Progressive Conservative leadership challenger Ted Morton has always seemed to me to be a kind of Canadian mix of Conservative guru William F. Buckley and President Teddy Roosevelt.
Like Buckley, Morton is elegant and eloquent, and like Roosevelt—who liked to live what he called the “strenuous life”—Morton is an avid hunter, fisher and skier.
Yes, Ted is a multi-faceted individual by any measure.
But the 57-year-old political science professor and MLA did not really want to listen to my views on American politics, rather he wanted me to listen to his views on Alberta politics.
Fair enough, because there’s a considerable chance at the leadership convention, Morton could come right up the middle and by the end of this year be our province’s premier.
Actually, coming up the middle, while sounding dramatic, might be the wrong way to assess the situation, because Morton is rated as one of the top three candidates right now.
As the race starts to get into high gear—he figures as soon as Labour Day hits, the leadership scenario will move from within party ranks into the public’s consciousness—Ted has already mapped out his platform.
The Foothills-Rocky View MLA is exasperated at how Premier Ralph Klein’s government has gone on a reckless spending spree.
“It’s absolutely shameful since 2000 our government’s spending has increased at twice the rate of the provincial GNP.”
Not only is such spending unsustainable—it’s frightening.
So Morton wants to put a tight cap on spending—and also wants to safeguard the Heritage Fund from money-grabbing politicians.
In real terms, the Heritage Fund, meant by Premier Peter Lougheed as a longterm economic strategy, has less money in it than it did 20 years ago. That’s despite soaring oil prices.
While Morton wants to bank 30% of all revenues from non-renewable resources, he also wants to make those revenues “politician-protected” so no government can suddenly raid them as an election looms.
Who can argue against that.
The man Maclean’s magazine lauded as one of the most popular professors over an incredible span of 25 years at the University of Calgary is also a forceful voice for democratic reform.
He contends there should be term limits for premiers and MLAs—with a two-term maximum for a premier.
“The formula for MLAs is a little more problematic because we’d have to look at which MLAs are being groomed because of their talents and which MLAs are just filling seats.”
How right you are, Ted.
And, friends, look at it this way, if we now had term limits for premiers, Klein would have retired a hero, rather than being humiliated when his own party turned against him, and we wouldn’t be witnessing the embarrassing fiasco we have now with Ralph still clinging to power by the tips of his fingers.
As for MLA term limits, I recall one veteran MLA telling me privately he kept running for re-election simply because of the paycheque and the perks.
That MLA—and others like him—in control of his constituency’s hierarchy—prevent younger and brighter individuals from contributing to our province.
A close friend and admirer of Prime Minister Stephen Harper—and of Reform party founder Preston Manning—Morton was relieved when the Conservatives won the Jan. 23 election.
Yet he still believes our province faces a threat from Ottawa—Jack Layton’s New Democrats, Gilles Duceppe’s Bloc Quebecois and Michael Ignatieff, the frontrunner in the federal Liberal leadership stakes back a carbon tax—so we must be on guard against a grab for our natural resources wealth.
“While we are not under direct attack from Ottawa now, we are still vulnerable. Stephen’s win gave us a window of opportunity to work with his ‘open federalism’ initiative, but we must work to protect ourselves for any eventuality.”
That means quickly putting into place measures to end federal raids on Alberta’s non-renewable resource revenues—and that includes backdoor assaults such as changing the equalization formula and sleight-of-hand switches to other federal transfers.
There’s much more on the issues from Morton, and we’ll be hearing much more in the weeks to come, but for sure Ted’s both a credible and a formidable candidate.
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