As the countdown to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London has started, another race to win a crown of laurel leaves and become the new Caesar is under way: the pursuit of a new leader for the Progressive Conservative party and the de facto premier of Alberta.
Six candidates are vying for your support, offering myopic, jingoistic visions for Albertans — not because this rhetoric will produce a “better” Alberta for us, but because such campaigning is about creating a tide of popularism, which will decide our next premier. In short, it is not a constructive plan for our province that will decide this race, but rather it is the candidate that can sell the most memberships and have the greatest turnout on election day who will win.
This is too bad, as Alberta needs an overarching, long-term plan for a sustainable future. The last time we had one of those was 40 years ago, when Peter Lougheed produced a policy paper on the matter. It was a plan that would use our natural resources to develop and industrialize Alberta, enabling it to become a true leader within Canada. Sadly, a spat with Ottawa, and a few premiers with little or no vision, threw this all away.
The Getty government, plagued by a downturn in the economy, turned to building roads and hospitals as a means of spending our way out of the economic crisis. In reaction to this, the Klein government vowed to rid us of debt, and it did so, but it left us with another form of deficit: it failed to invest in the future of Albertans, while squandering our resources. Finally, the Stelmach government seems to have been paralyzed by the Klein legacy and no vision for Alberta, and this is where the Alberta PC Party seems to be now.
The candidates are talking about grand schemes to ease our burdens — promises to seniors and young families; education and health-care investment. All of these cost money, and there has been little discussion where that might come from. Remember, the Alberta government blinked when the showdown over royalty payments occurred. One candidate has raised the idea of Alberta becoming a global leader in energy — a lofty aspiration that speaks to our ego. If we look at those states that have been energy leaders in the past, however, many are struggling to define a future, as they too have squandered their resources. Is that the path we want to choose for ourselves? Or should we look at a state like Norway that has properly managed its natural resources? Would such philosophies fly in Alberta? Besides, energy is not the goal, but the means to get there, which leaves us with the question of, “Where is there?” Again, there is no plan.
Three candidates are concerned with rescuing the party itself, which is truly what the leadership race is about. They are worried that the Wildrose and Alberta parties will detract from the PC party’s power, but again, they offer no solutions. They talk of old values and principles of the party, but, again, they offer little that is new. Maybe that is the problem — the PC party is intellectually bankrupt. They have no new ideas and their sole goal is to stay in power.
So the race to become Caesar is on, and, no doubt, we will hear more of these hollow promises as the election day draws near. One can only be hopeful that someone emerges with a viable plan for our province’s future, because we have seen the alternative in the annals of history — Caesar fiddling while Rome burned.
John Kennair is an international consultant and doctor of laws who lives in St. Albert.
