EDMONTON – Alberta’s finance minister won’t run in the next election, capping an eight-year career of Grade A political clout marbled by an acerbic persona that left him as publicly cuddly as a rusty razor blade.
Ron Liepert delivered the news to his Progressive Conservative caucus colleagues on Wednesday.
He could not be reached for comment but was expected to deliver the same message to his Calgary-West riding association Thursday night.
“His departure is mixed for the party,” said political scientist Keith Brownsey of Mount Royal University in Calgary. “Is the government going to lose a very competent individual? Yeah, they will.
“But that abrasiveness, that speaking the truth, doesn’t always sit well with the public.”
Liepert, 62, was appointed finance minister by new Premier Alison Redford and is to bring down her first budget when the spring sitting begins, probably in February.
Redford has said she wants to table a budget before dropping the writ for a spring election to be held sometime between March 1 and May 31.
It is likely to be the last act for Liepert, a Saskatchewan-born former journalist who joined the Tories more than 30 years ago as media handler to then-premier Peter Lougheed.
Liepert has been in and out of the party ever since. He’s mixed private-sector work with federal and provincial politics.
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He ran Redford’s failed campaign to win the federal Conservative nomination against Rob Anders in a Calgary riding seven years ago – a loss that helped put Redford on the radar as a rising star of the centre-right.
He was elected to the provincial legislature in 2004 and gained political traction two years later when Ed Stelmach took over from Ralph Klein as premier.
Since then, Liepert has served in the highest offices of government short of the top job: education, health, energy and, finally, finance.
In every portfolio there has been action and controversy.
In education, he helped Stelmach broker a 2007 pension plan deal with teachers. It was a deal that came after Liepert bypassed the Alberta Teachers’ Association to offer a sweetheart $25-million pension deal directly to new instructors only.
The association was outraged. There was talk of a strike. Tensions cooled only after Stelmach stepped in and offered the $25 million to all teachers.
In the health portfolio, Liepert amalgamated all the regions into one superboard. That cost the province millions of dollars in administration and salary payouts.
Two years later, the province announced it was returning some power to the regions because the centralized superstructure was proving inefficient.
As health minister, Liepert rejected advice to move ahead with a syphilis awareness campaign, even though the disease was moving into the mainstream and some infants were dying.
He said he didn’t think the campaign would be effective and that those at higher risk had to be responsible for their own health.
Two years later, then-health minister Gene Zwozdesky announced a $14-million campaign to combat syphilis infection rates that were among the highest in Canada.
Raj Sherman, who served as junior health minister under Liepert, was kicked out of caucus over a year ago in part for criticizing Liepert’s approach.
Sherman, an emergency room doctor who is now Alberta Liberal leader, said Liepert was “rude and offensive” to front-line staff.
The plain-spoken Liepert made it clear he didn’t care for Sherman’s plain speaking.
“He needs to retract the comments he made about me and, if he fails to do so, I don’t believe he should sit in caucus.”
Liepert often crossed swords with the media: he disparaged questions and questioners, answered questions with questions and partook in the occasional face-to-face standoff with a reporter who refused to take sarcasm for an answer.
Liepert often said he had little time for “negative” reporters and political opponents.
The high-water mark, said Brownsey, came in 2010 when Liepert was shuffled into the energy portfolio to smooth the feathers of an angry industry.
Stelmach had been taking a lot of heat over a decision to revisit energy royalties. The move sent drilling business out of the province and dropped Tory popularity precipitously in Calgary.
“He was a very good minister of energy,” said Brownsey. “The oilpatch liked him a lot. At least they knew he was a straight shooter and understood their needs and interests.”
But when Redford replaced Stelmach in October, political watchers did not expect Liepert to remain in cabinet, given that he had publicly criticized her promise for an inquiry into allegations that doctors had been bullied and punished by bureaucrats.
He wasn’t in the legislature for her swearing-in on Oct. 7, but days later was by her side at Government House as the new money minister.
Redford said it wasn’t about finding people who just nod their heads.
“When I got involved in provincial politics he was one of the first people that I met,” said Redford at the time.
“He will be a very important adviser.”
Liepert is one of many longtime Tories who will be leaving politics when Redford drops the writ. Non-returning veterans include Iris Evans, Stelmach and Lloyd Snelgrove.
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