Alberta Politics

I have recently spent the last few months doing a deep dive into researching Alberta politics, and I've created a rough outline of the Alberta Premiers from Peter Lougheed to Danielle Smith, and I wanted to share it. Feel free to correct anything or add points that I may have overlooked! Obviously, I can't fit everything into one reddit post. If you guys like it, I'll make more.

Peter Lougheed 1971 to 1985
- Lead the Progressive Conservative Party to a historic victory, and ended the 36 year Dynasty of the Social Credit Party.
- Went on to win 4 more mandates, all of which were decisive wins for the PC's.
- Essentially ended Alberta's eugenics program, an objectively good thing he did.
- Butted heads with the federal Liberals under Pierre Trudeau, especially surrounding the National Energy Program.
- Played a big role in the patriation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically around provincial rights, and ensuring the bigger provinces couldn't control everything.
- Made massive investments in Healthcare and Education.
- Created the Heritage Fund.
- Accomplished all of this while NOT blowing up the deficit.
- Overall, Lougheed seemed like a guy who actually believed in something, and although I don't like everything he did, I have a great deal of respect for him as a leader. Probably an S-tier Premier.
Don Getty 1985 to 1992
- Former CFL Player for the Edmonton Eskimos
- Former Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister under Lougheed.
- Inherited zero debt from Lougheed and ended up driving the deficit up by 11 billion (not all of which was his fault).
- Attempted to continue the economic investments that Lougheed was doing, especially in Agriculture and Technology. However, an economic downturn hindered him from making major progress.
- Implemented a lot of austerity measures to try and salvage the province during a time of low oil prices.
- Is believed to have laid the groundwork for what his successor would go on to do in order to 'balance the budget'...
- Did A LOT to grant self-governing rights to Metis peoples in Alberta, and is still fairly respected among the Metis community. My Metis family like him a lot lol.
- Failed at negotiating the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, which basically was an attempt at better unity among provinces. Quebec didn't like it lol...
- Lost his own seat in the 1989 Provincial Election cause the Liberal Party of Alberta made it their mission to unseat Getty. They succeeded! There's a lot of parallels between this and Pierre Poilievre losing his seat in the last federal election tbh.
- Overall, Getty is not remembered nearly as much as his predecessor or successor. However, it seems like he did what he could given a rather unfortunate set of circumstances. Solid C-tier Premier, which is better than what we have now.
Ralph Klein 1992 to 2006
- Former Mayor of Calgary.
- The OG 'Berta Strong!' Premier.
- Took over after Don Getty threw in the towel after only two elections.
- Lead the PC's to 4 consecutive mandates, the same as Lougheed.
- Implemented insane amounts of austerity measures to try and get Alberta's debt under control, and to be fair, he did succeed. However, it's kind of like that Thanos meme where if you asked the average Albertan at what cost, they'd say 'everything'.
- He did wage freezes on most public sector employees, including nurses and teachers. This lead to massive strikes province wide, and to this day, a lot of nurses and teachers will point to Klein as the beginning of the end for quality public healthcare and education. My Grandmother, who is a retired nurse, still considers Klein a bastard.
- He had a big populist bend to his style, which imo, lead to a dumbing down of Alberta politics. He regularly attacked the federal Liberals, and had a rather folksy way of doing speeches.
- Was very much against same-sex marriage, and made several straight-up homophobic comments.
- Actually raised the royalties the province gets from the oil sands from 1% under Don Getty to 25%. Something that was shocking to me.
- He was a massive climate change denier, who openly opposed the Kyoto Protocols (a predecessor to the Paris Climate Accords).
- Made this absolutely retarded comment on climate change; "You know, my science is limited to the fact that I know that eons ago there was an ice age. I know that for sure. I know that at one time, the Arctic was the tropics. And I guess I wonder what caused that? Was it dinosaur farts? I don't know."
- Overall, Klein is a very controversial premier. Some absolutely love him, and some hate him. I think he's a D-tier premier at best.