Now It's Officially Not "Ralph's World"

Premier Ralph Klein resigned officially today, officially launching the "not a leadership race" that has been going since spring this year.

Of course, Alberta media is busy singing his praises, especially about deficit and debt destruction. We should remember that his 'accomplishments' have come at with a price, and one that we will be paying off for decades to come.

Consider Ralph's "legacy":

- No Deficit - Check
- No Debt - Check
- No Plan - Ding Ding Ding !

One thing that has been painfully clear through Ralph's political career - planning is not something he does well. His approach from day one has been to take a sledgehammer to everything in sight, with little or no regard for the consequences of his actions.

What price have we paid for Ralph's legacy?

- A multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficit. This ranges from crumbling public buildings to roadways and underfunded public transportation.

- The cheapest royalty regime in North America, meaning that the public coffers are receiving the lowest return for allowing corporations to profit from our resources.

- Deregulated Utilities. I cannot even begin to describe how much of a giant fubar this has been. My utility costs as a consumer in Alberta are among the highest in Canada. The so-called "competition" that was supposed to give me a myriad of choices and reduce my costs has simply colluded to create noxious contracts, horrendous service charges, and tied us to commodities exchange prices that go up when New Orleans floods, a world leader sneezes hard or whatever.

- The most abusive welfare regime in Canada. Under Ralph's leadership, Alberta has become the harshest province in Canada for the poor.

- Public school systems that have been deliberately starved for resources. Ralph's sole "innovation" in public education was to introduce "charter schools", which are nothing more than incubators for what will ultimately morph into private schools.

By taking over collecting property taxes for school boards, the provincial government has imposed a parsimonious regime of funding that has starved school boards for the funds to pay contractually obligated salaries, much less repair existing schools or build new ones.

- Public Health systems that have been deliberately starved to make poly tier private medicine look good. Secondary services such as physiotherapy have been axed to the point that post-surgical treatment is coming directly out of the patient's pocket - regardless of whether they can afford it. Who is affected by this the most? Low income earners, seniors and others who must forgo surgery that would in fact improve their life considerably because they can't afford the post surgical costs.

- Combining the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources (now suspiciously called "Alberta Resources"). At first this seems almost reasonable, until you realize that the Environment department's mandate was to protect our environment, Natural Resources was all about the exploitation of resources (especially oil). Today, we find the entire weight is all about resource exploitation.

- Post Secondary education that has become more and more expensive - often at rates that far exceed the rate of inflation. This started under Don Getty, but Ralph's horde have hardly held education in high regard.

- A province which implements civil equality rights only when they have been dragged through every level of court in Canada, and then only doing so like a petulant child ordered to clean up their room.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I can remember. So when you think about "Ralph's Legacy", remember that there's more to a government than its fiscal balance sheet.