By Christopher Walsh

A group of fanatical Indians break into chants and interpretive dance outside the entrance to the Chateau Louis Convention Centre, shortly after Ed Stelmach's victory speech Monday night. The blaring Hindu music from the Cadillac Escalade, mixed with their gyrations and chants, was enough for some middle-aged white Conservative supporters to seek safety back in the hotel, away from the noise and frolicking.

One chubby Conservative was bent on finishing his smoke and stayed until it was done, against his better judgment.

“Don't worry,” I told him, after noticing his nervous looks. “They're on your side tonight.”

“We knew he'd do well,” the troubled man said, “we just didn't know that he'd do this well.”
Nobody did. Not even the screaming Punjabis expressing their jubilation in every direction. They were celebrating Peter Sandhu's win in the Edmonton-Manning riding, but what the hell? This was the real start of “Alberta's Century” after all, and why not include everyone?

That seems to be Stelmach's plan for these next four years or so. He's promised to include opposition members (although now significantly reduced) in policy matters and his speech on election night came across as an acknowledgment to every thinking person in this province that ol' Ed understands, “one thing [is] very important ... we know that governing is a privilege, it's not a right.”

That's what he said during his victory speech and perhaps he means it. The election results were such a shock that anyone who didn't vote Conservative was inconsolable. I had left a message on the Liberal campaign manager's cell phone at 8 pm confirming the location of the Liberal's celebration headquarters. By 8:30, that message was a cruel joke. The vote was over and every major network had already declared a Tory majority, the likes of which had not been seen since Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed.

It ranked among the strongest Tory majorities ever in Alberta and caught everyone by surprise, including Stelmach and his boys. Polls had them leading, sure, but that undecided vote – in some polls gauged in the 30 percentile – was to be the difference. It was, in the end, but in a much different way than anyone expected: those hesitant Albertans did finally make a choice and it was to stay home. Stelmach's overwhelming majority came in with the lowest voter turnout in provincial history at close to 42 per cent, bringing with it 72 seats and cutting the Liberal seats from 16 to 9 and the NDP seats in half to two ... (More on that tomorrow).

Back at Stelmach election night headquarters, the mood was celebratory. Nobody there had any idea before 8:30 that things were going to go like this. They would have put on the same glad-faces even with a minority (as some had predicted), but now it was real, we can be happy and mean it. Those whispers in certain corners within the party (most prominent in Calgary) about a leadership review within six months were silenced. Stelmach had done it, and in much stronger terms than anyone expected.

The great man, the leader, was making the rounds in the back of the convention centre next to the $5 a beer bar. My new photographer was following him and griping about the price.

“This is a goddamn Tory fundraiser,” he said. “What kind of perogies do you think Stelmach eats?”

We stopped to regroup at the bar and snack table. Neither one of us could explain what we had seen or what it all meant. A man near the premier yelled at us: “You fuckers in the media were all wrong. Albertans like Ed!”

There seems to be little evidence to the contrary. Although many political analysts were suggesting a defeat for Stelmach on some front, the little guy surprised everybody. I was reminded of a comment Stelmach had made to me the Saturday before the election. On the campaign trail, I had asked Wildrose Alliance leader Paul Hinman (who lost his party's only seat in Monday's landslide) and Liberal leader Kevin Taft to tell me something about themselves that people probably didn't know. Hinman said he rides a unicycle and Taft admitted to his lust of Peanut Buster Parfaits. Stelmach was far more serious in his answer.

“My resolve,” he responded after a few contemplative seconds. “As you see, sometimes in the media, they say that 'Ed's a real nice guy, he's soft spoken, but does he have a backbone?' I think people have known over the last 14 months that when I make a commitment, I stick to it, I deliver.”

Bars in Alberta are full of guys who claim they're tough and your first instinct is to laugh when someone tells you this. But nobody is laughing at Stelmach these days....

I was thinking about this an hour later, after speaking to Party loyalists, as we made our way out front for another cigarette. The premier was assumed to have left at least an hour ago, but a black Buick Park Avenue had replaced the raging Indians' Escalade at the entrance to the convention centre. We assumed it was a cab of some sort and my photographer approached it.

Two SS-like agents ran out to offer a warning.

“Step away from the vehicle,” they instructed in their best authoritative tone.

“Why?” my photographer asked. “Whose car is it?”

They didn't respond and went back inside. This prompted another chubby Conservative to maul the car. He wanted his photo taken saddling the side of it. We agreed to take it.

“Step away from the car,” the SS men chimed in on cue.

“Whose car is this anyway,” we asked.

The men with ear pieces, again, did not respond. A minute later they were out to ask me and my photographer to vacate the premises.

“We need you to go to the street and leave,” they said. My photographer would not accommodate them.

“This is a public place,” he offered, “and I'm not doing anything wrong.”

They turned to me to ask if I'd assist in removing him.

“No,” I said. “I'm not going anywhere until we get a cab.”

The SS agents looked at eachother without saying anything and went back inside.

“Jesus, Peter,” I said. “They're gonna break our bones in a minute.”

They didn't. Instead, a couple of guys came out on their way to their car acting aggressively. One of them turned on the plump Conservative like he wanted to fight. We got him on his way quickly, but one of the SS men had moved the car in the meantime and we never captured the shot of who was riding in the back of the thing. They never appeared....

And perhaps that's what the next four years will be like here. Agreeable toughness on the surface and a distraction when the time is right.

I hope not and I hope Ed is as good as his word in re: the Great Gatsby rhetoric. It's obviously what sealed the deal for him.

“All Albertans know, that our province is a beacon of hope and it's also a beacon of inspiration,” Stelmach said in his acceptance speech. “And that beacon must shine in every corner of this province, across our country, across the world. We all know ... that in Alberta, you can achieve your dreams.”

People were just too busy achieving the dream to vote....

A few questions remain however, about this overwhelming majority, and I don't mean the accusations of “voting irregularities” or the massive voter apathy here. I'm curious as to who's driving the car.

The Herald ran a story Wednesday about the oilpatch admitting they were expecting change on election night, but now want the “unintended consequences” of the premier's new royalty regime corrected. It's hard to say if the oil companies really thought Albertans would vote in the Wildrose Alliance (every other party was calling for increased royalties), but there is a strong contingent within the Party that was counting on Stelmach's poor showing this election....

At this point, the driver of the black Buick – that car so safely guarded by the secret service on election night – is ... Daisy Buchanan, whoever she might come to be. She's the one who ran over the gas attendant's wife and kept on booting it, retreating “back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was ... [to] let other people clean up the mess they had made ...”

We'll see. And a proper analysis of this election is yet to be completed. Where do things go from here and who really cares? The answers will truly be troubling and nobody will be dancing in the streets then....

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3.20 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."