Alberta’s conservatives look back with rose-coloured glasses to The Miracle on the Prairies, the election of 1992 when Ralph Klein’s 14-year term in office began.
That was when things were “right” with the world, politically speaking.
During Klein’s first term, he and his finance minister Jim Dining restored conservative management of the government with a combination of spending and tax cuts.
The cuts weren’t surgical but the Progressive Conservative blunderbuss triggered prosperity driven by a torrent of investment from corporations who had confidence in Alberta’s future under Klein.
There were several sources for the remaking of government but an important influence was the government spending and taxation of Social Credit Premier Ernest C. Manning who was also treasurer.
Klein was presiding over a political restoration of Manning’s conservative policies in the same sense as King Charles II’s restoration of the British Monarchy in 1660 after Oliver Cromwell’s 18-year Commonwealth that began with the beheading of King Charles I.
Now Jason Kenney is leading the second restoration in Alberta politics after a five-year NDP interregnum (a period between kings).
After the wandering years of Progressive Conservative premiers Stelmach, Redford, Hancock and Prentice, Kenney’s discipline, focus and work ethic give Conservatives hope that he’ll stay the course getting Alberta back to the old, dependable ways.
The core of his policies are the same principles as those which Manning and Klein followed.
On the campaign trail, one of his stump speeches now invokes Martha and Henry, the “severely normal Albertans” – characters created by Klein.
In his first 100 days in office, Kenney has promised to unmake controversial NDP policies and spending. This will be the symbolic beheading of Kenney’s restoration.
He will also unveil the direction of spending cuts and taxation as they relate to the unmaking of NDP taxation.
At the top of the list will be the elimination of the carbon tax.
There will be changes to farm safety regulations made in controversial Bill 6.
And there will be small business-friendly changes to the minimum wage for teenagers.
In Mountain View County we can also expect changes to the Bighorn Country proposal for Crown lands in the West Country.
The politically tone-deaf education regime envisaged by her education minister David Eggan is as good as dead although unmaking it will be easier said than done.
The social policy field that Kenny will cross is laced with landmines, first as regards his long-standing poor relationship with the LGBTQ community.
He’s vague on social policy commitments and until he makes his first budget cuts, Albertans won’t know where he’ll take health care, municipal finance, First Nations relations, immigration, and other soft policy areas.
Kenney has two weaknesses – he has less personal popularity compared to Premier Rachel Notley and the UCP is running second to the NDP in the age range of 18-34.
So the NDP can pull this election out of the fire, as it did in 2015.
The UCP, however, entered the campaign with a commanding lead.
In all of the polls, the Alberta Party and Liberal Party are running in the range of each electing three to seven seats.
Two weeks from election day, the outcome is not settled yet.
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran business and political author, editor and journalist who has written about every Alberta provincial election since 1967.
