Wildrose victory in Calgary by election may herald end of Tory dynasty

By Doug Firby, Edmonton Journal
Published: September 18, 2009

It is accepted wisdom in Alberta that when political change finally sweeps across this Prairie province, it will come from the right.

Just as the young, handsome and dynamic Peter Lougheed assembled a gang of upstarts in 1971 to unseat the tired and out-of-touch Social Credit party after 36 uninterrupted years of rule, so too it now appears that the dithering and confused ruling Conservatives are facing the twilight of a 38-year dynasty –again, at the hands of a new force that promises to outdo them at their own game.

The clearest evidence yet of the impending right-wing revolution came this week, when Wildrose Alliance candidate Paul Hinman decisively buried the Conservative’s “star” candidate, Calgary alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart, in a Calgary byelection.

As with all such votes, it is a midterm test of the ruling party’s popularity.

But, in this case, it is also a resounding indictment of besieged Premier Ed Stelmach, who has failed to win the hearts of Calgary’s oilpatch power elite–the same group who backed Jim Dinning in the December 2006 leadership contest that Stelmach won. Stelmach will now almost certainly face serious questions about his ability to continue much longer as political head of the province.

All the more remarkable is that Hinman won the seat, even though he had lost the party’s only seat in the last general election, bringing to an ignominious end his largely ineffective term as leader of the Wildrose Alliance.

In fact, the party was still nominally leaderless when the grumpy voters of Calgary-Glenmore went to the polls this week.

“Nominally” because, although there is officially a leadership race with three candidates — Mark Dyrholm, Danielle Smith and Jeff Willerton–many small-c conservative insiders are already referring to Smith as the leader-in-waiting.

For youth, energy and looks, Smith is a fitting heir to the Lougheed mantle of leadership.

A one-time high profile political columnist and national political affairs television host, she is quick-witted, highly polished in her delivery and well-rehearsed after years of public policy debate.

Yet, there are significant differences in both style and substance between her and Lougheed.

A darling of the Fraser Institute think-tank, Smith’s policies predictably favour ultraconservative laissez-faire economics and small government — views that sync well with the historic platform of the Wildrose Alliance. In fact, until recently, the party was dismissed as a fringe assembly of radical free-marketers and fundamentalists. Yet, she parts company with some of the party faithful on the issue of social conservatism, applying a libertarian spin to personal rights.

The oilpatch loves her because she’s everything Stelmach is not: young, urbane, silver-tongued and all for getting government out of the way of business. She can handle herself well in front of a camera and knows how to talk the talk.

In many respects, it’s safe to assume that those disaffected Progressive Conservatives in Calgary-Glenmore were voting for her vision of what the party could become under such leadership.

Not so for the hapless Liberals, a party which has had its heart broken so often in Alberta, it’s hard to believe it can still find credible candidates like the earnest and hard-working Avalon Roberts. One pre-election prediction was that the conservative vote would be split between Hinman and Colley-Urquhart, leaving Roberts, the Liberal, a chance to sneak up the middle. The conservatives came through all right–with 37 per cent of the vote going to Hinman and 26 per cent to Colley-Urquhart –but it was still not enough for the Liberals to capitalize on. Roberts finished second, less than 300 votes behind Hinman.

The outcome was but the latest footnote in a massive tome of frustration for the Liberals, who have not formed government in the province since they were pushed aside by the United Farmers of Alberta way back in 1921.

One is drawn to wonder whether anyone within that party has paused for even a moment of regret over the decision this summer not to rebrand itself under a new name.

Just next door, the scandal-plagued Conservative government of Saskatchewan found a new name, and with it a new vision that eventually led back to power.

Alberta’s Liberals are too attached to their traditions to make such a bold move, and will likely languish in the wilderness for many more years as a result.

The point is punctuated by a voter turnout of just 40 per cent, in an election billed as a pivotal referendum on the Progressive Conservatives. It is entirely possible that at least some of those six-in-10 voters who stayed away considered “none of the above” their choice.

A new party with a new vision might have had a chance to strike a chord.

Instead, we have an old vision – Prairie conservatism redux, recycled once again. And, if Smith can shift the party away from its more radical social conservatism as promised, the next dynasty of the right might just be waiting in the wings.

Doug Firby is a columnist for Calgary-based Troy Media Corporation. He is a former opinion editor at the Calgary Herald

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