The upshot is that the fat cat invites the starving cat to the palace where she lives. On the day before, there had been a great feast at the palace. Sadly, the huge amount of food left on the floor has now attracted a host of scavenging felines. The result is the sultan requests that archers be brought in to do away with the scavengers. The end.

What this has to do with the controversy involving premier Danielle Smith’s visit to Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2025 is no doubt unclear. I’ll get to that.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi minister of energy, evidently met the premier of Alberta in November 2023, when Calgary hosted the World Energy Congress. The prince and the premier toured a few pavilions together and had a sufficient meeting of minds that the former invited the latter to visit him in Saudi Arabia.

Premier Smith accepted, and the visit occurred. While in the Middle East the premier met an impressive roster of dignitaries, including the Saudi artificial intelligence boss and officials from OPEC.

Months later, back in the Alberta Legislature, Opposition leader Naheed Nenshi asked Smith about some missing receipts. Where she’d been and the list of receipts didn’t jibe. Her explanation was that the oilfields and other spots she’d visited weren’t accessible by commercial aircraft. She’d flown on private jets. This might have seemed a trivial matter, but since the government voyageurs had managed to rack up $64,000 in expenses in Saudi Arabia, for which Albertans were on the hook, Nenshi wasn’t ready to drop the topic.

No one from the UCP side was (or is) offering to have the cat assayed, so we’re still dealing in hypotheticals.

And then there was the cat. A sharp-eyed individual had noticed that in a McDougall Centre office there was a new golden statue of a cat. It appeared in the background of a photo that included the premier. A question was put to the premier: “What’s with the golden cat?” And the answer was: “Oh that. Just a little something from Prince Abdulaziz…?”

The cat was a hefty looking specimen standing on all fours. Inevitably people speculated what it was made of. The initial eyeball assay was that it was made of gold. In the old Arab tale of the two cats, then, this would have been the sultan’s cat rather than the scavenger.

Albertans started doing some math. The cat was hefty, not something you could shove in your purse. Chunky, not light. At the current price of gold (around $7,000/ounce), the cat was one heck of a gift! As news of the statue spread, the possible value bounced around. Some said the cat might be worth millions. More-conservative types said, “Nah. $300,000 tops.” Also unclear was whether the premier or the province owned the cat. It should have been the province, but it wasn’t clear.

When the Opposition leader brought up the trip and the receipts in the Legislature, inevitably the subject came around to the cat.

Initially the government attempted to brush it off. Members portrayed Nenshi’s concerns as a rube-like fuss launched by someone who doesn’t get out much. But wait a minute. Nenshi was the mayor of Calgary for 11 years. And he was awarded the title of the World’s Best Mayor in 2018, for which he got a pretty handsome statue of his own (albeit stainless steel). Anyway, the man has been around, and he wasn’t letting the golden cat escape from public attention quite yet.

The next thing the UCP government had to say about the cat was that it wasn’t gold at all. No, it was a copper cat with a touch of gold paint. Worth maybe a few hundred dollars. One pundit pegged its real value at $80. No one from the government side was (or is) offering to have the cat assayed, so we’re still dealing in hypotheticals.

And I must say I have a hypothetical or two. When the cat went from being solid gold to being (maybe) copper with a paint job, it changed my view of the Saudi royal family’s generosity. And of the esteem in which on our premier is held.

Oh, heck. What should we give that politician from Canada

I don’t know. What about that old copper kitty the maid found at the bazaar

Is no one concerned about the implications of this…?

But, then, it might be a damn long time before any Albertans are asked to visit Saudi Arabia again. Like the sultan in the Arab folk tale, the leaders of that country aren’t exactly known for their sentimentality. And next time the Saudis might suggest that our premier rent a car. Drive in the desert for a few days and see how high and mighty she feels.

Fred Stenson has published 20 books. A new novel, Carpenter Creek, is forthcoming from Thistledown Press in fall 2026.

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Some level of disagreement is expected—even necessary—in democracies such as Alberta. Elections must offer voters a set of distinct and viable options to choose from. We encounter problems, however, when these options become too antithetical, and when the opposing parties challenge each other’s very legitimacy instead of their points of view. Polarization left unchecked is a threat to our democratic norms and institutions. It destroys the common ground necessary for productive dialogue and debate.

Polarization has played a significant role in the rise of extremist movements. According to the Organization for the Prevention of Violence, Alberta is home to an increase in violent extremism and hate crimes. These movements feature anti-authority and conspiracy narratives that impact our ability to respond to crises such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. A divided and resentful political culture creates instability and even violence, such as the January 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, D.C., or the February 2022 blockade at the Coutts border crossing.

Many of us think people never change their views, won’t listen, won’t accept when they’re wrong

What can we do, as responsible Albertans, to address this According to some, the answer lies in promoting communication across partisan lines: that is, encouraging people to engage in dialogue with those they disagree with politically. However, simply saying “we need to talk to one another” is not enough when the “other” has an entirely different view of how we should be talking. Challenges can arise when one person is competitive, the other collaborative or when one person aims to change the other’s mind, while the other is intent on simply exchanging perspectives or being heard.

The Common Ground team at the University of Alberta has been exploring new ways of practising dialogue more effectively. Original data collected in our 2021 Viewpoint Alberta survey showed that oppositional dialogue is still happening, most often in person: around 90 per cent of Albertans stated that they had engaged in political conversations with people of an opposite viewpoint over the past month. No other means of dialogue came close to this face-to-face contact, with the nearest being over voice call (44 per cent) and social media (42 per cent).

For over two-thirds of Albertans, oppositional dialogue occurs within their place of residence. This suggests that differences of opinion are literally “close to home” for most people. Women are more likely to engage in oppositional dialogue at home than men (a gap of 15 percentage points), while men are more likely to discuss politics with someone on the other side of the political spectrum when they’re at work (again, a 15-point gap compared to women) or in public (10-point gap). Members of Generation X are less likely to engage in oppositional dialogue at home but more likely to do so in the workplace than Millennials or Boomers.

Engaging in oppositional dialogue does not mean Albertans enjoy it. When asked to describe a time that they engaged in oppositional dialogue, fewer than one in five respondents reported having a positive experience. Nearly a third reported feeling uncomfortable or having been engaged in “conflict” as a result.

One Albertan commented: “The worst opposing-views conversation I’ve had recently was with someone who thinks the COVID-19 vaccines are a hoax, and that it’s a campaign to test large-scale population effects… I left feeling stressed and angry because I was called stupid a few too many times, and my experience was invalidated. I think they can believe anything they want, but when I can give evidence behind my statements and [they can’t], and they refuse to even consider my statements, I find I don’t want to interact with them anymore.”

When asked why they thought other people might choose not to engage in oppositional dialogue, half of our survey respondents cite worries over emotional stress, conflict or the potential for physical danger. Our interviews validated these concerns, with several Albertans describing times when they felt a physical or psychological risk associated with engaging with people they don’t agree with politically. Others saw little point in the dialogue in the first place. Nearly a third of Albertans think other people will never change their views, won’t listen, or won’t accept when they are wrong. Though many Albertans find at least some value in engaging with people who have different views, most hold a negative view of oppositional dialogue.

Of course, not every viewpoint is worth engaging through oppositional dialogue. Engaging with racists, homophobes, misogynists and their ilk is beyond the pale for many Albertans. Some fear reprisal or violence for even raising a topic. These sorts of dynamics fall outside the scope of our comments here.

Fortunately, our study revealed one effective tactic for promoting constructive oppositional dialogue: active listening.

The technique involves focusing fully on hearing the other person’s point of view, observing both verbal and non-verbal messages. It means avoiding the tendency to think of your own response to your partner’s comments. Instead, active listening requires reflecting back what you’ve heard and asking questions to better understand the other person’s position. The goal is to come to a better mutual understanding of each other’s viewpoint, rather than winning the argument.

As simple as it sounds, active listening addresses many of the hang-ups Albertans have about engaging with people who hold differing political opinions. Half of our participants reported shying away from oppositional dialogue because their partner would refuse to acknowledge their point of view. Every one of our interviewees noted that feeling heard was a central component to good dialogue, whether that dialogue was viewed as competitive, co-operative or something else in between.

Feeling heard is crucial to feeling valued and respected in political discussions. Without it, many Albertans shut down, disengage or avoid conversations altogether. Others feel the need to go on the offensive in these discussions, becoming more abrasive as the only means of being heard by the other side. In both cases, moderate voices cede the broader discourse to the most extreme among us, further polarizing our politics.

Engaged and active listening isn’t just a principle we should be teaching children. It’s something we need to practise with even greater intention when having challenging political conversations. So, although knowledge of political subjects, analytical thinking and public speaking skills are important to oppositional dialogue, active listening provides each of us the ability to help our conversational partner open up and be more receptive to receiving new or challenging information. Without active listening, our other dialogue skills are of little value.

To change a mind, finding common ground is a crucial first step

For those looking to engage in more-meaningful oppositional dialogue, we offer the following suggestions:

1) Listen to understand, not to undermine. Active listening can entail paraphrasing things your partner has said, using expressions such as “What I am hearing is…” and “Is that right?” Summarize your understanding in a way that reflects their interpretation of things. You are not agreeing by restating. You are showing your partner that you are trying to understand what they said as they said it. Asking open-ended questions can also let your partner know you are not trying to pin them into a specific response. Use non-verbal cues such as eye contact and nodding gently to show you are engaged. Active listening involves using your whole body, resisting the temptation to reach for your phone. Even if the person doesn’t hold eye contact, you’re showing them they have your attention and that the conversation matters.

2) Demonstrate a willingness to change your mind and learn something new. In our survey responses, people were reluctant to talk to those they feel have already dismissed their perspective even before hearing it. Small conciliatory phrases such as “this is what I think right now,” “as far as I know…” or “I could be wrong” can go a long way. It shows your partner that you’re open to hearing new information and gives them room to reciprocate—to admit they might be wrong or admit they haven’t heard a piece of information before. You are modelling the type of behaviour you would like them to practise.

3) Demonstrate empathy. Many survey respondents were concerned about becoming overly emotional or having to talk to someone who is overly emotional. Our study revealed that while some Albertans value logical, fact-based discussion, others were put off by it. Using affective statements can help. This involves using “I…” phrases instead of “you…” phrases, placing your own feelings at the forefront of your comment. For instance, instead of saying, “COVID-19 anti-vaxxers are terrifying and their behaviour is dangerous,” you can say, “I feel frightened when people refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine, as I am concerned about the danger they might pose to those around them.” The statement is not judgmental; it is your emotional response. It shows your conversational partner that you aren’t trying to attack them. When you notice your partner making similar affective statements, acknowledge and validate their feelings, avoiding the tendency to minimize or dismiss their emotions.

4) Affirm your relationship with the person. A third of Albertans report they are more likely to engage in oppositional dialogue with a family member or close friend than they are with a stranger. Nonetheless, it can be hard to have oppositional dialogue with people you are close to. If you feel comfortable doing so, remind the person as the conversation begins that you value your relationship more than the outcome of the discussion. This can help ease tension and promote a more respectful exchange.

5) Find common ground and consider the other side. This is a way of overcoming polarization, but it can be difficult to put into practice. Below are a series of questions that can help open new ways of thinking. These include:

How important is X belief to you?

When did you first come to believe it and what got you there?

Have you ever shifted your beliefs on this topic?

What is the most convincing counterpoint to your view?

These questions can help open up space for doubt, empathy and further exploration of the logical underpinnings of beliefs, with the aim of finding similarities that can be used as a foundation moving forward. If opposing viewpoints have no clear common ground, perhaps the journeys there or underlying motivations do. You may find you share a common objective but disagree on the best means of achieving it. This opens up some common ground on which to build.

6) Understand that people have varying levels of tolerance for dialogue and conflict. According to our research, many Albertans who are reluctant to engage in political discussions are conflict-avoiders. Consider whether the person you are talking to seems comfortable or willing to talk at all, let alone about politics. Studies have shown that a relatively high number of people are interested in hearing opposing views to their own (some two-thirds of Americans, for instance), but that this percentage is dependent on their choosing to seek out that information, not having it pushed on them. To this end, be patient and do not force dialogue where the other person does not seem interested, even if you feel a desire to talk about politics.

These skills are not meant to be used as a cheat sheet to change someone’s mind. Even if your ultimate goal is to encourage the changing of minds—your own or someone else’s—finding common ground is a crucial first step. People who feel dismissed, undervalued or unheard are unlikely to shift their modes of thinking. That’s why dialogue practices like these can mitigate against polarization by giving your partner at least one non-confrontational and even positive encounter with opposing political views.

Thomas Brown is a U of A alumnus and peacebuilding researcher. Jared Wesley is a professor of poli sci at U of A and lead researcher on the Common Ground initiative.

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The Alberta Human Rights & Citizenship Commission (HRC) was established to address unjust treatment. The mandate of the commission is to foster equality and reduce discrimination through public education and the resolution and settlement of complaints of discrimination.

Lately the HRC has come under attack, notably in Ezra Levant’s widely publicized allegations of suppression of free speech. However, people seemed to have felt no reluctance to freely sound off about the sign at Tim Horton’s. The public expressed a wide range of opinions on radio call-in shows and in letters to the editor. Nearly 200 messages were posted at the online news forum topix.com. Online, where people feel even freer to express opinions, the responses were blatantly hateful. A sampling: 

“How much longer are you going to sit in limbo living on handouts and pouting because you got your ass’s kicked a 100 years ago?”

“I think we have given enough to their cause. Its bad enough that they take our hard earned dollars now they are asking for the change in our pockets… You want your traditional lands then go back to the traditional way of living. Get rid of your cars and housing. Live in teepees and follow the wildlife around like you used to do.”

“The problem isn’t racism, it’s the drunk natives.”

“They blew their chance a long time ago… sympathy has run out… tired of seeing them walking around the streets all drunk looking like victims etc.”

Statistics Canada reports the most common victims of hate crimes in Canada are Africans, Jews and homosexuals. Aboriginals are low on the list, even relative to their population. However, the fact that Aboriginals aren’t reporting hate crimes doesn’t mean such crimes are not being committed. According to human rights experts, racism against Aboriginals is the most common form of discrimination or “rights abuse” in Canada. If discrimination against Aboriginals is the most prevalent abuse of human dignity in Alberta, why do Aboriginals not use the HRC to redress grievances?

“What’s an anti-Semitic hate crime?” asks Janet Keeping, president of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership. “It’s painting swastikas on buildings, it’s throwing a rock through a synagogue window, that kind of thing… How do Aboriginal people get discriminated against They get discriminated in everyday ways. Taxi drivers won’t pick them up, bar owners won’t serve them. These aren’t usually categorized as hate crimes; they’re just everyday, common [acts of] discrimination which Aboriginal people get all the time.” 

Keeping is leading a project investigating human rights in Alberta. She says that if you assess discrimination in Alberta based solely on complaints filed with the commission, it would appear that racism, sexism and homophobia are not much of a problem in our province. However, after the Chumir Foundation hosted a series of human rights forums across Alberta last spring, she became convinced that our most substantive human rights issue is “almost assuredly discrimination against Aboriginal people.”

Most of the complaints heard by Canada’s human rights commissions (including 81 per cent of Alberta cases) are related to discrimination in the workplace. Alberta receives fewer than the average number of complaints on the grounds of race and gender. Keeping says these statistics don’t reflect the way Albertans actually treat each other. 

Diane Eaglespeaker would know. After living in Seattle for 20 years, she decided to take her family home to Alberta. They lived briefly in Lethbridge, then settled in Calgary in the early 1990s. She was home, but things weren’t the way they were in Seattle.

“I’ve lived here for a long time,” she says, “and it’s really disconcerting when you’re walking and somebody throws something at you… especially if I’m in professional dress, going to work.” Eaglespeaker works at Calgary Communities against Sexual Abuse, counselling victims of rape and violence. When asked about Keeping’s observations, she’s quick to answer. “Oh, it’s entirely true, unfortunately, it is. When I came here it was a real shock. You know, to be treated as stupid, or people talking slow to me.” 

Eaglespeaker describes places in Alberta where Aboriginals advise each other not to stop. She talks about repeatedly seeing transit police question Aboriginal youth while ignoring other passengers, of tripping on a busy street and not being helped by passersby, about her perception that authorities are disinterested in investigating the rapes of Aboriginal women.

Eaglespeaker’s daughter Autumn is in her senior year at the University of Calgary. She says she didn’t notice racism before returning to Canada. In high school in Lethbridge, Autumn was “the only brown kid in my class.” Despite good grades, she was encouraged to switch to remedial classes. She refused and requested a meeting with the principal. When she explained why remedial classes were a waste of her time, Autumn says the principal offered her a compliment.

“You’re very articulate for a native girl,” he said.

The Eaglespeaker family struggles with street-level racism. “Just by having an Indian last name, [employers] look at your application and you won’t even get a call back,” says Autumn. “I found more discrimination with the lower-level jobs, where they’re just expecting anyone with low skills and they automatically think that native people don’t have any skills.”

In spite of discrimination, Aboriginals don’t usually file complaints. Nearly all the public responses to the Lethbridge Tim Horton’s incident reveal public confusion about Aboriginal rights in Canada. The source of the problem—both the racism and Aboriginals’ reluctance to complain about it—may lie in the nature of the compact between the indigenous First Peoples and the country. 

Arguably, Canada’s Indian Act is by definition racist in that it distinguishes, on the basis of race, a category of Canadians with different rights. Pierre Trudeau proposed repealing the Act, but, understandably, First Nations people with rights granted under the Act wanted it retained. Status Aboriginals’ only rights, until recently, were covered by the Indian Act, originally enacted in 1876, which gave the government of Canada the exclusive authority to legislate in relation to “Indians and Lands Reserved for Indians.” The Indian Act, 1985 reaffirmed special rights for status Indians in Canada, including the right to their reserves, an extended hunting season, fewer restrictions on the right to bear arms, an exemption from federal and provincial taxes, free post-secondary education and certain rights regarding the management of gaming and tobacco franchises. 

Only with the passage of Bill C-21 in June 2008 was human rights protection extended to Aboriginal people living under the jurisdiction of the Indian Act. Prior to this, only non-status Indians were eligible to use HRCs to redress rights abuses. The rights of status and non-status Aboriginals alike are now protected by the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Alberta HRC director Marie Riddle says that Aboriginals are welcome to come to the agency to redress grievances. But many Aboriginals, like many Canadians, don’t really know what HRCs do.

The necessity for human rights to be enshrined in law was widely recognized after the horrors of the Second World War. One of the United Nations’ first objectives was the creation of a human rights code. Based in part on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was completed by 1948.

Signatory states recognize a UN convention by creating nationally applicable laws, followed by similar laws at the provincial level. Canada ratified the UDHR in 1948, and subsequently formed its own mechanisms to protect universal rights. This began with the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960. Every province followed suit during the 1960s and 1970s, enacting rights legislation and creating commissions to resolve complaints of discrimination. Alberta passed its first Human Rights Act in 1966, and created its first Human Rights Commission in 1973 with Max Wyman, former president of the U of A, as its first chief commissioner. A national HRC was established in 1977. The raison d’être of all HRCs is, in the words of our federal commission, to “create a society with equal opportunity and without discrimination.” It pursues this goal by hearing disputes and addressing abuses.

If a person feels their rights have been abused, first, they submit a complaint in writing to the HRC (federal or provincial, depending on the case). If the commission believes there is a case of unlawful discrimination (for there is lawful discrimination, as any 16-year-old would-be bar patron knows), they inform the alleged discriminator about the situation, ask for the other side of the story and relay that information back to the complainant. At this point the complainant decides whether to drop the complaint or participate in a conciliation. About 89 per cent of complaints filed federally are examined, and about 60 per cent of these are resolved at the conciliation stage.

Conciliation is intended to be a civilized alternative to litigation. With the conciliator acting as mediator, the parties come to an agreement on what happened and on an appropriate remedy, ranging from an apology to payment of lost wages. The HRC is not designed to punish, but rather to restore complainants to their condition prior to the incident.

Sometimes parties are too angry at each other to reconcile. Out goes the conciliator, in comes the investigator, who decides whether the case has merit: whether there’s enough information and whether the abused right in question falls within the HRC’s jurisdiction. The investigator may dismiss the complaint outright or prescribe a remedy.

Awards typically are small. “Sometimes we have complainants who actually do want to punish the respondent, but that’s not the purpose [of settlements],” the Alberta HRC’s Riddle explains. “If you’ve lost salary, you get the salary replaced. If you’ve lost benefits, you get them [back]. But sometimes more is needed because it [the rights abuse] has hurt your soul.” Still, even “soul-mending” settlements are small, typically less than $5,000.

Alberta’s Human Rights, Citizenship & Multiculturalism Act, s. 3(1) reads: “No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt…” This section is followed by the mitigatory: “Nothing in this section shall be deemed to interfere with the free expression of opinion on any subject.”

Ezra Levant’s attack on the Human Rights Commission for allegedly limiting his freedom of speech has created confusion about the commission’s role. In February 2006, Levant reprinted in his now-defunct Western Standard magazine the notorious Danish cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed. In doing so, argued complainant Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, Levant incited hate against Muslim Canadians. Levant responded with a passionate defence of the principle of freedom of expression, delivered to Alberta HRC officer Shirlene McGovern. He also videotaped his interview, posted it on YouTube (where portions of it have been viewed over 130,000 times), and wrote about it on his blog for months.

Over the past couple of years, Albertans have weighed in on the supposed threat to freedom of expression posed by the commission dealing with the complaint against Levant—and by similar complaints against National Post columnist Mark Steyn, Red Deer pastor Stephen Boissoin and Maclean’s magazine. Although HRCs were originally envisioned, as Calgary Herald columnist Nigel Hannaford once wrote, “to address insupportable abuses in the areas of employment and accommodation,” Levant sympathizers seem to think that whatever the HRCs’ original intentions, they’ve been replaced by censorship and social engineering. 

In an Edmonton Journal column on January 24, 2008, Paula Simons wrote, “I don’t usually agree with Levant, but he is right on free speech.” The HRC’s chief commissioner at the time, Charlach Mackintosh, responded in a letter: “Simons writes of Levant being hauled before a provincial human rights commission staff member to answer a complaint laid against him and in the process raises concerns about the implications of that investigation for free speech… Firstly, I would like to point out that no one is ever ‘hauled’ before a commission investigator. Individuals who have had a complaint made against them are invited to respond in person or in writing to the allegations of the complainant. This opportunity is provided to ensure fairness in the process.”

Since no decision had been brought down in the Levant case—in fact, the commission had merely been investigating whether there was a reasonable basis to proceed, when the complaint was withdrawn—Levant seemed to be railing against the very fact that anyone should have a right to complain.

Commissioner Mackintosh continued: “Freedom of speech is a Charter right guaranteed to every Canadian. In addition, Alberta’s human rights legislation confirms that every individual is entitled to free expression of opinion. What is missing in [Simons’s] column is an acknowledgement of the right of every Albertan to file a complaint if they feel they have been a victim of discrimination. If such a complaint is lodged, staff and commissioners are bound by law to deal with it. 

“To prejudge the outcome of the process of the complaint against Levant and to suggest that the commission is working to limit free speech is unfair to everyone involved. Those who provide important service to Albertans through the Alberta Human Rights & Citizenship Commission continually strive to resolve conflict and promote respect for the dignity of every person. A key part of their work is to ensure that, in the resolution of complaints, a balance is maintained between one person’s right to say and do what they want and another person’s right to file a complaint.”

Soharwardy’s complaint against another publisher who ran the Danish cartoons—Richard Bronstein of Calgary’s Jewish Free Press—was resolved with a handshake after the two met with an HRC mediator in March 2007. Bronstein later accepted an invitation to speak to Muslims at the mosque at which Soharwardy serves as imam.

Ten years ago, to help Aboriginal people understand their rights, prominent Aboriginal members of front-line agencies started the Aboriginal Commission on Human Rights. Last year they received an $89,000 grant from Alberta’s Human Rights & Multiculturalism Education Fund.

Lewis Cardinal is chair of the Global Indigenous Dialogue, VP of Aboriginal Voices Radio Network and has been involved with the Aboriginal Commission on Human Rights since its inception. He says the Aboriginal Commission isn’t intended to resolve complaints as the general HRC does. Instead, its goal is for Alberta’s Aboriginals to understand universal rights, when they’re being denied and how to achieve equality. The Aboriginal commission aims to educate and listen to stories of discrimination to help potential complainants decide whether they have a valid issue and, if so, how to proceed. The project already receives “a ton of phone calls” from Aboriginals who want exactly this kind of help.

“The next project is an Aboriginal relations index… a monitoring report of cases, of perceptions, of human rights violations,” says Cardinal. He adds that the Aboriginal community needs reliable numbers about racism in order to make a case to policy makers and the public about the severity of the situation. “Instead of just working with anecdotal evidence we can start to muster up some real issues without being accused of ‘whining.’

“You can’t legislate against people’s own feelings about other people,” Cardinal says. “What you can do is stop them from making those comments at the board table. Or at policy development tables, or at funding tables, or anywhere else where decisions are made. That’s where we want to stop it… We know that in some regards it’s kind of pie-in-the-sky… but racism is still a huge issue within the Aboriginal community.”  

Suzy Thompson is the former assistant editor at Alberta Views. She is now a freelance photojournalist.

The post Our Human Rights Commission appeared first on Alberta Views.

Phoning relatives is no easier than ringing their doorbells. “Hello, my name is Elizabeth Withey and I’m a reporter at the Edmonton Journal,” I say politely. “I’m very sorry to bother you this morning, but I’m looking for the family of mr….”

Sometimes, after I’ve finally found the right number, they hang up on me. I don’t blame them. I’d hang up on me, too, if a relative of mine had just become the city’s latest homicide.

But sometimes they talk. They want to tell me about their loved one. They want someone to listen.

“What kind of person was he?” I ask as sensitively as I can, typing furiously, with the receiver cradled between my head and my left shoulder. “I see… he sounds like a nice guy… funny#8230; uh-huh…”

I’m thankful I don’t work the crime beat full time, though after three years at the paper I have become detached from the emotional side of it.

Sometimes I feel like a professional grief manipulator, someone who massages people’s pain and convinces them to share it with me for public consumption. They cry into my ear. They say, “Thanks for writing a story about my dad. About my boyfriend. About my grandmother.”

Over the sound of chatter on the police scanners, my ethics duke it out with my professional sense of duty. Part of me thinks I’m brave to make cold calls to strangers, harvesting quotes about their suffering. I’m doing a decent thing, I rationalize, helping people pay tribute to their dead loved ones.

The other part of me thinks this is so wrong. I question the compassionate tone in my voice, the words I use to get people talking, the unwillingness to leave them alone. You’re exploiting vulnerable people for the sake of selling papers, I tell myself. You’re fooling them with fake sympathy. All you care about is beating the other media. getting praise from your bosses.

“Did you get the family?” my editor asks.

Yeah, I got them.

As a member of the news media, my job is to “get” things.

We hunt and gather information. Reactions. documents. Stats. Photographs. Feelings. We knock on doors. Ask questions. Get answers. But “we” are people, too. We have front doors. We have families.

I have my great-grandmother’s smile. The Lequiea smile. It’s a wide grin, with an upper lip that disappears as it stretches. I’ve been told I look like Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman.

For many years, the only thing I know about the Lequieas, my father’s maternal ancestors, is their Joker smile. Not until I’m a university student in my early 20s does my mother mention, at the breakfast table, that my great-grandmother was sexually assaulted and strangled with a nylon stocking before I was born. Nine days before Christmas, mom says, and they never caught the guy who did it.

Over the sound of chatter on police scanners, my ethics duke it out with my professional sense of duty.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I ask, stunned.

“I thought you knew,” mom says.

I didn’t know. My father died more than a decade ago, and never said a word about it. And it certainly didn’t come up at family gatherings in Calgary.

I am stunned, ferociously curious, even a little thrilled. My relative, murdered What a scandalous morsel of family history. I want to know more. I want details.

But mom doesn’t know much, and though I mean to call my relatives, I get preoccupied. School work. Travel. Relationships. Time passes.

Albina’s murder comes back to mind a couple years later, in 2003, when I begin my studies in writing and journalism. Eager to get “the story,” and still curious, I request my great- grandmother’s files from the RCMP through Freedom of Information. They keep my $5 cheque but refuse my request: the case is unsolved, they say; the file is still open. Sharing information could compromise the investigation.

Meanwhile, I start a job at the newspaper in Edmonton, and occasionally work the crime beat. I report on fatal stabbings, fatal fires, fatal car accidents. I type tragic story after tragic story. One day, I plug my great-grandmother’s name into our online newspaper database. I don’t find much; those archives only date back to the mid-1980s.

The U of A’s microfiche reels yield more disturbing results. “North Vancouver RCMP are hunting a psychopathic killer who strangled a 96-year-old woman over the weekend,” reports a front-page story in the Vancouver Sun on Tuesday December 18, 1973.

“Woman of 96 raped, strangled,” is the headline in the Calgary Herald the following day. Across the page, holiday ham is on special at the Co-op for $1.09 a pound.

“The victim, Mrs. Albina Christiana Lequiea, was discovered in her room by a member of the staff at the Convent of the Child Jesus,” reads a news brief in the Edmonton Journal on December 18. The story is buried on page 12 below a sizable photo of four Santa Clauses rolling balls at the Bonnie Doon Bowling Alley.

“Police said it was first believed she had died of natural causes, but it was later discovered she had been choked,” the Journal brief continues.

Here, in the archives of the newspaper where I work, are the scant, sensational details of how my great-grandmother’s long life suddenly ended.

Albina Christiana Proulx was born in Nicolet, Quebec, in 1877, one hundred years before me. She married Phillip Lequiea at the age of 19, and together they raised nine Catholic children—seven daughters and two sons—on a farm near north Battleford, Saskatchewan. Only one of those children is still living: my grandmother, Juliette Ferguson. I drive down to Calgary to ask her about Albina.

Grandma Julie is 90, nearly as old as her mother was when she was murdered. Like Albina, my grandmother is a petite French matriarch who has shrunk in her old age. The chronic obstructive pulmonary disease makes her breathless and dependent on an oxygen tank, but she can still push her wheelchair. Personal items clutter grandma Julie’s nightstand in the nursing home where she lives. A purple hair pick, Kleenex, a rosary. The rosary beads are plastic and cream-coloured, about the size of capers. grandma Julie says she still “mutters” the rosary prayers to herself every evening in the room she shares with a woman who refuses to speak and spends her days in bed.

My grandmother inherited her Catholic devotion from Albina. Growing up, Grandma Julie and her siblings would try to sneak off to bed so they wouldn’t have to do the rosary. Albina would always catch them. “mother made us all kneel and do it together, as a family,” Grandma Julie says. “She was a fervent Catholic until the day she died, that woman.”

“We’re not talking to the media,” a woman’s voice says. Click. The line goes dead. Try again, says my editor.

The crime happened on a Saturday night at a north Vancouver convent-turned-rest-home. Albina was living there to be close to her daughter, Sally Horne. According to newspaper clippings, one of the nuns found a bearded stranger in jeans wandering around inside the convent about 3:30 a.m. The man was in his 20s, with messy shoulder-length hair and “striking eyes,” the papers reported. He smelled of liquor. “Where’s the door how do I get out?” he muttered. The nun showed him the exit. The next morning, another nun discovered my great- grandmother dead in her bed. no one suspected foul play; after all, Albina was quite elderly. The nuns cleaned up her body and her room, unknowingly contaminating the evidence before anyone realized a crime had been committed.

Grandma Julie got the news from her brother. “Ed phoned and said mother had died,” she tells me. “She was 96 and you expect these, you know, things. I was glad she wasn’t ill or anything. Then he phoned me back about an hour later and said she’d been murdered. What do you say It’s just devastating.”

The family was grief-stricken and bewildered. How could someone do that to an elderly woman, so randomly “It was surreal,” says my aunt, Julie Ferguson, over the phone from her home in Calgary. “You’re sad that your grandmother passed away, but it’s a different feeling. I was angry. It was anger. Nobody believed it. It was crazy, just crazy.”

Auntie Julie was 19 when it happened, still living at home. She says Grandma Julie took it hard: “I can picture Mom making roast dinner and crying all afternoon.” But life gave a shove and Grandma Julie continued on, tending to her family, her home, her dignity.

“It’s not that she hides things, but she’s not one to hang out her laundry,” Auntie Julie says. “She still cooked meals, made the beds. I would have been on the couch bawling for weeks.”

Ed, an ordained priest, led the funeral mass for his mother. The “psychopath” remained at large; police continued their investigation. Lurid headlines about the slaying disappeared from the papers, and my family tried to come to terms with Albina’s death.

“You know, Edward, I feel so privileged having this past two years with Mum,” Sally wrote to Ed in a letter dated January 21, 1974. “Actually we developed a beautiful mother-and-daughter relationship… She never felt sorry for me—always confident that I would do what she wished—and I did—except at the end when she really needed help. No one was there. Horrors. How strange life is… I’ll always cherish the time we had together. We had fun in our own funny way. This I am going to miss oh!

So much. I feel she has taken part of me with her.”

My second cousin Noela Cossette was also fond of Albina, whom she describes as tiny, gentle and devoted to her family and God.

Albina went to church every morning before breakfast, Noela tells me, and even travelled to the Vatican at age 80. “Religion was the highlight of her life,” Noela says. “But she didn’t push it on you. It was her personal thing.”

Noela is forthright when I ask difficult questions and take notes. How did you react when you heard your grandma was murdered How did it affect you?

“She didn’t hurt a fly, and someone had to do that,” Noela says, shaking her head. “I don’t know if anyone understands it yet. Wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.”

Noela is doubtful police will ever catch the criminal. Every few months, she goes online and plugs the name “Albina Lequiea” into Google, in case there are updates on the case. Once, she found a black and white image of the crime scene.

“Her purse was just sitting there,” Noela says. “It was weird.”

I clutch at that same smidgen of hope for justice. But I don’t find it in the burgundy folder where Ed stored Albina’s papers along with the notes he dutifully took at a police inquest in Vancouver in early 1974. “Injury to larynx… fracture of ribs and injury to vagina…” Ed’s handwriting says. The words are from the statement of Dr. Harmon, who conducted the autopsy.

“Mother called her to close window,” Ed’s notes continue. These are the words of Sister Rose, who spoke to Albina the night of her death. “Pink nightgown. Room very orderly.” Sister Rose was the one who found Albina’s body. “Saw bruise on left cheek… throat and back were blue… blood on sheet—a lot.”

As I read these details, my feelings are conflicted. Intrigue, entitlement. Guilt, invasion of privacy. I question my motivations, my hunger for the gruesome details. Am I inside my family’s home, where grief and loss reside Or am I on the front step, knocking on their door?

This crime happened to a person I never met. I am more than three decades removed. Albina is the name of a stranger, not unlike the many victims’ names I type in news stories. But I am invested in this story. Part of this crime, this pain, belongs to me. I’m knocking on the door, and I want to get answers, but not from my family. For my family. For all of us.

We still don’t know what happened that night. We have not celebrated a guilty verdict or savoured any sense of closure. The bearded stranger in jeans who smelled of liquor is still out there, and 33 years later all my family can do is speculate. Was he on drugs Is he still alive Did Albina wake up Did she fight back?

Speculation Big no-no in journalism. We want the facts, just the facts. But I am a relative, too. Relatives can speculate, can’t they Sometimes I imagine my great-grandmother’s last night alive: Albina took out her dentures and slipped into her pink nightgown. She had her own room, just across the hall from the chapel. She knelt beside her single bed and prayed the rosary. The words came without thinking; Albina had recited them every night for as long as she could remember. It didn’t matter that she was nearly blind; she could feel each bead between her fingers as she whispered, in French, the old prayer: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women…”

“Our Catholic faith says she’s better off where she is now anyway,” Noela says. “She’s well looked after. Heaven must be better than Earth, right?”

Noela’s words cycle through my head as I drive down to Calgary for Grandma Julie’s 90th birthday party. If I were Catholic, would these words console me Would I believe we’re better off up there than down here I marvel at the human ability to reckon with tragedy through faith, to accept unacceptable acts of cruelty.

The birthday girl is dressed in a hot pink pants suit and gold flats. Her white hair has been freshly set in curls. Family and friends surround Grandma Julie’s wheelchair in the nursing home auditorium, congratulating her, hugging her. She is thin and fragile but glows with that famous Lequiea smile. The guests nibble on store-bought white sponge, making polite, meaningless chit-chat: “How’s Edmonton?” “How’s Calgary?” “Julie looks great.”

A wave of alienation rocks me. I feel like an outsider at this party, surrounded by strange faces babbling and shoving cake down their throats. Who are these people Where do I fit in I want to shout: “Don’t you know that Grandma Julie’s mom was murdered Don’t you care?” Do they want the answers Why do I?

What good is an answer if it can’t undo a horrible crime Would knowing who killed my great-grandmother make it all better Would having a name, a face, a life sentence documented in a daily newspaper, help my family make sense of something vicious In some ways, I think the absence of answers allows us to hope. Hope for something that might mollify the rage, soothe the anguish. The question marks allow us to believe in the possibility of mercy in brutality, of sense in what doesn’t make sense.

“Hello, my name is Elizabeth Withey and I’m a reporter at the Edmonton Journal,” I say politely, a few weeks after my trip to Calgary. I press record on the digital recorder connected to the phone. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for relatives of Mrs….”

“We’re not talking to the media,” a woman’s voice says. Click. The line goes dead. My editor tells me to try again later. I nod obediently but, when later comes, I hesitate. Should I call back I should. I really must. It’s my job.

Ethics and duty are wrestling again, ethics on top, duty fighting back. The woman said she didn’t want to talk. Why harass her I could lie, tell the news desk I couldn’t get the family. Who would ever know It’s tempting. But if I can’t dial I shouldn’t be here, in this newsroom. I pick up the receiver, punch in the numbers slowly, deliberately. My pulse throbs thickly under my chin. Ring. Ring. Ring. No answer. There is no answer. My conscience is a commotion of applause and alarm bells. Relief, decency. Weakness, failure.

I’m back on that front step, figuratively this time. Outside, knocking on the door. Seeking answers. But I’m inside, too, and I’m upset, skeptical. A voice inside me is burning: You’re heartless, you people. Why don’t you just scram Just go away.

Thing is, crimes don’t seem to be going away. Bad things keep happening—and as long as they do, media will continue to report on them. Some headlines will be sensational, others more sensitive. The phone will keep ringing. The reporters will keep knocking.

Sure, I want answers. It’s my job to ask questions, so I will continue to ask. But frankly, I don’t know if the whos and the whys will make any difference to my family anymore. They certainly won’t make any difference to Albina.

Maybe I need to stop knocking. Maybe some doors need to be shut for good.

Elizabeth Withey has worked for the Edmonton Journal since 2004. She currently writes for the paper’s Culture section.

The post Closing Doors appeared first on Alberta Views.

Spencer’s landmark polemic, Man Against the State, which was published in 1884, reads like a Ralph Klein campaign  brochure. It  captures the sentiment and sense of Alberta’s peculiar brand of social conservatism and corporate advocacy for a society in which business is minimally taxed, self-regulated, and otherwise unimpeded by the interventions of  the state.

Spencer argued that the sole purpose of government was to protect individual liberty. He defined the common good only in terms of self-interest, rejecting the utility of interventionist economic management and protectionist trade. He also rejected social policy that took collective responsibility for education, working conditions, health or care for the industrial revolution’s poor and dispossessed.

As a biologist, Spencer originated the phrase “survival of the fittest.” As a political and economic thinker, he applied the notion to a society in which the weak and the failed were morally unfit and therefore ought to be written off as acceptable collateral casualties of economic progress and growth. His political theory became known as social Darwinism.

As Britain’s rigid class structure crumbled under the economic and political forces that followed the war, and as the world drifted into a global depression, social Darwinism became the last redoubt of a generation of frightened aristocrats who refused to accept the disappearance of their privileged way of life. In North America, social Darwinism was used by the post-Civil War robber barons to justify their accumulation of wealth during America’s Gilded Age—an age that witnessed some of that nation’s gravest social injustices.

Spencer’s name lay dormant until about 20 years ago when the neoconservative movement, looking to justify the rapaciousness of its anti- government code, appropriated his ideas and rewrote them in a contemporary idiom. The convergence of restored social Darwinism with fiscal conservatism produced a strong cultural ethic of self-interest.

Social Darwinism prevails in Alberta today. Our world view is woven together from the distinctive values of the corporations that drive our resource-based economy, a governing dynasty unchallenged in power for three decades, and rural social conservatives that hold the balance of voting power. Beneath this surface, which commands the public agenda and popular media, is a vigorous dissenting class composed of academics, public servants, trade and professional unions, intellectuals, radical farmers, writers and students. However, their collective but secondary role as a social conscience is over- whelmed by the comfortable, conformist community in which opposition is synonymous with heresy and betrayal, and right thinking is attributed to society’s rich and powerful, its winners. Social Darwinism, the unimpeded pursuit of self-interest, is considered not only desirable, but virtuous.

The so-called Klein revolution, with its deregulation of the marketplace, shows that our government believes in the virtue of unchecked self-interest. The province’s more aggressive and dishonest entrepreneurs have taken this freedom from restrictions as moral permissiveness. One need look no further than the enforcement docket  of the Alberta Securities Commission to recognize that Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen don’t hold any patent on corporate corruption.

In the 12 months from October 2001 to September 2002, the ASC—which administers the Alberta Securities Act, investigates violations and enforces its provisions— sanctioned six senior corporate executives in four major cases and negotiated settlements covering two other alleged breaches. The ASC also initiated criminal prosecutions that saw four men go to jail and a warrant issued for a fifth (who fled the jurisdiction). These cases mostly involved illegally selling securities—violations that amount to simply ignoring the law.

Currently, an ASC hearing is under way into allegations of misleading reporting of natural gas reserves by Blue Range Energy. This case has already led to a com- mission of inquiry and new, tighter regulations for reserves reporting. The ASC has also set a hearing for January into allegations of accounting misrepresentation, stock market manipulation, covert insider trading and payment of secret commissions by executives of Proprietary Industries.

In Alberta, social Darwinism, the unimpeded pursuit of self-interest, is considered not only desirable, but virtuous.

Over the past year, the ASC also issued a stern compliance reminder on reporting requirements and insider trading for mergers and acquisitions, circulated major alerts to warn investors of scams (including on-line RRSP frauds), and initiated tougher regulations for corporate accounting and corporate governance.

Repeatedly, in public statements on these cases, ASC officials have remarked on the disregard for the law shown by many securities law violators. It seems the Bre-X gold scam of the 1990s, and the exposure of the company’s executives, does not deter people bent on ripping off the market.

Still, Alberta’s business elite are convinced of the inherent virtue of the unregulated pursuit of personal gain, and they were shaken—perhaps more so than any other Canadian community except within a stone’s throw of Bay street—by the recent ethical failures at major North American energy, new-economy and accounting companies. Paul Boeda, founding partner in the Canadian Wealth Management Group, which gives personal financial advice to some of Alberta’s most successful  people, asks  whether  we  should  be  surprised  at the staggering scale of these corporate scandals: “Is there now evidence that wealth without a soul turns to greed?” Boeda quotes a 1997 George Soros article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled “The Capitalist Threat,” in which Soros says, “Our capitalist system is no longer threatened from the outside from some totalitarian ideology seeking supremacy—the threat comes from the inside by pursuing self-interest to the detriment of the common good.”

The raw pursuit of self-interest led to unethical practices in Alberta’s early years, too. In the Turner Valley oil rushes of 1914, 1924 and 1936, dubious stock promotions operating from storefronts along Calgary’s downtown streets raked in the life savings of the credulous. A kind of vigilante securities enforcement system—in which lawyers such as future prime minister R. B. Bennett and his friend Senator Sir James Lougheed identified the swindlers and quietly had them run out of town—kept the lawlessness at bay. This “take care of our own” modus operandi prevailed right up to the post-Leduc oil boom of the 1950s. Oilman Bill Herron resigned noisily from Okalta Oils when he was asked by his Montreal-based controlling shareholders to falsify the results of an unsuccessful exploration well so that they could dump shares for a quick profit.

But Alberta also used to have a government that took an active role in regulating the self-interest of corporations and providing for those left behind. When one pre- mier, John Brownlee, was hounded from office after being sued by a young woman’s father for seducing his daughter, he was replaced by William Aberhart, the first Canadian leader to challenge the “do nothing” attitude of Canadian first ministers in the face of the Depression.

Whereas Prime Minister R.B. Bennett told hungry Lethbridge farmers petitioning for drought relief that the role of government in the crisis was to protect the dollar, Aberhart proposed state medical insurance, jobs-for-wel- fare and bank regulation.

Aberhart’s prescriptions for the economic suffering of his times came from his Christianity, a closeness of church and state that would be highly suspect today. But for all his mixing of religion and politics, Aberhart wanted the economy to thrive and believed that corporations and governments had ethical and fiduciary duties to citizens. He acknowledged that these duties would constrain absolute freedom and rights for companies.

Aberhart’s successor, Ernest C. Manning, was a week-end preacher, and weekdays he enforced government ethics in some detail, down to personally checking and approving cabinet ministers’ expense accounts. Under Manning, Aberhart’s ethic gained a blue chip maturity that promoted both corporate prosperity and regulatory probity. Among his achievements was the development of oil and gas regulation that gained a world reputation for being practical, even-handed, effective and thoroughly incorruptible. Alberta became known among the global multinational companies as the place where public officials couldn’t be bribed.

Alberta’s current government, by contrast, bows to the interests of business—either by keeping out of the companies’ way or by throwing money at them—and shows a lack of concern for those left behind. Klein has deregulated electric power and natural gas marketing, taking care of business at the expense of consumers. He has demonized some members of the economy—notably teachers and medical workers—to make his trademark budget cuts more palatable, while bending his commitments to favour others. In 1993, just days after winning an election on the basis of his integrity and credibility, Klein gave Canadian Airlines International a $50-million loan guarantee as part of a survival package, though he had promised that his government would stay out of business. (The package failed.) Subsequently, he refused to bend in spite of overwhelming indications that hospitals and schools needed the same kind of flexibility.

Does the Klein government want to move from its current social Darwinism to a more moral economic model In its much-touted economic summits, the government looks beyond the usual tight circle of Conservative insiders, lobbyists and influence-seekers to the public for input. Whether this is effective depends on the government’s willingness to solicit and utilize critical opinion, say from environmentalists at the Pembina Institute, academics at the Parkland Institute or scholars sponsored by the Sheldon M. Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership. The skeptical view, however, is that such consultative processes are window dressing that by their very novelty affirm that the government remains under the influence of a small economic elite.

The  recent  shortcomings  of the market economy recall the Wall Street scandals of the 1980s that produced the corporate social responsibility movement. Corporate social responsibility holds that companies have ethical duties to protect the environment, to care for workers’ rights, to invest in the community and to practise philanthropy.

This idea has met resistance from both the political  left and right. Conservative economists, led by Milton Friedman, argue that the corporation’s only duty is to maximize the shareholders’ profits, and that philanthropic expenditures are morally wrong uses of shareholder assets. Social democrats argue that the proper way to finance education, health care and community social needs is collectively, through taxation. Allowing corporations to take over this role subjugates government responsibilities to the dictates of the corporatist agenda, widening the power of business at the expense of the democratic role of the electorate.

University of Calgary philosopher John Baker is one of the country’s leading scholars of business ethics. He says companies like Enron, which was an award-winning corporate social responsibility business, thought their performance allowed them a “moral free zone” that licensed an unethical approach to their fiduciary obligations to securities regulators, shareholders and corporate directors. (Enron’s operations in Alberta were characterized by a self-serving indifference to customers, regulators and other stakeholders.)

Since the ethical failures of Enron and its ilk, a movement called economic democracy has gained momentum as a potentially stronger control over corporate ethics than corporate social responsibility. Economic democracy is the empowerment of workers and other corporate stakeholders to participate in the management of corporate affairs. Trade unions represent one form of economic democracy. Proponents also advocate intrusive proposals for corporate governance, such as opening boards of directors to members selected by non-share- holders in order to establish direct accountability to external stakeholders.

Richard Haskayne, who has sat on the boards of 18 major companies and the University of Calgary over the past 27 years, says that business ethics begin with person- al standards of good faith that forbid doing the “technically legal thing when it is not the morally or ethically right thing.” He believes one way to nurture the moral economy is to teach emerging managers and executives  to value their personal reputations above the quick advantage and the lucrative deal. In 2003, Alberta’s corporate and regulatory agendas will be dominated by the question of how to rein in the excesses. Business leaders are wrestling with whether some behaviour is so egregious that, in Haskayne’s words, “it seems beyond the reach of corporate governance,” and must be externally regulated. Nevertheless, a moral economy can’t be achieved by regulation alone; rather, as Paul Boeda asserts, “it must come from hearts and minds.”

Alberta economic leaders reassure us that their corporations are already practising the business ethics that come from an internal moral imperative. Gwyn Morgan is CEO of EnCana Corporation, the biggest independent oil and natural gas company in North America. “An ethical economy is a subset of an ethical society,” he says. “I started as a farm kid with virtually nothing. I had my   ethics and values set by my parents and my community.   The fact that I now lead one of the largest companies in the country doesn’t impact these ingrained values. The high level of personal and economic freedom that people want depends on fundamental values of caring and giving.” In a moral climate where people judge leadership by what it does, not by what it says, EnCana’s employees’ actions will be judged by an ethical code that has strict  rules about bribery, conflict of interest, confidentiality of corporate  information,  honouring  intellectual  property laws and refusing personal gifts from business contacts.   “If it feels wrong, it probably is wrong,” a directive to EnCana employees states. This ethical commitment comes with a business risk. Setting oneself up as a “best in class” company, as EnCana does, invites a higher level of ethical scrutiny and an expectation that there will be a consistency between EnCana’s community work and its commercial practices.

James K. Gray, Canadian Hunter Exploration co- founder and former chair- man, says his company sought to develop a strong moral platform with three legs: family, community and business. “We wanted everyone at Hunter to fulfill their promise, ambitions, potential as part of our job. It created the kind of company that others wanted to partner with, and it made us an employer of choice. We had the business disciplines of geology and finance and so on, but we tried to stay in balance.” Gray personally blazed a trail as a leading opponent of video lottery gambling terminals as a source of government revenues, arguing that the damage to gamblers and their families was morally unacceptable. He says the notion of personal moral commitment as the foundation of business ethics is connected to values that honour quality  and balance in life, not a scoring system based just on quantitative achievement. “Unbalanced greed at all costs for wealth and money quickly was Enron’s undoing,” he says. And, in spite of Milton Friedman’s claim that com- munity investments compromise the corporation’s obligation to maximize profits, “Canadian Hunter made a lot of profit for its shareholders. We didn’t see a trade-off or choice between profits, moral leadership, good ethics and caring for the community.”

Undercurrents of doubt and dissent are being felt in Alberta as thoughtful citizens reject social Darwinism.

University of Alberta political economist Gordon Laxer argues that such corporate ethics will not over- come the prevailing “survival of the fittest” economic model. He believes social ownership of the economy, exemplified by the farm co-operative, credit unions and the grain marketing pools that emerged before the Depression, would lead to a more moral economy. “We need to create a civil commons of shared responsibilities that protects the environment, measures the future by all the legacies it will leave, and has as its ethical test how well it protects its weakest members.”

Undercurrents of doubt and dissent are being felt in Alberta as thoughtful citizens reject social Darwinism. The inequities it fosters breed disorder. The disparity between the incomes of the richest and poorest is widening at an accelerating pace. The family farm is lost to the corporate farm, the small family business shrivels, and the independent Canadian energy producer is absorbed by the multinational.

The prevailing economic framework is at odds with the political and social values upon which a more successful Alberta was grounded—values learned in the human tragedy of the Great Depression and carried forward into public medical insurance, tough energy regulation and a rural co-operative movement, side by side with private investment. In the province’s second century, Albertans will measure growth and progress inadequately if they count only gross domestic product or the ups and downs of the TSE and ignore rates of homelessness, school dropouts or mental health.

The weak and the failed in Alberta society are not acceptable casualties in a winner-take-all economy. Social Darwinism has failed because it is inconsistent with democracy and a free moral economy, both of which are founded on the assumption that all citizens are in this together, that opportunity is community property, that wealth creation and social caring temper one another, promote one another and succeed together.

Frank Dabbs is a veteran journalist and the author of biographies of Ralph Klein and Preston Manning.

The post Survival of the Richest appeared first on Alberta Views.

Yoll is right about one thing. Evidence of the energy industry’s generosity is highly visible in Alberta. Hospitals, charities, sports centres and universities are reaping the rewards of the industry’s good times. Jobs abound, dividends stream in, and energy industry-sponsored community events enrich our lives. But where has the money for these acts of good corporate citizenship come from?

Alberta’s energy companies are entering some of the most repressive and corrupt countries in the world— Indonesia, Russia, Yemen, Iraq, Angola, Libya, Congo, Ecuador and Colombia. The sun doesn’t set on Alberta’s oil empire.

This raises questions about the ethics of doing business with unsavoury governments. Is oil fuelling more than the Alberta advantage Is oil fuelling civil conflict, human rights abuses and environmental destruction If not, Albertans can enjoy the benefits of global energy expansion with a clear conscience. But if it is, will we demand that our oil companies adhere to the same ethical standards abroad as they do at home?

Alberta’s major energy companies are pursuing international  exploration  opportunities  at  an  unprecedented pace. Just as expansion opportunities at home were becoming less inviting, the economic climate of the 1990s—with its emphasis on trade liberalization and privatization—created a welcoming environment for energy companies willing to invest abroad. And Canadian companies, with their reputation as technical experts in remote and inhospitable locations, are frequently courted for international projects. Foreign energy companies with more capital brawn than technical brain pursue Canadian firms as partners of choice in multinational oil consortia.

The Canadian government supports this expansion. Team Canada trade missions promote the energy companies, presenting the skills of Canadian oil and gas to investment-hungry governments. Companies seeking to do business abroad also receive support from Export Development Canada (EDC), a federal Crown corporation. In 1999, the EDC provided over $1-billion in insurance and lending support to Canada’s oil and gas industry.

Outsiders to the oil and gas industry often ask why many of the substantial reserves are in countries—such as Colombia, Sudan and Iraq—that are plagued by civil war, poverty, environmental devastation, HIV/AIDS and child prostitution, and why many of the leaders are corrupt despots with multiple Swiss bank accounts and  fleets of private helicopters. According to a former executive at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the distribution of global oil and gas is but an “unfortunate meeting of geography and geophysics.”

Not all observers, however, see the coexistence of resource extraction and human rights abuses as a benign coincidence. According to a report from Amnesty International: “Foreign companies are turning a blind eye to the human rights violations committed by government security forces and their allied troops in the name of protecting the security of oil-producing areas. The silence of powerful oil companies in the face of injustice and human rights violations is not neutral.”

Many humanitarian organizations believe that the royalties paid by energy companies to host governments help keep repressive regimes in power. Human Rights Watch’s website [www.hrw.org] states, “While these companies are private actors not bound by international human rights treaties…they nonetheless have a moral duty to avoid complicity in human rights violations by state agents.”

Environmental organizations are no less concerned about the impact of oil development. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, for example, warn of the damage caused by gas flaring, pollution of water sources, offshore dumping of obsolete oil platforms, and oil spills.

While many of Alberta’s energy companies are becoming more environmentally aware, few subject potential foreign ventures to rigorous sociopolitical scrutiny. Caught in  a crossfire between repressive governments and local insurgents, corruption and environmental destruction, some companies do pull up stakes, but most stay put—building impenetrable compounds, paying their employees handsomely, and politely overlooking the practices of the regimes they are supporting with royalty dollars.

ENBRIDGE IN COLOMBIA

In October, the Virginia-based Control Risks Group ran its “Kidnap and Extortion Incident Management” course in Calgary. As Colombia is the kidnap capital of the world, Enbridge would have done well to send representatives to this first Canadian offering of the course.

The company is a major player in Colombia, with a 24.7 per cent stake in the OCENSA crude oil pipeline, which spans 675 kilometres from the oil fields in the Andes to the Caribbean coast. It is the largest pipeline in Colombia, transporting upwards of 500,000 barrels of crude each day. Oil is Colombia’s leading (legal) export, and OCENSA carries 60 per cent of it.

Colombia is in the midst of a brutal civil war. Since 1990, 35,000 Colombians have been killed and two million have disappeared in a horrific escalation of political violence involving government forces, paramilitary death squads and armed insurgents.

Colombia’s major oil reserves lie in rebel strongholds, and pipelines traverse some of the country’s most war- torn regions. Kidnapping and pipeline sabotage have become common. According to Control Risks Group, there have been 6,498 kidnappings for ransom in Colombia since 1991, with 1,092 occurring in 2001 alone.

Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada, has some strong advice for energy companies operating in Colombia: “Whenever resource companies operate in areas of conflict like Colombia, the potential for directly or indirectly contributing to human rights abuses is very real. This obligates oil companies to scrupulously ensure that civilians have not been forcibly removed from lands in order to clear the way for oil developments and to put in place security arrangements for company property that are firmly in keeping with human rights standards. Companies must not only refrain from being part of the problem, they should aspire to be part of the solution.

The Colombian government, however, isn’t keen on having foreign corporations intimately involved in its policies. Instead, the government has instituted a producer’s levy of $1 (U.S.) per barrel. Called a “war tax” by human rights observers, the fee is collected by the government and allocated to military resources, such as Colombia’s repressive armed forces. British Petroleum, a major operator in Colombia, has publicly admitted to paying the war  tax.

Compared to companies like BP, Enbridge has attracted relatively little attention for its role in the OCENSA pipeline. Still, concerns over its involvement with the Colombian regime are being raised, and not just by the perennially critical voices of human rights organizations. Last year, two investment companies—Meritas Mutual Funds and Real Assets—prepared a shareholder resolution calling on Enbridge to “adopt measures to avoid complicity in human rights abuses.” Deb Abbey, CEO of Vancouver-based Real Assets, wrote in a Meritas press release that “as investors, we were very concerned about potential human rights risks arising from Enbridge’s operations in Colombia. We were especially concerned that security providers for the company may be associated with the Colombian paramilitaries.”

Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel persuaded the investment companies to withdraw the resolution by signing the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights,a resolution prepared in 2000 by the British and American governments in consultation with respresentatives from the extraction industries and non-governmental organizations. At Enbridge’s annual general meeting last May, Daniel went even further by publicly committing to an independent review of the company’s Colombian operations. Kai Alderson of Real Assets says he is “pleased with the progress made with Enbridge since we withdrew our shareholder resolution. They are definitely moving ahead to address our concerns.”

For now, it seems, Enbridge can enjoy both its operations in Colombia and its reputation as a good, ethical corporate citizen in Canada. In 2001 the company contributed $3-million to Canadian charities such as Calgary’s Festival of Trees and the Families-in-Transition program.

But communities along the OCENSA pipeline aren’t receiving this kind of charitable support. Enbridge spokesperson Jim Rennie says, “The challenge arises from the fact that Enbridge is contracted by OCENSA, which has strict rules over what information can be made public.

This includes information on community relations.” This grey area leaves some Colombian-Canadians asking how Enbridge is able to extract $35-million in earnings from Colombia without contributing to the lives of people who earn, on average, less than $3,500 a year. Manuel Rozental, of the Canada/Colombia Solidarity Campaign, says it is “obvious that companies like Enbridge behave one way in Canada and in an opposite way in Colombia. Their intention is to extract maximum profit at minimum cost.”

ENCANA IN ECUADOR

Legend has it that Gwyn Morgan, CEO of Alberta Energy Company (now merged with PanCanadian as EnCana), adopted the flexible and jolly Gumby as the company’s mascot. Each employee was given a miniature Gumby and encouraged to visualize the company’s share price growing with the ease of Gumby’s flexibility. These days, however, conservationists are calling upon Morgan to adopt a new corporate symbol—the Black-Breasted Puffleg. They fear the construction of Ecuador’s Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP) heavy-crude pipeline—of which AEC Ecuador owns 31.4 per cent, making it the largest private sector oil producer in the country—will bring the bird to extinction.

The 500-kilometre pipeline will cross pristine ecological sanctuaries that are home to over 450 bird species, 10 per cent of which are endangered. It will also pass through an area prone to landslides and earthquakes that could trigger oil spills onto farmland and groundwater. Adding to fears of ecological damage are concerns over the relocation of indigenous communities whose land straddles the pipeline’s path. (The safety of the workers is also a concern. In 1999 eight pipeline operators were kidnapped in Ecuador. The men, employed by a company under contract to AEC, were held hostage for three months until a $3.5-million ransom was paid.)

The  project  has  raised  the  ire  of  environmentalists and human rights activists, some of whom have taken to squatting  in  the Andean  canopies  of  the  Mindo- Nambillo Cloudforest Reserve in an attempt to halt construction. According to the New Internationalist, “the tree-sitters protested peacefully” and were “armed with nothing more than the tents, candles, food and clothes they had walked in with.” Ecuador’s former president Gustavo Noboa deployed soldiers to stop the protesters, pledging, “I’m not going to let anyone screw with the country. I’ll give them war!”

But Noboa’s reaction is understandable. With economic misery, hyperinflation, punishing unemployment and natural disasters on one hand, and pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization to become investor-friendly on the other, Ecuador has had little choice but to sell its oil reserves to the highest bidders.

Ironically, the IMF’s companion organization, the World Bank, has quietly voiced concerns over the OCP pipeline. In a letter to the head of the project, the World Bank’s top environmental official, Ian Johnson, warned that the pipeline, “if constructed or operated in an inadequate manner, would pose serious environ- mental risks to a World Bank-supported conservation project in the region.”

Despite the World Bank’s concerns, Ecuador’s government recently presented EnCana with the “Ministry of Environment Award” in recognition of the company’s environmental initiatives. It is not clear, however, whether this award is a simply a mutually beneficial public relations exercise that creates the impression of an investor-friendly Ecuador and an environmentally responsible EnCana.

TALISMAN IN SUDAN

Sudan is comprised of two groups: the government- ruled Muslim people in the north and the independence-seeking Christian and animist people in the south. The civil war between the groups has left an estimated two million dead and more than four million displaced.

In October of 1998, Talisman Energy acquired a 25 per cent share in both the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) and the 1,500-kilometre pipeline that runs from the oil fields of Sudan to the Red Sea. By early 2001, company president Jim Buckee was talking about looking for an escape route out of Sudan. At the time, Talisman’s shares were trading at a rumored 15 per cent “Sudanese discount,” and the U.S. Congress had drafted a bill that would push companies operating in Sudan off U.S. stock exchanges. In late October 2002, Talisman finally succumbed to the financial pressure the controversy had created and announced the sale of its 25 per cent interest in GNPOC to India’s state oil and gas company for $1.2-billion for what Buckee called an “after-tax accounting gain of approximately C$340-million.”

To be sure, the civil war started long before Talisman entered Sudan, but many observers believe that oil is fuelling the latest and most brutal phase of the conflict. The Canadian government had concerns, too. It sent a delegation led by John Harker to determine the link between oil and conflict in Sudan. Harker’s report, made public in February 2000, concluded, “The evidence we gathered, including the testimony of those directly involved, directs us to conclude that oil is exacerbating conflict in Sudan.”

Around the same time, the United Nations began asking why southern Sudanese were being cleared off their land to make way for the pipeline. Other concerns soon followed, including claims that Talisman was granting the Sudanese army access to company infrastructure such as airstrips for military purposes. In its 2001 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, Talisman acknowledged that “there has been an increase in the use of the airstrips at Heglig and Unity by the Sudan military. We have advocated to the Government of Sudan that the…airstrips should not be used for offensive purposes.”

Talisman, dogged by negative publicity over its Sudanese holdings, became synonymous with corporate complicity in human rights abuses. Yet the company maintains it was improving the lives of the Sudanese.

Spokesperson David Mann said, “Our consortium invested over $2-million (U.S.) last year, building schools, hospitals and water wells for the Sudanese. We believe in constructive engagement, meaning that peace will come through trade, investment and the establishment of a middle class.” When Buckee announced that Talisman was selling its stake in GNPOC, he maintained that his company’s presence had been good for the people of Sudan.

Albertans can all too easily enjoy the rewards of the international adventures of our successful and philanthropic energy companies at home while ignoring the questionable ethics that are being practised abroad. More and more, though, we are making the connection between the social and economic dividends of energy companies and their involvement with dubious regimes around the world. If we act on this knowledge, the oil industry might be forced to adhere to a higher ethical standard—one that balances people, principles and the planet with petroleum.

Alison Azer’s research as the 2001–2002 Public Policy Fellow for the Sheldon M. Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership was on corporate social responsibility in Alberta’s oil and gas  industry.

The post Crude Standards appeared first on Alberta Views.

There is, of course, more to understanding our province’s tradition of piety than sky watching on a summer afternoon. Early immigration patterns set a spiritual tone for a new land that offered freedom from religious persecution for Christian and non-Christian  alike. History dictated a religion-based value system, which has had a lot of influence on the way our province is governed and who we choose to govern it.

Like anywhere else, however, ours is a society on the move. As our province becomes more pluralistic, more multicultural and more secular, it shifts from a one-size- fits-all, religion-based moral code to a range of competing and clashing values. Today’s Alberta is more complex than when it was governed by the Social Credit party of radio preacher William (Bible Bill) Aberhart and his disciple Ernest Manning, whose quirky blends of evangelical Christianity and unconventional monetary policy defined the values of a generation. The task of divining the values of the Alberta voter has fallen to a new crop of political leaders whose core values are not tied to their religious beliefs. Instead, the values on which they base their decisions come from a variety of life experiences. Neither do they adhere to any strict political ideology; they are more prone to pick and choose from a buffet of political thought.

But that suits the times. Albertans are not particularly ideological or religious, either. Despite the province’s Bible-belt reputation, polls show that we go to church less regularly than most other Canadians. Our prevailing laissez-faire attitude toward abortion, gay rights, video lottery terminals and liberalized liquor laws indicates that we by and large reject the notion of imposing our own morals on our neighbours.

Still, we expect our political leaders to show strong moral direction. We may have drifted away from religion-based values, but we retain a knowledge of right and wrong and a sense of moral fair play, and we expect the same from those who govern us. This moral leadership is becoming more critical as undefined phrases such as “Alberta values” and “family values” are thrown about in debates over gay marriage and the future of the social safety net.

How are our values reflected in Premier Ralph Klein’s moral makeup, his values, instincts and motivations Will we have to pay higher medicare premiums and visit private hospitals in the future Are programs for senior citizens threatened by his penchant for reducing the size of government?

We can ask the same of Liberal Leader Ken Nicol and New Democrat Leader Raj Pannu. Do the opposition leaders subscribe to values more attuned to our own?

What does Klein mean when he says something is “the right thing to do” Is it something he believes, or just something he knows the public will buy?

The three leaders come from very different back- grounds, which nurtured beliefs that help define their moral character and political values. Klein grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in working class Calgary, Nicol on a farm in southern Alberta, and Pannu in the midst of social upheaval in India. While the leaders’ values are not necessarily opposed, they are different.

Nicol is forthcoming about the core beliefs that underlie his political thinking. The Liberal leader traces his values to the self-reliance and neighbourly spirit that came from growing up on a dairy farm in southern Alberta. Although he was raised in the United Church, religion was secondary to the importance of community and the rewards of hard work. “When I think of Alberta values, I think of a sense of community, a sense of us all being in this together,” he says. “Some people’s values will be different than others. But what is consistent among Albertans is they want good education and a good health care system because it makes us all better.”

New Democrat Leader Pannu, who was raised a Sikh moderate (he doesn’t wear a turban or carry a ceremonial dagger), feels that his values were influenced by witnessing  the  marginalized, outcast  and  disenfranchised  in his native India being brought into the mainstream. He    sees a need for the continuation of this type of social   change in his adopted country. “I have a vision for a society where democratic rights are entrenched,” he says. “It’s not  enough  just  to  have  public  education  and  health care. It has to be responsive to the individual and society as a whole.”

Klein, the only professional politician of the three, is more guarded. He rarely gives interviews, and when he does, he’s not likely to share his inner thoughts. “How do I define ethics personally?” he said recently, during a typically evasive exchange. “That’s between me, myself and God.”

That isn’t to say, however, that Klein doesn’t make value judgments all the time. When his eyes lock onto yours and he says, “It’s the right thing to do,” you cannot doubt his sincerity. He seems to have a picture in his    mind of what is fair, reasonable and just, measured against what he often refers to as his “moral compass.”

But it is never clear whether Klein is plumbing his own moral depth or just discerning, with uncanny accuracy, what is morally acceptable to Alberta voters. What does he mean when he says something is “the right thing to do” Where does this judgment come from Is it something he believes or just something he knows the public will buy Is he allowing public opinion to replace his own moral compass He never says. As a master of public relations, he doesn’t have to. Perception is reality.

For such a public person about whom so much has been written, remarkably little is known about the real Ralph Klein. But a look at his past helps provide some clues. A product of a broken home, Klein grew up in the 1950s, an era when there was still a social stigma attached to divorce. This may explain the derisive remarks he has often repeated about the former Social Credit government and its Christian fundamentalist brand of social conservatism. Despite pressure from the social conservatives in his Tory caucus, he tries to steer government policy away from divisive moral issues such as gay rights and abortion.

No doubt he recognizes that such social issues are a political minefield. But Klein’s own experiences growing up in a socially repressive political culture likely created a genuine divergence in his values from those   of social conservatives. A latchkey kid shunted between his  mother,  father  and  maternal  grandparents, he knows better than most that the family unit is continually evolving. Klein is more tolerant of untraditional lifestyles than many in his Conservative party, and, as a result, more sympathetic to gay rights. He stared down the social conservatives in his Tory caucus and carried the day when his government decided against challenging the Supreme Court’s Vriend decision that extended human rights protections to cover sexual orientation. On the eve of the legislature’s Easter break in 1998, he appealed to the Christians in his caucus to “use this holiest time of the year to reflect on what it means to be tolerant.” He added, simply, that it was “the right thing to do.” Why he draws the line at gay marriage may have more to do with what he believes most Albertans and his Tory colleagues will accept than with his own morals.

Nicol traces his values to the self-reliance and neighbourly spirit that came from growing up on a dairy farm in southern Alberta.

Klein’s childhood in Calgary’s gritty Tuxedo Park neighbourhood gave him a common touch with the poor and the working class. But while his humble beginnings may have made him sympathetic to the plight of the  poor, he values individual initiative over collectivism, expounding the virtues of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. He pulled himself out of want and poverty,  he reasons, so others should be able to do the same, an attitude that’s reflected in his government’s tight-fisted welfare reforms and work-for-welfare schemes.

After dropping out of high school for a brief stint in the air force, Klein finished his schooling at a privately run business college. He remains suspicious of universities, viewing them as ivory towers of academia without much everyday use. His government cut funding for universities more severely than for post-secondary technical schools and has been channeling most of its reinvestment in education into engineering and high-tech fields while neglecting the liberal arts. He values institutions of higher learning more for their role in preparing future generations for the workforce than for their pursuit of knowledge. This bias, along with his faith in the free market economy, explains the proliferation of learning partnerships between the private sector and post-secondary education in Alberta. His government’s attitude, which seems to reflect his own, is that the state has minimal responsibility for a student’s post-secondary education. It’s up to the individual to make it through by hard work and bank debt.

Klein wasn’t raised in a particularly religious atmosphere, but he underwent a personal epiphany when, as a CFCN TV reporter covering the Siksika Nation east of Calgary, he adopted Blackfoot religious traditions. He continues to seek comfort and inspiration in a spiritual world that emphasizes harmony with nature, although he won’t say to what extent those spiritual beliefs affect his daily decisions.

As a popular television reporter covering Calgary’s city hall, Klein became frustrated with downtown development plans in the boom-time 1970s that further marginalized the working poor and disenfranchised. With what he called a “burning in the belly” to challenge the status quo, he pulled off a stunning victory in 1980 to become mayor of Calgary. The classic political outsider, he appealed to Alberta’s maverick spirit when he over- came a slate of establishment Conservative candidates in 1992 to win the party leadership and the premier’s office.

Because of his humble origins, Klein fits our own image of the self-made Albertan. In short, he’s one of us, faults and all. But this is where his portrait as the self- assured man of the people gets a little murky. Despite his much-vaunted ability to read the mood of the average voter, he has come a long way from being one of the common people. While he once said a politician should feel just as comfortable in Calgary’s exclusive Ranch- men’s Club as in the down-market St. Louis Hotel, he hasn’t been spending much time in the St. Louis lately.

He has surrounded himself with the wealthiest and most powerful Albertans, and often appears more interested in doing their bidding than in acting in the interests of the average citizen. Klein seems to have adopted the mindset that whatever is good for corporate Alberta is good for all Albertans.

More pragmatist than ideologue, Klein pays close attention to popular opinion but has never claimed to   be a populist. When public opinion conflicts with his own political will, he’s inclined to try to change the public mood through any means available. In 2000, when Albertans were practically rioting on the steps of the legislature over Bill 11, his contentious private health care legislation, his response was to counter the public anger with a taxpayer-funded public relations drive. Although it is debatable whether it really changed the public’s mind about private health care, his Conservatives increased their majority in the 2001 general election and picked up seats in Edmonton, the Bill 11 battleground.

Pannu’s values were influenced by witnessing the marginalized, outcast and disenfranchised in his native India being brought into the mainstream.

Beneath the slick advertising and his televised addresses, it is still unclear what values are driving Klein’s health care agenda. While it may have been a matter of economics during the debt crisis and federal funding cuts of the 1990s, the current return to Lougheed-era surpluses has eased fiscal pressures. Klein insists he’s not blaming the sick, but he has often said he believes Albertans should share in the financial cost of medicare, which is why he has rebuffed moves—even from within his own caucus— to eliminate medicare premiums.

Klein’s belief in a mixed economy likely gives him comfort that there is enough room for private and public health under the same roof, just as he thinks parents should have the right to choose between public and private education for their children. When confronted with the argument that private clinics will erode public medicare, his response seems naive in its simplicity: “Why would we want to destroy the health care system We need it, as do our friends and family.”

Perhaps that is Klein’s essence. Rather than debate an issue on its merits, he sells the Alberta public on himself and his ability to deal with whatever problem comes along. He shuns opposing viewpoints because that could generate debate, which he would rather avoid. Instead, he prefers to approach public discourse from a position of power, where he holds all the cards, has the biggest advertising budget and can manipulate the media. The ultimate promoter, he sells the sizzle, not the steak.

This doesn’t apply only to health care. When polls suggested that seven in 10 Albertans favoured ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, he launched a costly campaign to swing public opinion against it. Within months, the results reversed: 72 per cent of Albertans opposed the accord. Again, the issue isn’t the merits of the initiative itself. The issue is whether Albertans trust their premier to do what is right for them.

Some have characterized Klein as a right wing ideological warrior. But his record shows he is malleable to the prevailing political mood. His first brush with party politics was as a Trudeau Liberal, likely because he felt it suited the mood of the times. He toyed with the idea of running for the Liberals provincially, until he recognized that his best chances for political power lay with the Conservatives. Reading the topsy-turvy political climate of the day, he stole the cost-cutting platform from the Liberals in 1993 and saved the Conservatives from almost certain defeat.

Since then, he has cut spending, reduced the size of government, privatized liquor retailing and registries, deregulated electricity marketing, and cut taxes while hiking health care premiums and other user fees. All of this is consistent with his conservative conversion.

Along the way, Klein’s belief in public utility has been lost. As mayor of Calgary, he pushed the city hundreds of millions of dollars into the red to finance light-rail transit in time for the 1988 Winter Olympics. As premier of Alberta, however, he’s reluctant to put money into streets and roads, leaving municipalities to consider toll roads and privately funded bridges.

In the post-deficit era, he has reinvented himself once again, throwing money at his problems, and thereby committing the same sins he has accused others of committing. Although he trumpets open government, he treats Albertans as taxpayers rather than citizens, affording only a fortunate few the opportunity to influence his government’s policies. His round tables, summits and standing policy committees tend to be little more than sounding boards for his own ideas and those of his colleagues.

Klein’s Conservative government’s latest incarnation can best be described as one of drift. Neither right wing nor centrist, and certainly not left wing, its philosophical epicentre seems to shift depending on whatever crisis presents itself. Little thought is given to long-term direction or purpose.

Klein’s political opponents seize on this inconsistency as evidence of a lack of political values. “The first two terms were very much small-c conservative, very focused on the business agenda, very focused on the individual and individualism,” says Liberal Leader Nicol. “Now, it’s hard to see where they are.”

Nicol, who entered politics out of frustration with the construction of the Oldman River dam in southern Alberta, subscribes to a small-l liberal philosophy where the state encourages private initiative but also has a responsibility to provide for the weakest of its citizens. He says this philosophy validates his support of a social safety net that includes public education and health care, and solidifies his belief that the state shouldn’t interfere with personal liberties by defining marriage or outlawing abortion.

An economics professor on leave from the University of Lethbridge, Nicol uses an economic model to differentiate himself from the Conservatives. Under his view of economics, intervention is justified if it forces the private market to work for the betterment of society rather than just the wealthy. He argues that the Conservatives’ hands- off approach to the free market fails those it is supposed to serve. “This government has time and again told Albertans they are committed to the value of the output of the province, not necessarily the people of this province,” he says. “In other words, the growth in our output isn’t being distributed to the income-earners, whose income is falling behind; it is going to the wealth-owners.”

New Democrat Leader Pannu, a retired professor of sociology from the University of Alberta, is suspicious of both the Liberal and the Conservative models. He believes that the free market is at odds with the people it is meant to serve unless it is reined in by strict democratic controls. “As a sociologist, I see democracy and markets as competing forces,” he says. “Markets are about competition, becoming bigger and stronger. They represent a lot of power. At many times, market forces treat democratic rights in an antagonistic manner.”

As a social democrat, Pannu believes individuals should have democratic control over the functioning of their economic and social institutions. While a socialist would argue that all businesses should be state-owned, Pannu accepts private ownership but thinks institutions should be controlled by the people they serve. His belief in individual empowerment of the average citizen under- lies his support for abortion rights, gay marriage and the right to public health care and education. He says he entered politics because he saw the Conservatives acting in the interests of business to the detriment of citizens.

Being in relatively small opposition parties affords both Nicol and Pannu the luxury of consistent and firm political values. In government, the game is different.

Compromise is the order of the day. Reconciling seemingly incompatible interests is more difficult because there are more interests to be served. To his credit, Ralph Klein has been extremely good at this. He has been able to control a Conservative party that includes people with a range of values, including social conservatives and social liberals, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, supporters of public education and advocates for private schools. By nature, a big-tent governing party is more reflective of the diverse opinions and values of the population than small opposition parties are. Public opinion polls suggest that a majority of Albertans approve of what Klein is doing. While that may not prove that Albertans share his values, it is an indication that he is still good at gauging the values of Albertans.

“How do I define ethics personally That’s between me, myself and God.”— Premier Ralph Klein

But Klein’s talent for reading and responding to public opinion raises questions about the moral direction    of his government. Nicol characterizes it as a rudderless administration lacking in vision. “He is able to respond very quickly to a change in public opinion,” he says. “But when the premier says ‘it’s the right thing to do,’ is it the right thing for today or for the future There is a real discrepancy.”

Pannu fears he is trading his sense of values for short- term popularity. “I have great respect for his political antennae,” he says. “He is extremely able to read the public mood. But when one does that too much, you tend to lose the benefit of the moral compass inside you. You lose judgment. You make decisions that reflect a slippage into amorality.”

Larry Johnsrude is a political writer with the Edmonton  Journal.

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