Under pressure from his own party, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein announced Tuesday that he will announce his retirement in September 2006, ending his reign as Canada's longest-serving Premier one year earlier than he'd previously hoped.
During the Progressive Conservative Party's annual meeting in Calgary last weekend, Klein's approval rating was only 55 percent—a dramatic drop from the 90+ percent approval ratings he'd gained in the past, and well below the 75 percent many believed he needed to retain his grip on power.
Observers have commented, however, that plummet in support was not a statement about Klein himself, but rather a way for party members to register their disapproval of his previously planned 'long goodbye,' which wouldn't see him step down until autumn 2007. "That support was not what I anticipated, nor is it strong enough to stay on as long as I had intended," Klein told a news conference in Edmonton.
He will now announce his retirement in September and ask the Conservatives to choose a new leader. He said his last day in office will likely be in December.
Jim Dinning, a former provincial treasurer and the architect of Alberta's fiscal turnaround, has been widely tipped as the front-runner to replace Klein as party leader. That may change, however, with the possible addition of Preston Manning into the leadership race.
Manning, who founded the federal Reform Party and whose father Ernest Manning was once Alberta Premier, made the surprise announcement last weekend that he was "open to being persuaded" to run for leadership.
The 63-year-old Klein, who had previously served as Calgary's mayor, took power as Alberta's Premier in December, 1992. Since that time, in addition to carving out a legacy as the Premier whose reign saw Alberta become the first province to eliminate its debt, Klein has also established himself as one of the most colourful and controversial individuals on Canada's political landscape.
In 2002, for example, the anti-Kyoto Protocol Premier said of global climate change that it was just as likely the "dinosaur farts" caused the ice age.
While serving as Calgary's mayor, Klein complained that "eastern bums and creeps" were responsible for the city's crime rate and for straining its law enforcement and social programs.
He made headlines in 2001 when, appearing to be drunk, he made a late-night stop at a homeless shelter, threw money on the ground, and swore at those staying there. After the incident, Klein vowed to moderate his drinking habits.
Along the same vein, he also once said that Alberta would give a bus ticket to Vancouver to the province's less fortunate so they could make use of British Columbia's generous more social programs.
Just last month, on March 1st, Klein was made to apologize during question period in the Alberta legislature for calling Liberal leader Kevin Taft a liar. "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," said Klein. Later the same day, Klein threw a Liberal healthcare policy book at the 17-year-old legislative page who had brought it to him. "I threw it at the page and I said: 'I don't need this crap.' And then I apologized," explained Klein.
In 2005, Klein defended the province's beef supply after more cows were found to have mad cow disease. "You would have to eat 10 billion meals of brains, spinal cords, ganglia, eyeballs and tonsils to get the disease,'' he famously remarked, later offering $10 billion Canadian dollars to any Japanese person who contracted mad cow disease from eating nothing but Alberta beef.
With files from Reuters
Feeds