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Alberta premier: Ministers after his job should quit cabinet

CALGARY — Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach says any cabinet minister who wants his job should resign once the leadership campaign to replace him officially starts.

CALGARY — Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach says any cabinet minister who wants his job should resign once the leadership campaign to replace him officially starts.

Stelmach says that’s what he did when former premier Ralph Klein stepped down, because he didn’t want to appear to be using his cabinet job to promote himself.

“For those potential candidates, anybody who is in cabinet should do like I did — and that is resign from cabinet to pursue the leadership,” Stelmach told the Fort Saskatchewan Record, a newspaper in his riding east of Edmonton.

“When Ralph stepped down, I didn’t officially announce it until after he handed in his letter of resignation.”

Stelmach has not indicated when he will officially resign or when the leadership race will begin. But he has said the campaign must wait until after the spring session of the legislature and the passage of the government’s budget, which his Conservative caucus approved this week. The session is scheduled to run into June.

When he announced on Tuesday that he won’t seek re-election, Stelmach also said his government’s fiscal plan won’t slash funding to municipalities, health projects, schools or road construction at a time when people need work.

The premier told the newspaper he wants to shepherd the passage of his final budget.

“I haven’t called the leadership yet because I am the premier, and we have to do the budget. That’s critical. The budget will be tough. On the other hand, it’s going to be fair and it’ll be responsible.”

Deputy premier Doug Horner, Finance Minister Ted Morton, Justice Minister Alison Redford and MLA Doug Griffiths have all said they haven’t ruled out leadership bids.

Veteran Tories, such as Sustainable Resources Minister Mel Knight, says the government has too much important work to do to rush the leadership process. And he has suggested that the race not begin until after this year’s harvest.

“There is not any necessity to rush into anything. We have a session in front of us and very serious work to do. We need to have a budget,” Knight said in an interview.

“This will be the fourth leadership I will have been involved in and I think some time in the fall would suit me. I don’t know if it is necessary any sooner than that.”

In Stelmach’s newspaper interview he also expanded on one of the reasons behind his decision to step down — personal attacks in the media.

He said it’s fair game to attack government policy, and politicians need to have a thick skin, but he said some attacks go too far.

“Nobody saw the cartoon in Fort Saskatchewan probably, but the Herald in Calgary ran a cartoon depicting me as a Nazi and not supporting the poor, and that is totally wrong,” Stelmach said. The premier is of Ukrainian descent and the Nazis ravaged Ukraine during the Second World War.