How long was ralph klein premier

He accomplished that feat by persuading voters to accept massive cuts — more than 20 per cent — in public spending. Klein dubbed his austerity campaign, the man known as King Ralph proved he could cut. Late in his tenure, Mr. He also helped kick-start the explosive growth in the oil sands. The federal government reformed and streamlined the tax writeoffs it allowed for oil sands firms, while Mr.

Klein's government scrapped a welter of one-off royalty deals to create a generic royalty — one that demanded only token payments in the first years of the megaprojects. A pragmatist rather than an ideologue, Mr. Klein was often dismissed and under-rated by press and pundits, but few were better at connecting with the electorate.

He had an uncanny ability to convince voters to accept smaller, meaner government and to forgive him when he blundered. His frequent stumbles, usually fuelled by drink and a motor mouth, were followed by tearful apologies rather than denials and stonewalling.

This unaffected, just-folks manner aroused affection rather than derision in most Albertans. Re-elected as an MLA in his Calgary-Elbow constituency four times, he always ran about 20 points ahead of his party in popularity. Klein served three consecutive terms as an immensely popular mayor of Calgary and presided over the Winter Olympics before becoming Alberta premier. The defining moment for his political style was set in the early s and, as so often happened in subsequent years, it began with an inebriated Mr.

Klein shooting from the lip. He had barely draped the chain of office around his neck as mayor of Calgary in when Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government announced the National Energy Program.

The NEP effectively imposed revenue-sharing burdens on oil and gas revenues in Alberta to ameliorate the effects of higher gas prices in other parts of the country.

Animosity registered deep and fast in the province, giving rise to the infamous bumper sticker: "Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark. That was the atmosphere when Mr. Klein agreed to speak at an evening event in January, , welcoming newcomers to his city, many of them from east of the Manitoba border. Already well oiled, Mr. Klein lashed out at the "creeps" who arrived without skills or resources, bumped up Calgary's welfare rolls, stretched unemployment lines and boosted crime rates.

Instead of pressuring the mayor to grovel — an unlikely prospect — he put Mr. Klein on a media and speaking tour of Ontario and Quebec to explain how Calgary was being hurt by economic problems elsewhere.

Condemnation gave way to grudging admiration for "a personable mayor who delivered the straight goods in the face of furious opposition," according to Klein biographer Don Martin in King Ralph: The Political Life and Success of Ralph Klein. As for Mr. Love, the bums and creeps tour remained one of his favourite memories of working with his boss.

Taking his "telling it like it is" message directly to the people became Mr. Klein's trademark as premier. Whenever he had a tough situation to turn around, or an election campaign to wage, he would tool around the province with his wife Colleen in his RV, just talking to folks.

Journalist and policy analyst Rich Vivone says Mr. Klein "had the trust and popularity to do almost anything he wanted and survive," but he lacked the ability to turn his populism into public policy. His "fiscal achievements early in his career were significant," writes Mr.

Vivone in Ralph Could Have Been a Superstar , but he "utterly failed at health reform and economic diversification" and he did "little for culture, recreation or the arts. There is a huge distinction, he says, between Mr.

Klein's impact as a politican and the poverty of his public policy initiatives. He won his political battles, he crushed his opposition, he himself was good for probably 2, votes in every riding in the province. He was a populist, he had an intrinsic feel for where the political centre was and for the political mood of the province," says Prof. Taras, comparing Mr. Klein's political agility to a "cat on a hot tin roof. But the policy side was dismal, says Prof.

Taras, describing Mr. Klein as a politician without "nuance," who couldn't look beyond the immediate target to a long-term goal and who was a "great failure" as a visionary. So, in terms of "a long-term legacy, of being a builder and an investor in the future, all of those are wanting. The longer he was in office, the larger were his policy faults, says Prof. A key one was paying down the provincial debt in the midst of a booming economy in , especially since "the interest charges didn't amount to very much" by then.

And those are some of the deficits his province and his party are confronting today. Ralph Philip Klein was born on Nov. He quickly imported and married his English girlfriend.

They had four children, including a son who became Ralph Klein's father. Philip Klein was a drifter and his wife an alcoholic.

After they divorced, Ralph was raised mostly by his maternal grandparents in a working-class neighbourhood in Tuxedo Park in the northern part of the city. Quickly realizing he had made a serious mistake, Mr. Klein became so depressed that he qualified for a medical discharge. As a veteran he was given free tuition and a monthly stipend for vocational training at Calgary Business College. There, Mr. Klein became an avid student, excelling in accounting and commercial law.

When he graduated, the college offered him a teaching position. They had a daughter, Angela, four years later. A natural at working a room, Mr. Klein did well at Calgary Business College, quickly being promoted to principal, but quit for a higher-paying job in public relations for the Canadian Red Cross; a few years later he moved to a communications job at the United Way of Calgary.

A man who drank as hard as he smoked, Mr. Klein loved the social aspects of public relations in the early s — hanging out at the press club, trading sources with journalists and honing the skills that he would later use to advantage as a politician. His carousing had a sour effect on his marriage, but it did the opposite for his career. By , Mr. Two years later, he had moved in front of the station's television cameras as a weatherman, quickly mastering the craft of scribbling numbers backward on a glass weather map.

Before long he netted a plum assignment, covering city council. His down-to-earth style - and a clever campaign orchestrated by the man who would guide his political career for the next 17 years, Rod Love - attracted enough voter support to upset 2 strong candidates including the incumbent.

Folksy and humorous, his manner made him one of Calgary's most popular mayors. His most significant achievement as mayor was bringing the Winter Olympic Games to Calgary. Klein was elected to the legislature in the riding of Calgary-Elbow in and was immediately named minister of the environment.

In Dec he succeeded Getty as Tory leader and premier, largely on the strength of his populist appeal to rural Alberta voters. Saddled with a large deficit from the previous Tory government, Klein nevertheless was able to distance his government from his predecessor's policies and ride his popular appeal to a victory over the Liberals in the provincial election on 15 June Klein's government introduced legislation that required the government to balance its budget by To accomplish this, the Tories implemented severe expenditure cuts, government downsizing, and the privatization of some services.

A series of severe expenditure cuts was met with little resistance from a population intent upon seeing its financial house put in order. At the same time, the government expanded government-run gambling, which proved to be a windfall. The cost cutting and the revenue generation succeeded, and thereafter the Tories recorded a series of budgetary surpluses. Their success had a wide influence on other provincial governments, which began to duplicate Alberta's cost-saving measures.

Klein's government was elected to a second term on 11 March , largely on the strength of the government's financial record and the premier's personal popularity. The government then slowed its debt reduction and began to reinvest in programs such as health and education. The period between and saw the Alberta government's coffers bolstered by higher oil and gas royalties.

Klein pointed to these surpluses as proof that his government's economic agenda of low taxes and minimal government - often termed the "Alberta advantage" - was working. The government continued pursuing deregulation and privatization, while lowering taxes still further. Klein, a one-time television reporter who was also mayor of Calgary, had been suffering from dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and had been out of the public spotlight that he basked in for much of his adult life.

Klein often grabbed national notoriety, not just for the common touch that won him popularity with Alberta voters even as he slashed public services, but also for frequent jibes at opponents.

After the latter incident he admitted to having a drinking problem, although he would never vow to give up alcohol. But such foibles and his ability to move past them only endeared him to voters.