Alberta Politics Uncovered: Taking Back Our Province

David W. Leonard is the project historian (Northern Alberta) in the
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development. He
is the author of Delayed Frontier: The Peace River Country to 1909 and
co-author of The Lure of the Peace River Coun

In Alberta’s November 2004 provincial election, the governing
Progressive Conservatives won 62 of 88 seats. Anywhere else, such a
result would be considered massive approval of the government, but in
Alberta the slight drop-off implied some voter discontent. Just prior to
the election, Edmonton journalist Marc Lisac released Alberta Politics
Uncovered, a 122-page critique of the Klein government, which opens with
a cartoon featuring Premier Klein flogging the skeletal remains of a
dinosaur called “Fed Bashing” while singing “The Old Grey Mare
Just Ain’t What She Used to Be.” In the book, Lisac asks why
Albertans are so fond of demanding democratic reform in Ottawa while
accepting a one-party state at home, and why they are so angered by
corruption at the federal level but willing to tolerate it in Edmonton.
He then goes on to describe a litany of government mismanagement and
misdirected spending. The reason that Albertans have basically accepted
such a state appears to lie in the unbridled wealth of the province
which can incur complacency. How the people are supposed to overcome
such an unwelcome burden is not explained, but Lisac nonetheless calls
for reform along the lines of less government control and more
partnering with people. Community activities, he purports, “can
operate better with provincial support than with provincial control.”
Ironically, the hallmark of the Conservatives’ “Reinventing
Government” in the mid-1990s was just that. At the time, with debt
mounting, the government slashed programs. Lisac believes that it should
now redirect the operation of those programs to community organizations
and lower levels of government.

Lisac is very well versed on the subject, and presents a wealth of
detail to support his views. He was the provincial political affairs
columnist for the Edmonton Journal from 1987 to 1991, and the author of
The Klein Revolution (1995).