There’s not a big gap between being smug and being egotistical.
It seems the provincial Progressive Conservatives are teetering on the edge of the gap, with some of them already well over to the other side. That’s to be expected after being in power for four decades.
And it’s nothing new to Albertans, having lived through the era of the arrogant dictator Ralph Klein. Now it seems the smugness – ego? – has spread from the PCs inner circle to those members who aren’t even candidates yet.
Morinville mayor Lloyd Bertschi, one of the five people seeking the nomination in the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock riding owned for years by retiring PC MLA Ken Kowalski, said he thinks winning the party nomination may be harder to win than the provincial election.
Now he may be right – and history suggests he probably is – but to come out and say it? Rub it in the faces of Albertans? Basically tell the voters in his riding that if they don’t get out and vote in the nomination they won’t be involved in the upcoming election because that won’t matter?
That’s definitely smug. Or was he simply trying to get more voters in the riding to ante up the $5 membership fee? Maybe he forgot there are other party candidates eager to contest the riding, like the strangely quiet Link Byfield, one of the founders of the Wildrose Party.
In fairness, Bertschi did back off a little, saying “it’s a little presumptuous to say that the nominee has a great chance of becoming an MLA. You do, but of course you still have to win the general election.”
Perhaps it’s time Albertans reacted to that thinking by giving the Conservatives a quick kick in the backside and remind them that they are elected by the people, not by their own party.
The Urban Dictionary describes an egotistical person as “someone who thinks they are the best and are never wrong.”
No one is “never wrong” of course, but it sounds like there are PC members who honestly believe they are “the best.”
Which is unfortunate because some of those people will form the next provincial government, assuming Albertans stay the course on politics and leave Premier Alison Redford and her people in power. There is a saying, people wrapped up in themselves make very small packages.
How wrapped up in themselves are the PCs and their hopeful candidates?
On Monday Premier Redford kicked off a province-wide cabinet tour to listen to Albertans. Really? She didn’t hear enough from Albertans during last fall’s leadership race? If this really was about listening to Albertans the tour would have been conducted much earlier, in time for taxpayers’ input into the upcoming budget, and it would have taken more than four days to sample the entire province.
The opposition is correct, this is electioneering on the taxpayers’ tab. And the PCs do it because, well, they can and they believe the taxpayers’ dollars are theirs to do with as they see fit.
It is time for Albertans to give the PCs a wake-up call.
