lougheed) won.”
In several cases a fatal flaw or a single misstep determined that they never held the highest office in provincial government.
In 1933, United Farmers Premier John Brownlee was sued by a father for seducing his daughter. The scandal forced him to give up the premiership. In the next election, the UFA was turfed from office.
James Harper Prowse led the Liberals to 15 seats and 31 per cent of the popular vote in 1955, then stumbled fatally when he attempted to ensnare the government in two scandals.
Prowse alleged that Social Credit MLAs were receiving preferential treatment at the government-owned Alberta Treasury Branch and that Premier Ernest Manning benefited from a land swap that included the government and a parcel on his farm being acquired by a gravel company.
When the allegations floundered, so did Prowse’s political career and Liberal fortunes for the next 30 years.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist, author and editor.
