Bloomberg – by Rebecca PentyAlberta Premier Alison Redford, facing mounting criticism over travel expenses and her leadership, plans to step down this weekend as head of Canada’s fourth most-populous province.
“I am not prepared to allow party and caucus infighting to get in the way of building a better future for our province,” Redford, 49, said at the provincial legislature late yesterday. “Too much time has been spent over the last few weeks on questions of loyalty and allegiances and character.”
Redford’s departure leaves a political void for the governing Progressive Conservative Party, which has ruled the oil-rich province in Western Canada for 43 years. Redford, Alberta’s first female premier, steps down less than three years after being named leader, and will remain a member of the provincial legislature.
Redford’s resignation, effective March 23, comes after two members of her caucus left to sit as independents after raising questions about the premier’s expenses and her leadership. Redford billed the province C$45,000 ($40,000) in travel costs to attend the funeral of former South African leader Nelson Mandela. Redford later repaid the expenses.
The payback failed to lift public support for Redford, according to a ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc.poll released yesterday. Redford’s support fell to 18 percent according to the survey, the lowest among party leaders in Alberta, with 70 percent saying they’d be less likely to vote for the Tories due to the expenses.
Unchartered Territory
“To see a sitting premier with these numbers amidst a provincial economy functioning as well as Alberta’s is today, is truly uncharted territory,” Marc Henry, president at Calgary-based ThinkHQ, said in a statement about the poll’s results.
Redford took over from former Premier Ed Stelmach in 2011, and was re-elected in 2012 to form the province’s 12th consecutive majority government, in a victory over the Wildrose Party.
The last sitting Alberta leader to see approval ratings under 20 percent was Don Getty, the premier from 1985 to 1992 who was grappling with a struggling economy, successive budget deficits and plunging oil and gas prices, according to ThinkHQ.
The Alberta government said this month it will post a C$1.09 billion surplus from higher resource revenue and corporate taxes in the year starting April 1. Economic growth in the province, home to the world’s third-largest crude reserves, outstrips the rest of Canada.
Flaherty Resigns
Redford’s departure came as presidents of Tory constituency associations in Calgary andEdmonton prepared to meet yesterday evening to vote on whether to ask the premier to resign, Global News reported, not saying where it got the information.
The departure also comes just a day after Jim Flaherty, one of Canada’s longest-serving federal finance ministers, announced he would step down immediately to seek work in the private sector.
Redford made no comments about a successor in her address, saying the Progressive Conservative caucus and party “will have a decision to make in the weeks ahead.”
Redford is part of a new breed of female premiers in Canada who control the majority of Canada’s economy and population, with Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia also run by women leaders.
The most prominent international file for Redford was advocating for U.S. approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The $5.4 billion TransCanada Corp. (TRP) proposal to link rising volumes of oil-sands crude with Gulf Coast refineries, which has raised the ire of environmentalists who say it would worsenclimate change, was first rejected by President Barack Obama over environmental concerns with its path through Nebraska. A revised pipeline with a new route is now being reviewed to determine whether it’s in the U.S. national interest.
Next Election
The Alberta Tory party may have time to recover lost public support under a new leader with two years until the next provincial election, said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
“The difference this time is they’ve never faced an opposition as strong in the Wildrose Party,” Bratt said in a CBC TV interview. “There’s never been as much in-fighting and the depths of bad polls as they are right now.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Penty in Calgary at rpenty@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Badertscher atpbadertscher@bloomberg.net; David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net Chris Fournier
This bitch (Redford) also attended the Bilderberg conference in 2012
http://publicintelligence.net/2012-bilderberg-meeting-participant-list/