A Ukrainian Farm Boy from Andrew Alberta

[coppertop]

For the past months and in some case years, many people have worked tirelessly for various candidates as they competed for the political Stanley Cup, namely the office on the third floor of the Alberta Legislature.
There are no losers in the democratic process, and tonight the real winners are Albertans.

It is gratifying to me to know that a young boy from Alberta, regardless of his ethic or religious backound can aspire to be the Premier of our province.

Ed Stelmach never sought the office of Premier until he was approached to seriously consider it. When we met at his campaign office to develop policy, he sat with us and told half a dozen of us after the main group of people had left....that the campaign would be run with integrity, respect and he would listen to Albertans as he made his way across the province.

He will reach out to the party members, and above all he will bring caucus together. He will work with Ted Morton to ensure that those who supported him feel that their vote counted. If Jim Dinning does decide to run in the next election, which I doubt, he too will play an important role in a Stelmach government.

All through this campaign, Ed has told us, he was not interested in what the other candidates promised, he was only concerned with what Ed Stelmach could do for Albertans.

Quite a way for the kid who played under the kitchen table and eavesdropped on his parent's conversations to the Legislature, but it couldn't happen to a better person.

When Ed first indicated he was going to run for the leadership he was dismissed as a common farmer, who in the world but a few other farmers would support him ?

Through the campaign he was dismissed in most of the media as a nice guy but not a serious contender. Tonight throngs of people are crowding around the farm boy pretending to have been with him all along. As I listen to his acceptance speech I could not be more pleased. He will be a good premier !!!

[wilagro]

I too was elated in Ed's election win. I hope he will manage Alberta's affairs with competance and skill.

Congratulations Ed Stelmach, our new Premier of Alberta.

[cowman]

Incredible! Who would have ever thought it?
Well coppertop you sure can pick the dark horse! I guess my record is holding up...I never have the guy I like, win!
Oh well, back to the Alliance! In a way this is good because I would have really had to hold my nose to vote for Oulette!

[grassfarmer]

Good luck Stelmach, pleased to see the redneck extremest Morton beaten!

[blackjack]

...congrats coppertop... albertan's have to chosen to stay the status quo ...who can blame them things are flowing along very well...wonder if all the bad things like bad infrastructure planning or all the problems in the social programs will make a miraculous turn about ... one thing that makes the picture clear to me ...us albertans like to think of ourselves as these free independent people but it looks has along we have a govt that we can suck from the hind tit everything is peachy...

[gallard]

Congratulations to the new premier, Ed Stelmack. He did a great job in the cabinet posts he was assigned to by Ralph and he will thus understand the workings of government. We should be proud of the choice "the people" made!
The choice made in Montreal,last night, I think, was made by political manoevering and does not represent "the pepole of Canada". I hesitate to refer to the French issue but we have had a series of Quebec power appoitments as prime ministers and their interests to do not coincide with the parts of Canada outside the golden horseshoe. Paul Martin tried to portray himself as anglophone but his financial power and base were in Montreal.
We can only hope that Stephen Harper stays in power long enough to clean up the messes that Sheila Fraser has unearthed and those problems that she hasn't had the opportunity or legal power to get at. there is certainly merit in a sunset clause for politicians and maybe ralph was an example of two terms and let some one else try!

[coppertop]

cowman, at least you had the opportunity to vote for the person you wanted as premier, even though you were just a 20 minute PC !!! The PC party coffers certainly have increased due to this process, hopefully by the time the next leadership contest happens they will have learned how to run a USER FRIENDLY vote !!!

The confusion, sparse numbers of polling stations in rural alberta etc. certainly didn't make voting easier for party members, both existing and the ones that jumped on the bandwagon just for the vote.

cowman, from the day I called Ed and asked him what I could do to help with his campaign, I NEVER considered him a dark horse. All of us working on his campaign new that once people in Alberta saw first hand his demeanor, heard his from the heart words etc., the more popular he would become.

Sure, he is not the worlds greatest orator, he knows it, he has a ukrainian accent, but to those who know him that is EDDIE. I think if you had attended any of the forums you would have seen how he stood there, before they commenced, thoughtful, giving careful consideration to his speech etc., while the two gentlemen who ultimately finished in the top three were posturing, looking for television cameras, and once the cameras turned on them, in some cases they flubbed their speech because they were trying so hard to be 'on' for the camera.

One special interest group was approached to arrange a meeting with Ed, no-one in their group HAD TIME, to sit down and have a chat with him about their specific concerns, they dismissed him from the get go. Bet this morning they are scrambling to arrange an appointment as soon as possible !!!!

Tom from the Calgary Herald nailed it last night when he said people were tired of Jim Dinning being ' on stage' all the time. As for Morton, his people gave him some very bad advice over the past week. When he started sniping at Dinning he lost ground, plus his platform did not include consulting with Albertans, bit only said what he intended to do or change. I personally look for him to become Minister of Advanced Education, a role that he is very well suited for.

I am extremely interested in who goes into cabinet. I do look for it to be smaller, and some of the long serving backbenchers finally might end up in the front row.

I think Mark Norris will run again, his bid for the leadership certainly gvae him the opportunity to get out and meet new folks in his constituency where he got good support.

I think that the day Eddie gets sworn in, there will be so much sucking up by the MLA's that chuckled when he decided to run, and personally,I hope that some of them sit on the back bench until they get calluses on their collective butts !!!!!!!!!

[cowman]

The really sad thing,in my opinion, is the land owners of this province won't be getting any change on surface rights...again! And I guess no change in the royalty structure either? Business as usual. 1980 prices for the next few/several years?
But don't worry now you'll be able to put some extra money into a government pension fund...right along side the other government pension fund!
No change...same old, same old?
Be happy grassfarmer, you get the same BS government again! Good luck with your water thing...because you'll need it!

[coppertop]

now cowman, that is scare tactics if I ever heard it. Grassfarmer is the sort of Albertan that can bring about change, and I hope that the minute they know who the new Minister will be they are on the horn asking for a meeting. Ted Morton could not have, single handedly delivered enhanced right of entry payments. That is a Surface Rights issue. If landowners would get busy and lobby every single agriculture and farm organization to come onside they could bring that about.

[grassfarmer]

Cowman, I don't expect any huge changes whoever had won, reality is the backroom boys stay much the same in modern politics whoever gets in. I would anticipate that we will remain a right wing province happy to sell our future to the Americans for below market value through our oil, gas, lumber, agriculture and water issues to name a few. The last thing we needed was to move to an even more right wing, US loving premier. Alberta already has the reputation of being the longest running right wing dictatorship in the western hemisphere with the exception of Albania!

[cakadu]

Congratulations to Ed on his win. He is most deserving of it. For those of you who doubt his capabilities, remember that Sir Winston Churchill was not considered a leader by any stretch of the imagination until he rose to the occasion of the 2nd world war, where he really shone and united many.

I think it may be a little early in the game to maintain that the status quo is what is going to happen. How about giving the guy a chance.

[cowman]

Sadly grassfarmer I think you are right about the old back room boys calling the shots. I wonder if Stelmach will even make any changes in the cabinet? Why bother? The voters voted for no change?

[cropduster]

You got it caka.....give the guy a chance.......Can`t remember any stellar accomplishments when EDDIE was ag minister......some of the people south of Viking just remember him for the `untruth` about when or where the giant hog barn was to go in.......Don`t think he had a portfolio then,so that probably doesn`t count!!!!

[coppertop]

I am sure he will announce an excellent cabinet. Don't kid yourself, he has been doing a lot of thinking about who would fit in which role. I, for one, am looking forward to some of the policies he campaigned on put in place, once his caucus has approved them. The Premier isn't the only one involved in the selection of cabinet.

[ivbinconned]

I will never be able to understand those of you who get all excercized about the draining of Alberta wealth to those terrible American corporations, which is a DIRECT result of decades of poor FEDERAL policy and a debased currency.

And yet at the SAME TIME ignor and dismiss any Western Canadian voices that suggest we try and stop the draining of Alberta wealth to the golden triangle of central Canada... represented by a gang of thieves on a stage in Montreal saturday night.

This PC leadership race was the ONLY arena, and the ONLY place, right NOW, where ALBERTA could have had an IMPACT...and you blew it.

If Harper looses the next election...the pilage will make the past look like a picnic!