The key measures in the 2001 Firewall Letter are now UCP policy, from an Alberta pension to sovereignty-based legislation
These are triumphal times for bedrock Alberta conservatives. They are happy politicians and policy wonks, most delighted with their success.
Even their enemies can’t doubt it: Conservatives have “moved the dial” on every key issue, from tough sovereignty-based stands against Ottawa to health care reform and many other issues.
Twenty years ago then-PC premier Ralph Klein almost got run out of the province for suggesting a Third Way in health care through some private options.
Now the door to private care swings wide open. Many Albertans just want care however they get it. That includes people who once despised the very thought of private care.
This political landscape seemed fantastical only a decade ago.
Ted Morton, the former PC finance minister who ran afoul of then-premier Ed Stelmach, is getting a hero’s welcome at events plugging his new autobiography, Strong and Free.
In the introduction Morton wrote, “Suddenly, many of the Alberta Agenda—a.k.a. “Firewall”—policies and ideas I had championed unsuccessfully had now been supported by two successive conservative majority governments.
“The same reforms that were on the periphery of Alberta provincial politics twenty years ago are now front and centre.”
Morton was referring to the “Firewall Letter” he co-authored in 2001 with Stephen Harper and other prominent conservatives. They sent it to Klein, who squirmed.
The letter shocked the country. Critics called it extremist, un-Canadian, and other names far less civil.
Today, the key measures are UCP policy, reality or aspiration — provincial pension, provincial police, massive shakeup to health care, sovereignty-based legislation that prohibits municipalities from dealing with Ottawa, and much more.
Morton chronicles his misadventures in a Progressive Conservative government whose foundations were already crumbling. (I finally learned who leaked to me his 2011 letter of resignation. It was Ted, as part of an elaborate multiple-MLA plot to depose Stelmach.)
Every revolution has its sacrifices. Morton ran for the PC leadership twice in 2006 and 2011, losing both times.
The Alberta centre would hold through Alison Redford, the brief and tragic tenure of Jim Prentice, and the government of Rachel Notley’s NDP.
Then came the merger of conservative forces as the United Conservative Party under Jason Kenney in 2017. The fiercest battles were now internal. In 2022 they culminated in Kenney’s resignation and Danielle Smith’s shocking capture of the UCP leadership.
Smith’s political life had seemed to be over after she and most of her Wildrose MLAs crossed the floor to the PCs in 2014.
And yet, she became premier by harnessing the power Morton began to unleash in 2001.
One of the most interesting characters in all this is Rob Anderson, who became Smith’s chief of staff this week. A close friend of the premier, Anderson is now the second-most powerful political person in Alberta.
As a young lawyer and PC MLA for Airdrie-Chestermere, he was always a fierce advocate of intense resistance to Ottawa.
In 2010 he shocked everyone by crossing the floor to Wildrose with fellow MLA Heather Forsyth.
Although it wasn’t obvious then, they had launched an internecine conservative battle that would last a decade.
But in 2014, in that moment of pure political madness he went along with Smith to join the PCs.
They became pariahs to Albertans all over the spectrum. For Anderson it was worse. He was a double floor-crosser (often shortened to double-crosser).
“When I first broke into politics I was very idealistic and a bit naive,” Anderson says now.
“I certainly did take a lot of chances and made a lot of mistakes. The floor-crossing from Wildrose was a massive misjudgment. But you learn from these things and hopefully I’m a better person and public servant because of it.”
In 2021, he did something that proved crucial to her Smith’s ultimate success.
With Barry Cooper and Derek From, Anderson wrote the Free Alberta Strategy. It took two steps beyond the Firewall letter by calling for an Alberta Sovereignty Act, and raising separation as a legitimate last resort if no settlement with Ottawa could be reached.
Smith latched onto the sovereignty agenda and plunged into the UCP leadership race. Her stance consumed the campaign and sharply separated her from the other candidates.
Anderson insists he didn’t have that much influence.
“There were a lot of good ideas out there. How many papers have been written on this? You know, dozens and dozens.
“She took not just the Free Alberta strategy, but the Firewall letter and many other thoughts on this, combined them and made them her own, and she’s been very successful with it.”
Ted Morton, Danielle Smith, Rob Anderson — three players who were once dismissed as no-hope crackpots. They’ve won and don’t plan to lose again.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.