by Christopher Walsh

“A good opposition makes a good government.” Doug Griffiths

The aftermath is still being felt and it stings for those who withstood the degradations of the campaign only to make it into this week bleeding and vulnerable.

There is no dignity these days for men who were beaten in the streets by a fickle electorate nobody understands. It was certainly a mob mentality Monday night as Conservatives across this province came out in droves to vote for what they probably saw as the continuation of “Alberta's Century”. The Tories have done well branding themselves with the mark of prosperity and good times. Everybody else can curl up and die....

The Liberals won't return phone calls, the NDP never mattered and their leader conceded the election the day before the vote, the Wildrose Alliance have been put back into crazed, fringe party status and the Greens think they accomplished something with their slate of university punks running through the internet in real-life ridings.

Somewhere around 42 per cent of Albertans turned out for the big show Monday night, marking the lowest voter turnout in provincial history. A sad commentary they say, for democracy and those veterans who fought and died for the right to vote. Nobody would go to war these days for that mess....

But there could be a new war for Stelmach approaching. And since there is no real opposition to speak of, that conflict may...come...from...within...The Party.

There's still a group of pissed-off influential Calgarians who were counting on a poor showing by Stelmach in this election and a leadership review in the fall. The “Calgary Mafia”, Ted Morton calls it, and they are still angry about the royalty regime changes. (Something Stelmach has hinted could be addressed again). But a leadership review will not be happening now, not after the Tories, under Stelmach's stewardship, won one of the biggest majorities in provincial history.

Some may recall years ago, during those heady days of the Klein administration, a group of Tory backbenchers called the “Deep Six”. They questioned Klein on every dollar he spent and were credited with helping to balance the province's books. Five of six became cabinet ministers and the other guy, a quiet farmer from Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville just won a landslide election victory. Some might even call this the only effective opposition the province has seen in 37 years.

There is some talk this type of group could be re-established to hold the premier to account for any number of things. The “Fantastic Eight”, the “Filthy Fifteen” or the “Hard-Inquiry 23” or something like that might pop up over the next few years. Maybe they would eventually wrestle power away from Stelmach, and start another chapter in the long and storied Tory tradition here....

But all of that bores me and we have no proof at this point. But I wouldn't put it past some of Stelmach's apostles to get even uglier and turn a knife on him at some point, if the timing looked right and the issue finally presented itself....

Anyway, I want to talk about the “Opposition” or lack thereof. Stelmach's showing surprised everyone, but some say it wasn't a huge groundswell of support, it was the lack of anything else. The lack of a real alternative, someone or something that could capture the political mood and bring about change. I won't say discontent here, because Albertans are generally happy with their lives and the state of things. But change is necessary at some point, if for no other reason than to show people the difference.

Kevin Taft's men admitted he was certainly no Peter Lougheed – whatever that means – and probably failed to connect with voters. That is the type of political bullshit often espoused by party insiders or journalists who don't want to admit the truth, or have to look for it.

I was out with Taft door-knocking in Calgary and just about every person who came to the door or approached him in a mall parking lot were talking about the need for change and vowing to – although they were Tories – vote Liberal this time because they weren't happy with politics as usual. Those people voted Liberal Monday night, but they also voted NDP and Green Party, too. A quick look at the riding by riding results suggests there could have been a huge change in government if there was one clear non-Tory choice.

Vote splitting between the three opposition parties was best demonstrated in the Edmonton-Calder riding where NDP incumbent David Eggen was defeated by 204 votes by PC challenger Doug Elniski. The Green Party candidate took home 399 votes; almost double the difference. If you add up the numbers in a lot of ridings throughout the province you'll find the same queer equation. Hardly the Tory landslide it was heralded as, mixed with the low voter turnout.

So what next? Is there a way to form a strong opposition, one that works and can be accepted by the electorate?

Maybe.

Joe Anglin might even take a shot at it. The Green Party candidate lost his seat by close to 5,000 votes in Lacombe-Ponoka, but that has only strengthened his resolve. He has been talking with Liberal and NDP insiders and hopes to get something off the ground. It is the last hope here.

The Liberals know they're doomed with that name. It hasn't worked here for decades because too many still equate it with Trudeau and the feds. It's a private shame for Taft and his colleagues, but so was the beating Monday night.

“Well, there is a tide that overcame the province, without question,” Anglin says, a few nights after the election. “But I gotta tell you something, the opposition has to take a lot of the blame for that.

“They were out selfishly looking to get power when it wasn't even attainable. They undermined each other. When you look at the strength of the current government, you have to realize you gotta form a coalition of the opposition. They just went after each other and there was no leadership out there in the opposition. They really didn't present anything as far as an alternative.”

Anglin had been asked by the Liberals to run for them prior to the campaign. He declined and says now there needs to be an overhaul of the opposition. Good people who think have to come together and get on the same page.

“One is the Liberals have to go,” Anglin says. “If they're smart, they would go. The [nine] in there need to go independent and they need to implode that party. If they just try to change their name, it's not gonna do them any good. So, there needs to be a new party.”

How exactly that would work, what the platform would be and who would be involved has yet to be determined. A solid case has been made that if a new, unified opposition party were to be formed, it would take a few respected Tories to leave the flock and join it, for legitimacy's sake.

That will be difficult, concedes Anglin, because most in the Tory party know the name is the ticket to the legislature.

“I don't think you'd ever get them,” Anglin says.

I posed the question to Battle River-Wainwright MLA Doug Griffiths Thursday night after the first caucus meeting of the new government. Griffiths won big Monday, as did the other PC big boys across the province. His win was especially huge, percentage wise.

I've always liked Griffiths. He has a good political mind and on some beautiful evenings he doesn't hold the party line, he'll give you his real thoughts on an issue. But he didn't support Stelmach's leadership bid and has been suffering the consequences ever since. There won't be a cabinet post offered to him next week. He knows this and other political minds know it as well. If Griffiths were a political opportunist, he would be the ideal man to make the leap out of the PC fold and into a new opposition party. He's well-liked, intelligent, young, energetic and actually cares about the province's future.

“They asked me,” he confesses Thursday night over the phone from Edmonton. “[But] I'm a conservative, I'm a Progressive Conservative.”

He was talking about Liberal party strategists who also figured out a political talent like Griffiths was wasting away in the Stelmach Tory government. Griffiths says the opposition did stink this campaign and an opposition will be hard to come by.

“I think it's actually regrettable the opposition didn't take a better leader so that they would have a better showing. A good opposition makes a good government,” he says.

And it doesn't matter what name a real opposition alternative would take, he's sticking it out with the Tories.

“I don't care what you call it, I'm a conservative and quite frankly I think Progressive Conservative has the best summary of my political views,” Griffiths says.

That means Conservative on spending and savings, but Progressive on issues like research, education and the environment, he says. He knows a portfolio is not on its way anytime soon.

“Yeah, but I'm not about to leave and stomp my feet that I didn't get a cabinet post. If it came to the point where we were spending obscenely, like Liberals would do, and not budgeting for the future and saving for the future, then I'd have some real issues. But so would 90 per cent of the rest of the caucus. So, we'll see how things evolve....”

Evolution is a strange term out here. Alberta has grown; been built and re-built over the last century, seen huge ups and devastating downs and now finds itself the richest province in the country and truly the place where any hardworking sot can achieve riches. What does that do to the mentality of its people? What is it about prosperity that makes people think responsible government doesn't matter? Or if they do recognize it, that one party is the ticket to continuing boom times?

It's all too much. “Alberta's Century” will be a wicked one, indeed....

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