Dark horse.

 Maverick.

 Agent of Change.

 Doug Griffiths has been called a lot of things in this race. My favourite, though, has to be ”Weapon of Mass Discussion“. Griffiths, the 9-year MLA from Battle River-Wainwright, will talk to anyone, about any issue, without any fear at all. He was one of the first MLAs in Alberta to make direct use of social media – no staffers filtering his account or writing for him – and he remains one of the best at it. But through the entire campaign, one question has dogged the Griffiths campaign: Who IS Doug Griffiths?

 He’s a family man, first and foremost. This blogger has been in attendance at speeches where Griffiths has, when speaking about children and family, had to pause to collect himself. He has missed his 2 young sons and his wife terribly during this leadership campaign. He’s also a renaissance man, and a study in remarkable contrasts: A University of Alberta grad in Philosophy and Education, Griffiths was an award-winning teacher – a job he took to, in his words, “support my ranching habit”. He still maintains that ranch. He’s one of the few people you’ll meet who drives a pick-up because he needs to, has [...]Read More

Alison Redford is a successful, independent woman – mother to a nine year-old girl, a lawyer who advised Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark on policy before travelling the world promoting the structural edification of human rights into the governance of developing democracies and who counts Nelson Mandela among her mentors…

BANG!

That sound you just heard might have been Rob Anders’ head exploding. Don’t be alarmed.

A first-term MLA representing Calgary-Elbow, Alison Redford has her eyes set on being the 2nd Premier to hail from the southwest Calgary riding (the first was a fella named “Ralph” a few years ago). Appointed to cabinet in the high profile position of Minister of Justice immediately after being elected, the unapologetic carnivore (the “Redford Diet”, I’m told, includes nothing that never had parents) had some big expectations to meet – and by most accounts, she did just fine, thank-you very much. In fact, Redford’s term as Minister of Justice was so successful, earlier in this campaign she gained the endorsement of the Calgary Police Association, representing the members of the Calgary Police Service. If you’re a lawyer and the cops actually LIKE you, you’re doing something right. The strategy for Team Redford has seemed to be, from the [...]Read More

Candyman.

Candyman.

Candyman.

If you look into a mirror and say it 3 times, so the legend goes, you’re in for a VERY bad night.

So it goes, too, with “Wildrose Party” – at least, if you subscribe to Ted Morton’s view of provincial politics.

Long a darling of the “deep blue” conservatives in this province – first as one of the brains behind the Reform Party, and later as a senator-elect and PC Leadership candidate in 2006 (finishing 3rd behind Jim Dinning and Ed Stelmach), Ted Morton is a giant among conservative thinkers. Born in Los Angeles in 1949, Morton chose at the age of 32 to move to Canada, and 10 years later became a Canadian citizen. His detractors suggest he is therefore somehow “less Canadian than the rest of us”, but that’s purely tripe. He earned his doctorate in political science, and then went to work in the trenches with the nascent Reform Party, believing in its message of lower taxes, traditional values, fiscal responsibility and democratic reform.

During his 2006 run for the PC Leadership, Morton was roasted by the media (this blogger included) for his decidedly right-of-centre slant. Morton finished third [...]Read More

Newton’s Second Law of Motion defines “momentum” as “mass multiplied by velocity”.

That said, Gary Mar had better find the accelerator on his huge campaign bus, because momentum can be a fickle mistress for such a massive campaign.

Mar has been the front-runner for this race since the day after the LAST PC Leadership race. An able cabinet minister, Mar served as an MLA for his north Calgary riding from 1993 to 2007 and as a cabinet minister under Ralph Klein in the portfolios of Environment, Community Development, Education, Health and International/Intergovernmental Relations. Before being first elected at age 31, Mar was a lawyer in his hometown of Calgary, earning the much-coveted “Q.C.” designation for his accomplishments in the legal field.

After leaving the political arena in 2007, Mar accepted a posting to Washington as Minister-Counsellor of the Province of Alberta to the United States. In this capacity, Mar was Alberta’s point man for any issue that required the attention of U.S. lawmakers in the Capitol. This included issues such as agriculture and energy. Mar was criticized for accepting his MLA transition package while continuing to work for the government in a paid role.

Indeed, despite his accomplishments and (compared to [...]Read More

Legacy.

Any story about Doug Horner’s rise in politics has to start with the Horner legacy.

Doug’s grandfather, Ralph, was a Senator for Saskatchewan.  At the time of Doug’s birth, his father was the sitting Member of Parliament for Jasper-Edson. Three of his uncles also served as MPs. After 9 years in Ottawa, Horner’s father stepped down to try his hand at provincial politics, and served as an MLA for 12 years, first as a member of the 6-strong Official Opposition PC Caucus under young firebrand Peter Lougheed, and later holding cabinet posts as Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Transportation, Minister of Economic Development and Deputy Premier.

So, yeah… Doug’s got some family connections.

All that said, though, Horner seemingly resisted the siren call of political service, opting to strike out on his own as a young man. After following the money to jobs in the oilpatch and at a lumber mill, Horner attended SAIT in Calgary (a stint during which he developed an unfortunate attachment to the Calgary Stampeders), married at age 19 (!) and worked in the financial sector as a banker, as well as in agriculture, where he did sales and marketing for ConAgra in Nebraska for several years. After [...]Read More

Rick Orman is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more.

The PC Party, according to Orman, has strayed from its founding principles. It doesn’t handle itself the way it should. It needs saving. And Rick, after 18 years away from politics, is just the man for the job – or, so says Rick.

But who IS this Rick Orman?

A Getty loyalist, Orman was a cabinet minister in the Getty PC governments of the late 80s and early 90s. When Getty was ousted as leader, Orman ran in the subsequent campaign to replace his old mentor, and finished third behind Ralph Klein and Nancy Betkowski, whom he endorsed over Klein (Betkowski went on to contest & win the Liberal Leadership and served as Leader of the Opposition under her new married name, Nancy MacBeth). Getting out of politics after his leadership loss, Orman (who married a daughter of one of Alberta’s wealthiest families) went into the energy sector, where he founded several companies and did business both domestically and internationally.

Rick takes a lot of offence over the sort of management he’s seen from the PCs in recent years. So much so, in fact, that in listening to [...]Read More

(Excerpted from the original post at The Enlightened Savage)

Nation, almost 5 years ago, the Enlightened Savage blog was born.  The first post was a welcome. The 2nd was a review of the recent PC Leadership Forum. And the third was the first in a series of profiles of the candidates to replace outgoing Premier Ralph Klein (that first profile was long-shot candidate Ed Stelmach. Whatever happened to that guy?).

The blog was, in effect, born to provide coverage that other outlets just weren’t providing at the time. (Sound familiar, CalgaryPolitics.com readers?)

I’m happy to report that the mainstream media have stepped up their game during the 2011 PC Leadership race – in particular, the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald have done some fantastic work. The Journal’s “Brady Bunch”-esque videos comparing candidate policies are great, while admittedly a little creepy at times. And the Herald has published some very in-depth profiles of the candidates themselves, along with video.

All that said, though, I’m not abdicating my own responsibility to provide some unbiased thoughts on the 5 men and one woman running to be Alberta’s next Premier.  I’ve drawn names, in the presence of witnesses, from my pith helmet (don’t [...]Read More

Nation, I thought I’d save you all the time and trouble of staying up to watch the results on Monday’s election – especially since Tweeting the results is against the law (but blogging them seems not to be…  odd…).

Everyone else seems already to have weighed in on how the results are going to work out, and so now it’s time to get Savage with some numbers.

A disclaimer first, however: While I DO have the Tories winning the election, that does not necessarily equate to the Tories remaining in government. A lot of very smart people whom I have a tonne of respect for have opined that an emboldened opposition, led by Jack Layton, will very possibly defeat the government at the first opportunity (which I believe is the Throne Speech), and not even wait for a budget. Much hinges on what the wounded Liberals are going to be in the mood for as they decide how quickly they can get the millstone named Michael off from around their necks.

But, all of this is a blog post for Monday night.  TONIGHT, you want a prediction. And here it is.

ALBERTA: CPC 28 seats, all other 0

Nation, it was only a matter of time.

As soon as I saw the polling numbers rising for the NDP, I knew it was only a matter of time before some deep, dark secret in Jack Layton’s ancient past creeped into the light – coincidentally, I’m sure.

Of course, every party is going to claim that they would *never* stoop to such depths, and that the only tie they MIGHT have to such info is if it were revealed to Sun Media by one of their supporters without their prior knowledge…  a claim that I’m sure most Canadians will believe, as the parties have no reason to LIE about such things…

At least we have a list longer than one potential culprit… The Tories are trying to fight off the NDP in Ontario, the BQ is trying to fight them off in Quebec, and the Liberals are trying to fight them off in 308 ridings. So the “whodunit” game will at least be entertaining.

But the allegations are unsubstantiated crap.

That’s right – I said it.

Now, let’s be perfectly clear: I’m not a Jack Layton fan. And I’m about as likely to cast a ballot for my local [...]Read More

Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes…

Give or take, depending on orbital wobble, that’s how many minutes are in one calendar year.  Criticisms about the amount of time Parliament sits (or doesn’t) in a given year notwithstanding, it is worth mentioning that the Stephen Harper Government (TM) has been the longest-lived minority government in Canadian history.

Of course, our man Stephen isn’t satisfied with being a trivia answer…  he wants to wield REAL power… he wants his majority. And it almost worked out that way… in fact, it still might.

Today’s Special: Tory-ander Chickpea Salad

Stephen had it all planned out…  the Liberals under Ignatieff were stagnant in the polls. The Greens were a non-factor to voters who couldn’t spell the word “patchouli”. The Bloc was facing a backlash against separatist sentiment in Quebec. And the NDP was the NDP. It was the perfect storm… a passed budget would give Harper a mandate from Parliament to push his agenda forward for the year. A budget failure would trigger an election, and almost certainly an increase in seats for his Tories – maybe even into majority territory. Everything was going according to plan…

And then Jack [...]Read More

Banners and signs are waved as rock music plays in the packed hall. The beaming leader, flush with polling numbers that put him in a statistical tie for first place in La Belle Province, shakes hands and speaks of upcoming campaign stops in Atlantic Canada, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories – all places he expects to win seats.

And then, in a moment of clarity, the face of that leader reveals itself…

Oh. My. God.

Is that…?

Could it be…?

That’s Jack Layton.

Today’s Special: Dipped Nuts

The NDP has long served as the socialist conscience of Canada’s parliament – it helped Pierre Trudeau’s minority government form the state-owned Petro-Canada in the early 1970s, before helping to defeat that same government and force an election – in which their caucus was halved. Less than a decade later, they brought down the minority government of Joe Clark. In 1993, the party caucus was reduced by voters to 9 seats. And here we are in 2011, 8 years after Jack Layton was elected party leader, and the party sits with 37 seats in a 308-member House of Commons. An impressive recovery, but still a parliamentary afterthought, right?

Wrong.

The Federal Liberal campaign has become about one man, and one man only: Michael Ignatieff. Or, as this pundit refers to him, “Canada’s John Kerry”.

Why Ignatieff has had so much trouble connecting with the Canadian public is going to be a subject that in coming years makes a lot of authors a lot of money. Is it that he seems too professorial? Does he come across as cold? Did Tory efforts to define him in the media leave a lasting impression?

At the end of the day, the Liberal Party of Canada – the party that is usually a sneeze away from power if not actually occupying 24 Sussex Drive (as they have for 78 of Canada’s 144 years) – is polling neck-and-neck with the NDP for 2nd place, nationally. They’ve been relegated to also-rans in Quebec polls. And the fingers of blame are being pointed, rightly or wrongly, at Michael Ignatieff.

Today’s Special: Runny Grits

The Liberals in 2008 were supposed to cruise to an easy victory. Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had just broken the spirit of their fixed election dates law, if not the letter of it. The Liberals had just come out of [...]Read More

Nation, this is the first is a series of posts that will go up daily leading to Election Day on May 2nd. I’ll be profiling the 4 federalist parties and their campaigns thus far, in reverse order of their popular support according to the latest polls.

If it seems as though I’m a little down on ALL the parties and their performances in this campaign…  well, you’re not imagining that.

Today’s special: Mixed Greens.

The Green Party finds itself in a VERY different position in 2011 than it did during the last General Election. In 2008, the party was riding as high as it had ever been, with a sitting Member of Parliament (not elected as a Green, but sitting as one nonetheless), a spot in the Leader’s Debates as a result of that MP, and polling near the double-digits. There was even cautious optimism among party insiders that leader Elizabeth May might be able to unseat Conservative Party rock star Peter MacKay in Central Nova, where she had spent many years as a youth and where she decided to run.

Reality, though, hit the party like a tonne of bricks as the election results came in. While [...]Read More