Ralph Klein

Klein began his term as mayor with a significant infrastructure project. The newly relocated Calgary Flames were moved to the city just as the city prepared a bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics. A stadium was necessary for both purposes and City Council debated the merits of several locations for the city's new Olympic Coliseum, and narrowed their choices down to two areas in the Victoria Park neighbourhood on the east end of downtown.[46] Two other sites, one on the west end of downtown, and a late bid by several businessmen pushing to build the arena in the northern suburb of Airdrie were also considered.[47]

The Saddledome's location within Stampede Park, as seen from the Calgary Tower

The Victoria Park Community Association fought the bid to build the arena in their neighborhood, threatening to oppose the city's Olympic bid if necessary.[48] City Council voted on March 3, 1981 to build the proposed 20,000 seat arena on the Stampede grounds, immediately east of the Corral and south of Victoria Park.[49] The community continued to fight the city over rezoning the land to allow for the new arena amidst fears of traffic congestion in their neighbourhood which resulted in numerous costly delays to the start of construction.[50] In a bid to end the battle, Mayor Ralph Klein asked the provincial government in July 1981 to take over the land designated for the arena to bypass the appeals process and force approval.[51] The province supported the city amidst protests by community associations and invoked rarely used powers to overrule planning regulations, allowing construction to begin.[52] The following day, on July 29, 1981, builders began construction of the arena.[53] The International Olympic Committee was impressed that the project was underway, as noted in the XV Olympic Winter Games official report which stated "The fact that this facility was already being built added credibility to (Calgary's) bid and proved to be a positive factor in demonstrating Calgary's commitment to hosting the Games".[54]

During his tenure he presided over the 1988 Winter Olympics, the first Canadian city to host the winter games. The 1988 Calgary bid proposed by the Canadian Olympic Association (COA), would spend nearly three times what the rival Vancouver group proposed.[55] Ralph Klein and other civic leaders crisscrossed the world attempting to woo International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates as the city competed against rival bids by Falun, Sweden and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.[56]

While the games were viewed as a success for Klein and the city of Calgary, it was not without its issues. Residents had been promised that only 10 percent of tickets would go to "Olympic insiders", IOC officials and sponsors, but OCO'88 was later forced to admit that up to 50 percent of seats to top events had gone to insiders.[57] The organizing committee, which was subsequently chastised by mayor Klein for running a "closed shop", admitted that it had failed to properly communicate the obligations it had to supply IOC officials and sponsors with priority tickets.[58] These events were preceded by OCO'88's ticketing manager being charged with theft and fraud after he sent modified ticket request forms to Americans that asked them to pay in United States funds rather than Canadian and to return them to his company's post office box rather than that of the organizing committee.[59]

During the 1988 Olympics, Klein mistook the King of Norway Olav V for his driver, and asked that he fetch the car. Olav, who was startled, explained who he was as he pulled out his silver cigarette case, after which Klein bummed a cigarette from him.[60]

Klein oversaw the development of the Calgary's light rail transit system (known as the Ctrain) which began operation on May 25, 1981 shortly after Klein's first term began, and expanded as the city has increased in population.[61] The system is operated by Calgary Transit, as part of the Calgary municipal government's transportation department.[62] The South Line was planned to extend to the northwest, political pressures led to the commission of the "Northeast Line", running from Whitehorn station (at 36 Street NE and 39 Avenue NE) to the downtown core, with a new downtown terminal station for both lines at 10 Street SW, which opened on April 27, 1985. The "Northwest Line", the extension of the South Line to the city's northwest, was opened on September 17, 1987, in time for the 1988 Winter Olympics.

The federal government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program (NEP) which "effectively imposed revenue-sharing burdens on oil and gas revenues in Alberta,[5] in the October 1980 budget shortly after Klein took office as mayor of Calgary.

While he was mayor, the city enjoyed an economic boom. This was contrary to the 1980s global recession around the world. Calgary attracted many unskilled labourers from all over the country. Klein gained unfavourable national attention by blaming eastern "creeps and bums" for straining the city's social services and police.[63] Prior to entering provincial politics, Klein considered himself a Liberal Party supporter. He supported the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney in the 1988 federal election.[64]

By the mid-1980s there was a worldwide oil glut, a serious surplus of crude oil, with the world price of oil dropping from over US$35 per barrel to below $10.[65][66] The glut began in the early 1980s as a result of slowed economic activity in industrial countries (due to the crises of the 1970s, especially in 1973 and 1979) and the energy conservation spurred by high fuel prices.[67][68][69] Time Magazine stated, "the world temporarily floats in a glut of oil."[70][71] By 1993, when Klein took office, Alberta's debt had reached C$23 billion.[72] Despite lower oil prices, Alberta was largely shielded from the early 1990s recession.[73]

Balanced budgets and repayment of the provincial debt were significant long-term goals of Klein's premiership. In 1993, Klein delivered an economic strategy paper which promised to balance the provincial budget by 1997 without raising taxes.[73] The backbone of the economic plan was austerity, often called the "Klein Revolution", or the "Alberta Advantage", as Klein called it. The first priority was reduction of the provincial payroll, which led to the abolishment of more than 4,000 public service positions through amalgamation or elimination of government agencies.[73] Another 1,800 government jobs were eliminated by the privatization of liquor retailers, and motor vehicle and property registration services.[73] The 1994 budget required all departments to cut 20 per cent from their operating budgets and all public servants saw a 5 per cent pay cut and a two year salary freeze.[74][5]

The Klein government initiated the sale of the provincial Crown Corporations and investments, including the public telephone company, AGT,[72] Alberta Energy Corporation, and provincial ownership stakes in other business entities.[73]

At the 2004 Calgary Stampede, Klein announced that the province had set aside the necessary funds to repay its public debt in 2005.

Klein was re-elected for a fourth term in the 2004 provincial election held on November 22, 2004 with a reduced majority, as he only won 47% of the vote, and only 62 out of the 83 seats.

"Never again will this government or the people of this province have to set aside another tax dollar on debt..."Those days are over and they're over for good, as far as my government is concerned, and if need be we will put in place legislation to make sure that we never have a debt again."

— Ralph Klein 2004

Ralph Klein and sculptor Ryan McCourt at the unveiling of "A Modern Outlook" in Edmonton, Alberta.

From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $25/barrel. A rebound in the price of oil worldwide led to big provincial surpluses in Alberta since the mid-1990.[72] During 2004, the price of oil rose above $40, and then $50. A series of events led the price to exceed $60 by August 11, 2005, leading to a record-speed hike that reached $75 by the middle of 2006.

Political analyst David Taras of Mount Royal University argued that although Klein was popular, he failed at public policy. His focus on paying down Alberta's fiscal debt during an oil boom - a time when interest rates on debt were low - was done "at the expense of hospitals, roads, light rail transit lines, and investing in better health-care services or education."[5] Rich Vivone, who was involved in Alberta politics from 1980 to 2005, claimed Klein "had the trust and popularity to do almost anything he wanted and survive" and his "fiscal achievements early in his career were significant, but he "utterly failed at health reform and economic diversification" and he did "little for culture, recreation or the arts."[75]

As the global price of oil increased Klein created the Prosperity Bonus, known locally as "Ralph Bucks," in which the Alberta government sent a $400 cheque to each Alberta resident not in prison, at a cost of $1.4 billion.[76] ATB Financial's Todd Hirsch observed, "I think we missed some great opportunities to invest in our post-secondary education systems; instead, we frittered away our money. People got a couple of dinners and put some gas in their Hummer, and that was about it.[76]

Health care and funding were another significant policy objective for the Klein government. In 1994, the Klein government introduced the Regional Health Authorities Act[77] to the 23rd Legislature which amalgamated the 204 hospital boards into 17 regional health authorities.[74] The hospital boards were given significant autonomy to decide which hospitals would be closed or downgraded to the status of community clinics.[74] This resulted in the closure of several urban hospitals including Calgary's General Hospital demolished via implosion in 1998,[78] and the closure of one other hospital in Calgary, and one in Edmonton.[74] The number of acute care beds were halved in a period of three years and coverage of many medical services was reduced or eliminated.[74]

In 2000, the Klein government introduced the Health Care Protection Act (Bill 11)[79] to the 24th Alberta Legislature concerning partial privatization of healthcare evoked large protests at the Legislature. The bill allowed private for-profit clinics to perform minor surgeries and keep patients overnight, which had previously only been performed in hospitals.[80] Klein blamed the two sitting NDP MLAs for fighting the reform, inciting the protests and forcing him to back away from the reform that he still supported.[81] Federal Health Minister Allan Rock expressed his grave reservations over the legislation, but did not deem the Health Care Protection Act to violate the Canada Health Act.[80]

The Klein government continued to search for efficiencies in health care, and in early 2002 the Premier's Advisory Council on Health led by Don Mazankowski released its framework for reform report often referred to as the Mazankowski Report.[82] The report included 43 recommendations the government fully accepted, including more choice, more private involvement, more competition and accountability, less comprehensiveness and increased user medicare co-payments for Alberta's health care system.[82] The direction of the Mazankowski Report towards privatization was expected, however, observers expected a much more radical report. The 2002 budget introduced a few months later raised medicare premiums, tobacco and liquor taxes, eliminated dental and optical subsidies for senior citizens, and also cut the corporate tax rate.[82]

In July 2005 Klein delivered a speech on the "third way" of health care which would lie between the American system and the Canadian system.[83] He proposed a series of provincial health care reforms that would potentially violate the Canada Health Act. Klein's reforms for Alberta would have permitted for-profit care and made it possible to jump queues, to "allow patients to pay cash for some surgery and let doctors practice in both the public and private health systems."[84] Public outcry forced the government to listen to Albertans and the third way was not legislated.[83]

Klein responded by exclaiming, "I don't need this crap" and throwing the Liberal health care policy book at a seventeen-year-old page who had delivered the book during question period in the Alberta legislature.[85] The same booklet later sold on eBay for a reported $1,400, signed by Alberta's Liberal Leader Kevin Taft, with the caption, "Policy on the fly".[86] Earlier in the question period he also had to apologize for calling Liberal leader Kevin Taft a liar on the floor of the legislature, which is considered unparliamentary language. His apology consisted of saying, "Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I won't use the word 'fib.' I'll say that he doesn't tell the whole truth all the time - most of the time."[87][88] Reacting to comments made in March 2006 by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty opposing any two-tiered health care system in Ontario that Klein has proposed in Alberta which would allow quicker access to surgery for those who pay, Klein stated "I'm no doctor, but I think that Mr. McGuinty's got a case of premature speculation".[84]

"This was matched by the elimination of or reduction of hours for 14,753 positions in health care. Regionalization of Alberta's health care was intended to rationalize health services."

Ralph Klein serving as Marshal at the 2005 Calgary Stampede Parade

Calgary's economy was so closely tied to the oil industry that the city's boom peaked with the average annual price of oil in 1981.[89] As the price of oil rose Alberta's budget surplus stood at $4 billion in 2004. The province used this surplus to eliminate its $3-billion debt.[72]

The subsequent drops in oil prices were cited by industry as reasons for a collapse in the oil industry and consequently the overall Calgary economy. Low oil prices prevented a full recovery until the 1990s. Major investment incentives for oil sands companies were introduced by both the federal government under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the provincial government under Klein. The Liberal federal government "reformed and streamlined the tax write-offs it allowed for oil sands firms." Klein "scrapped a welter of one-off royalty deals to create a generic royalty – one that demanded only token payments in the first years of the megaprojects." This facilitated oil sands development.[5]

According to the Calgary Herald,[90]

"Ralph Klein's legacy is inextricably linked to his government's role in encouraging the province's energy industry – particularly his role in presiding over the province as development in northern Alberta's oil sands flourished."

— Kelly Cryderman

Klein changed Alberta's royalty system so that oil companies paid only one per cent of their profits to Alberta until they recovered the cost of the project. The royalty rose to 25 per cent once the recovery cost was reached. Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) claimed there was almost $4 billion coming from oil sands royalties in 2006.[1]

In late June 2003, Klein and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met to discuss the route of an Alaskan oil pipeline, which Klein argued had to be integrated with the extensive Alberta pipeline system. This was popular with Cheney and other advocates of North American energy independence in the oil industry.

At the end of Klein's term one of the most common concerns "was that Albertans were not getting enough money for their resources."[1]

Cheney had met with Klein to discuss the American ban on Albertan beef that was in place following discovery of mad cow disease in a cow in Alberta in 2003. The cow was inspected, found to be substandard and removed so that it would not be fed to animals or humans. The carcass was processed into oils and the head sent to the United Kingdom where the case of mad cow was confirmed.[91] Klein said, "I guess any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he didn't do that," referring to the farmer in northern Alberta whose animal was found to have the disease when it was taken to a slaughterhouse.[92] Exports of Canadian beef cattle had already been stopped at the U.S. border, with other countries already following suit. Japan had been a key stumbling block to getting the U.S. border reopened because it made clear it might rethink taking U.S. beef if it had Canadian beef mixed in with it. Klein called on the federal government of Canada for support, citing the response to the Toronto SARS crisis in previous months.

In June 2003, an Ontario Superior Court Charter ruling removed federal restrictions on same-sex unions being recognized legally as marriage. Klein repeated a promise to use the Notwithstanding Clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to veto any requirement that the province register same-sex marriages. Contrary to many media reports which annoyed Klein, this was a position of the Alberta legislature itself, passed five years earlier, and not a new position of his own. In December 2004, Klein called for a national referendum on the issue of same-sex marriage. This plan was quickly rejected by the government of Paul Martin and by federal Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper.[93]

Following the federal Parliament's approval of same-sex marriage in 2005 via Bill C-38, Klein announced initially that his government would fight the distribution of same-sex marriage licences. However, he later recanted, stating publicly that there was no legal route to oppose the federal act (neither via the notwithstanding clause nor the province's power over civil marriage), and the government reluctantly acknowledged the marriages.[94]

Economic diversification was one of Klein's goals. In December 1990 Klein announced the final approval for the construction of "North America's newest and largest pulp mill" by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. (Al-Pac). It was the "first in a new generation of pulp mills constructed to meet higher environmental standards put in place in the late 1980s."[95] Al-Pac received a loan of $264 million from Klein from the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund in what Klein called a "sweetheart deal." Against the advice of the Auditor General and the Provincial Treasurer on March 31, 1997 Klein wrote off the $140 million loan to the Alpac Joint Venture with Mitsubishi/Crestbrook/OJI et al. when prices were low for pulp.

It was under Klein's government that the Alberta Sheriffs Branch, was re-organized into its current state. The Klein government increasingly utilized CAPS, the precursor to the Sheriffs Branch, for special provincial law enforcement duties instead of the RCMP. In 2006, CAPS was renamed and the newly christened Sheriffs Branch was expanded rapidly to take on assignments that previously were the purview of the RCMP, the provincial policing authority.

It was at this time that the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams were created as well.

Klein's social and environmental views were seen by opponents as uncaring. Supporters argued in response that Klein was merely choosing appropriate priorities for limited government funding.[78]

Klein was opposed to the Kyoto Accord, since Alberta was a major producer of oil and natural gas, and he felt that environmental measures would hurt the economy. The successive government initiated a massive carbon-capture project.

Klein made national headlines again as environment minister when he flipped off an environmental activist who was protesting the government's decision to allow the Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. (Al-Pac) pulp mill to be constructed near Athabasca. Klein defended his actions by noting that it was the protester who made the offensive gesture first.

At a 2002 fund-raiser Klein joked,

"You know, my science is limited to the fact that I know that eons ago there was an ice age. I know that for sure. I know that at one time, the Arctic was the tropics. And I guess I wonder what caused that? Was it dinosaur farts? I don't know."

— Ralph Klein

Prior to the 2004 election, Klein stated his intention to serve only one more term in office. Pressure mounted on Klein to set a firm date and, following such a request from party executive director Peter Elzinga, Klein announced on March 14, 2006, that he would be tendering his resignation on October 31, 2007.[103] He later proposed that his resignation would take effect in early 2008 after a successor is chosen at the party's leadership election.

Klein announced this timetable days before party delegates were to vote in a review of his leadership on March 31, 2006. The drawn-out schedule for his retirement, along with his announcement that any cabinet minister who wished to run for leader must resign by June 2006, generated a large degree of controversy, including criticism from cabinet minister Lyle Oberg who was subsequently fired from cabinet and suspended from caucus.

When the leadership review ballot was held (March 31, 2006), only 55 percent of the delegates supported Klein. This was down from the 90% level of support he had won at previous reviews and far lower than the 75% Klein said he felt he needed in order to continue. The result was described as a "crushing blow" to Klein's leadership. [104]

Prior to the vote, Klein had said he would resign immediately if he did not win the leadership review by a "substantial" margin. In the hours following the vote, Klein released a statement thanking delegates for their support and saying he would take several days to consider his future.

Given the results of this vote, I intend to meet with party officials and my staff to discuss my next step. I will do this as quickly as possible and announce a decision about my future shortly.[104]

— Ralph Klein

At a press conference on April 4, 2006, Klein announced that as a result of the lukewarm vote for his continued leadership he would submit a letter in September to Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party urging it to convene a leadership contest. Klein said he would resign as party leader and premier after a successor was named, and would assist the new leader in their transition to premier.

Klein officially handed in his resignation as party leader on September 20, 2006,[105] officially kicking off the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership race. However, Klein remained premier until the new PC Leader, Ed Stelmach, assumed office on December 14, 2006.

Klein resigned his seat in the legislature on January 15, 2007.[106]