We need another provincial election, and preferably before the year is out.
I can hear voter groaning already, by those who haven’t succumbed to apathy and who do manage to get themselves to the polling stations.
“Not another election! We just had one in three and a half years ago (March 2008). They’re a waste of time and money, the results are always the same.”
Yes — this would be Alberta. Another election. The same results.
But when someone becomes premier, especially through the party leadership process, there should soon follow a general election.
It should be written in stone.
The Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership process will come to a close with Saturday’s second ballot.
It would seem, though, that the contest is already over.
It ended when Gary Mar, seen by many as the frontrunner from the get-go, picked up 41 per cent of the 59,537 votes cast on Sept. 17.
Mar is soon likely to become leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and, as it happens since the Tories are the government of the day, Alberta’s 14th premier as Ed Stelmach is turned out to pasture.
The other remaining contenders, Alison Redford and Doug Horner, received 19 per cent, and 14 per cent, respectively.
The party has said bye-bye to the bottom three vote-getters — Ted Morton, who got 12 per cent; Rick Orman, 10 per cent; and Doug Griffiths, four per cent. All three have since said they are supporting Mar.
There’s no guarantee the people who voted for Morton, Orman or Griffiths will follow them but it hardly matters.
Unless something completely unforeseen happens with the Mar campaign, he’s to be Alberta’s main guy under the Dome.
To be precise, he’ll actually be on the edges of the Dome. A former Calgary MLA, Mar does not now hold a legislative seat. He’s been a bureaucrat representing Alberta in Washington, D.C., for the past four years.
He’s talking this week about all sorts of things he’s got planned during his first 120 days as Alberta’s next premier. Yet he wouldn’t even hold an elected seat when he takes over from Stelmach.
When Stelmach was chosen as Tory leader in late 2006, he was an MLA. Taking over from Ralph Klein, he held off calling an election for a whole 16 months.
Fair enough — give Mar his 120 days to get a buzz going, his feet under him and his ducks in a row. And then there needs to a general election.
Mary-Ann Barr is Advocate assistant city editor. She can be contacted by email at barr@www.reddeeradvocate.com, by phone at 403-314-4332 and on Twitter @maryannbarr1