EDMONTON – To the skirl of bagpipes and the cheers of family and friends, Alison Redford took the oath of office Friday to become Alberta’s 14th premier.
“What happened here was that Alberta politics caught up with where Albertans are already at,” Redford, 46, told guests crowded into the legislature’s rotunda and leaning over the balconies.
“During the (leadership) campaign, I heard from thousands of Albertans,” she said.
“Their concerns were overwhelmingly about the same things: better access to health care, better education for our children and the need for a more disciplined approach to our spending priorities.
“I look forward to naming a new cabinet and taking action on these priorities as the first order of business.”
Redford thanked her supporters, particularly the nine-year-old girl in the purple dress sitting behind her and fidgeting with her fingers.
“My daughter Sarah, who has been wise and supportive beyond her years,” said Redford, turning around to address her directly.
“I’m very proud of you, Sarah. And I love you very much.”
She thanked her husband, lawyer Glen Jermyn, her father Merrill Redford, and sisters Lynn and Melody. All were present for the swearing in.
Redford also paid tribute to her 71-year-old mother, Helen, who died in hospital from an infection just four days before the final leadership vote.
“The only shadow on today is my mom, who’s not here to see it. Without her … I wouldn’t be here today,” said Redford, her voice catching.
She said it was her mother who pushed her down the path of politics, “who first encouraged my interest in democracy and government and public service.”
Sitting in the middle of the front row was Redford’s 74-year-old father. He worked hard on his daughter’s leadership campaign, pounding in signs on front lawns in her hometown of Calgary.
He said in an interview later that his daughter was laser-beam focused on the premier’s chair from an early age.
“Everything Alison has done from the time she was 16 was done for this,” he said.
“She became a lawyer. She worked in South Africa. She was in Afghanistan. She was in Ottawa. She had her own law firm. And all of this was just for this thing right here.”
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Redford’s rise to power has been meteoric. She is still a rookie legislature member for the governing Progressive Conservatives, having been elected in the Calgary-Elbow constituency in 2008.
She was immediately promoted to cabinet and served as justice minister until she resigned earlier this year to run for the retiring Ed Stelmach’s job.
Before that, Redford worked for the federal Tories: in the offices of one-time external affairs minister Joe Clark and former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
After Ottawa, she travelled the world working for various governments to promote judicial and democratic reforms. She has worked in some of the most desperate and strife-torn regions: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Bosnia, Serbia, Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Her victory in the wee hours Sunday shocked the party’s old guard. Redford ran as an outsider on the inside with almost no support from anyone in caucus. She promised to revisit or roll back many of the key decisions made by Stelmach’s government.
She has promised to restore $107-million that was cut from education funding – and to do it within 10 days of being sworn in. She has also promised to restructure controversial laws on land planning and to revisit power line projects to guarantee more public input, judicial recourse and compensation.
Another plan is to strike within three months an independent committee to review how legislature members get paid. She has promised fixed election dates and more decentralized decision-making to improve health-care delivery.
She also wants an independent judicial inquiry into allegations that politicians helped friends jump the health-care queue and that bureaucrats intimidated doctors into keeping quiet about avoidable patient deaths.
Stelmach’s team resisted repeated opposition calls for such an inquiry during the spring sitting. The Tories said the evidence didn’t support such alarmist accusations. When Redford promised the inquiry earlier this year on the campaign trail, Stelmach publicly wondered if she was working for the Tories or the opposition.
But it was Stelmach who gave Redford a hug on the stage Friday after he delivered his resignation letter to Lt-.Gov. Don Ethell. And Redford praised Stelmach for his commitment to public service.
“I want to thank him for the kindness that he extended to me and the honour that he brought to the office of premier.”
While Friday was Redford’s first formal day on the job, critics have already delivered the message that there will be no political honeymoon.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees has said it’s concerned about the new premier’s campaign promise to collapse several ministries into a super-sized social services portfolio.
The union also has misgivings about her promise to revisit all government spending to see if service can be delivered better in the community or the private sector.
Redford is to announce a new cabinet Wednesday. There has already been public grumbling from current ministers expected to be on the outside looking in.
One is Energy Minister Ron Liepert. Earlier this week, he criticized as unnecessary the planned inquiry into health department problems, some of which, if true, would have occurred on his watch.
Liepert was not in the rotunda for the ceremony.
Another absentee was Treasury Minister Lloyd Snelgrove. He supported Gary Mar, a former health minister who seemed such a shoo-in to win the deciding vote Oct. 1 that his supporters were urging rivals to drop out for the sake of party unity.
Snelgrove told a newspaper in his constituency that he doesn’t agree with Redford’s policies and won’t serve in cabinet if asked.
The rival right-of-centre Wildrose party has also taken aim at Redford with two TV spots. The commercials feature leader Danielle Smith and extol the Wildrose as the only true voice of conservatism left in Alberta. They accuse Redford of being power hungry and willing to promise anything to get elected.
The ads note that Redford said this week she would call off the fall sitting of the legislature, only to change her mind after opponents labelled the move undemocratic.
Redford has said she’ll call an election within a year, but Wildrose house leader Rob Anderson said that’s a far cry from her promise of a fixed election date.
The actions are vintage Redford, he suggested.
Anderson sat with Redford in the Conservative caucus until he crossed the floor to join the Wildrose.
He said she never raised concerns about any of Stelmach’s policies.
“Not once did I ever see her stand up against (regime changes on oil) royalties, against the centralization of health care, against the record deficit (budgets),” said Anderson.
“I can’t tell you how many times I saw her patting the premier on the back (saying), ‘Great job. Great decision on centralizing health care. Great job on the budget’ … and now she says she was against all those things.
“Well, which is it?”
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