Yesterday's Words Didn't Happen

Last week, Stelmach was threatening major budget cuts - a la the Klein approach of the early 90s. Of course, we all know how well that went - Calgary's still paying the price for that era.

"I don't want to underestimate the difficulties we're going to face as Albertans," Stelmach told the Calgary Herald. "We may go back to the same strategies we used in the early 1990s," he added.

The so-called Klein Revolution saw the government roll back wages and cut thousands of public-sector jobs to help escape deficits and pay off a $23-billion debt.

Those statements are apparently inoperative now. Or, so Stelmach would like us to believe:

Just last week, Premier Ed Stelmach told reporters in Ottawa the province may need to consider rolling back spending, akin to the days of former premier Ralph Klein, when it comes to budgeting for next year.

Back in Edmonton, the premier insisted he never used the word "cuts." On Thursday afternoon, cabinet ministers were not going to do it for him.

No, Ed, you simply invoked what Klein did in the early 90s - do you really think we're that stupid? If you're going to lie, try telling a fib we can't check the facts on so easily.

Personally, I think if we're going to talk about cutting back government, I'd say we start with blatant wastefulness like this.

Harper The Anti-Democrat

I find it amusing (in the blackened comedy sense) that the leader of a party that is supposedly a "grass-roots" organization is showing himself to be more and more of a control freak.

His latest move to muzzle the opposition response to his throne speech on Oct 16 only reinforces my opinion that Harper is no democrat - not in any sense of the word.

I'm sure his supporters are all sitting around clapping at this "masterful stroke" of political tactics. But Canadians have seen this before. Not on the federal stage to be sure, but we've seen it before.

Moves like this are old school for Albertans - at least those of us who actually paid attention during the Klein years. Under Klein, the Alberta Government became (and remains) the most secretive, uncooperative government in the country. Klein would go out of his way to stage as much as he could outside the legislative session, and to minimize the ability of the opposition to respond and hold him (and his government) accountable.

Harper's latest move smacks of the vicious partisan politics that he has fostered since he became leader of the Canadian Alliance (taking pages out of the US Rethuglicans), and draws heavily on the tactics of control and muzzling that Ralph Klein used with success in Alberta.

Alberta's legislature is a shadow of what it has been in the past under leaders who understood that their job was to lead and represent the people, Harper is doing his best to imitate that on the Federal scene.

Canadians should be worried - very worried, indeed.