Conservatives get together to discuss their futures in Alberta. Political figures may not be entirely as illustrated. Below: Former MLA Doug Elniski.
CALGARY
Doug Elniski is a nice guy … for an Alberta Tory … and he’ll tell you that himself. But take it from me, it’s true.
The former Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Calder, who may have decided not to run again in the April 23 Alberta election rather than be beaten by New Democrat Dave Eggen, can be described as pretty easy going, careless about the implications of what he says, and really, really big. Like, six-foot six, maybe 240 pounds – I’m sure he’ll let me know.
Alberta Diary has given Mr. Elniski a hard time over the years for some injudicious advice given in a 2009 blog post (“Ladies, always smile when you walk into a room, there is nothing a man wants less than a woman scowling because he thinks he is going to get s–t for something and has no idea what”) and equally ill-considered Tweets sent from an Edmonton Pride Parade. He’s also pretty bright, so his recognition of the impact of those remarks may have also weighed on his decision not to run again in 2012.
Still, I believe he didn’t mean any harm, and I’ve always said I’d want him on my side in a bar fight!
Now, Mr. Elniski has done us all a big favour by writing a post on his personal blog that tells a lot about the state of affairs in Alberta Conservative circles – a situation referred to in this space back on Sept. 28 in a post about how Premier Alison Redford and her minions treat her backbenchers and why they in turn don’t seem to like her very much.
Well, by the sound of it, it’s not just backbenchers, and it’s not just happening at the provincial level. Let me explain…
In an item today on his personal blog – evocatively titled “Don’t Encourage Me” – Mr. Elniski (who endorsed Ms. Redford on the second ballot almost exactly a year ago today) tells an interesting story about how even former politicians get treated in Conservative circles in Alberta when they dare to colour outside the lines.
“A person needs to prove that I should not like them,” Mr. Elniski wrote. So … “imagine my surprise, when a highish ranking member of a government, suggested to me that my blog is taking shots at the wrong people and the wrong parties. I should, in the words of the highish ranking member of a government ‘be careful’ lest I annoy the wrong people and thus reduce, if not eliminate, my chances for further public service.” (Emphasis added.)
Now, I confess that I first took this as a reference to goings on within Ms. Redord’s provincial government, but Mr. Elniski has contacted me to say he has another level of government entirely in mind, presumably the one led by such notable Alberta luminaries as Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Regardless, here’s how Mr. Elniski says business is conducted in the Alberta Conservative snakepit:
“Since I thought this particular highish ranking member of a government was a gender neutral ‘dick’ when I was a somewhat less highish ranking member of a government, I took offence to the advice,” he reminisced.
“To which I can only say,” the now-retired and obviously extremely annoyed former MLA went on, “What are you, highish-ranking member of government, going to do? Raise my taxes?”
“It will be frustrating for the highish ranking member to realize that they can’t even keep me from getting a fishing license, much less raise my taxes,” he went on. “There are no punitive measures left to elected officials who derive their mandates from the masses.
“That type of arrogance went out with meaningful monarchist rule. Time to realize my friend, you are neither the King or hopefully the Queen of anything. You chose to serve, you exist to serve and with service comes critique of your performance and your governments performance. Sadly, your cries of ‘off with his head’ will do nothing to prevent my continued evaluation and humorous assessment of your work and character.”
Notwithstanding Mr. Elniski’s revealing comment, MLAs still sitting in the Legislature as members of the Redford Government and MPs in Ottawa who are members of Mr. Harper’s caucus may not be so bold about stating their unhappiness with the way things operate within this unhappy government … yet.
I commend the entire blog to anyone interesting on how politics are practiced in Tory Alberta. Plus, of course, I would welcome tips as to the identity of Mr. Elniski’s unnamed interlocutor.
This post also arrears on Rabble.ca.
I was all for reading Elniski’s site until I ran across the post which asserted that Romney and Ryan would make a better White House team than Obama/Biden. Granted, Obama has disappointed somewhat, but to say that he is unqualified because of his public sector employment and advocacy work just doesn’t make sense.
Strictly speaking, the top job in any (democratic) country’s (does the fact that Elniski doesn’t know how to use apostrophes disqualify him for an MLA’s job?) government is one in which no candidate is qualified for. It isn’t as though being president of Liberia or Italy qualifies one to run the U.S government.
CLARIFICATION: Doug Elniski is 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 252 pounds. Incorrect speculation appeared on Alberta Diary yesterday.
re: ““To which I can only say,” the now-retired and obviously extremely annoyed former MLA went on, “What are you, highish-ranking member of government, going to do? Raise my taxes?””
Eniski may not need to obtain work in sectors or at levels subject to political intimidation, but others have not been so fortunate to be able to openly stand up to the intimidation.
I posted a comment about this intimidation stuff some weeks back which I’ll share again:
A retired former opposition MLA that found he could not obtain contracts when he tried to get back into high level business consulting, and was told in the late 1990′s that it was because this MLA still had to apologize to Ralph for being so hard on Ralph in QP. And again, my source on this was someone who’d been inside AB politics for almost 30 years and only shared this story with me to disabuse of my perplexed innocence around why certain issues were in political gridlock. Not to smear the Tories, just a mini-insight kind of let me tell you how things work here in AB.
and re: “an interesting story about how even former politicians get treated in Conservative circles in Alberta when they dare to colour outside the lines.”
A survey of former Lougheed cabinet ministers would, I expect, reveal more similar stories that are not yet on the record. Klein’s era coinciding with the neo-con, ‘we’ll decide’ era launched the circle the wagon, us against them mentality. Two decades later it’s stories like Elniski’s that signal it’s full blown political ‘family’ stuff… you know… Tell Michael it’s was just business kind of stuff.
I really enjoyed Doug’s blog. I have to say that his tone and sense of humour pretty much wipe out any annoyance that I have with his ideological orientation.
It would be nice to know who he pissed off, and how exactly. Could it have been the Rob Anderson posting? I personally thought it was both funny and kind of on point for how Canadians, even Conservative ones, look at things pragmatically for the most part.
Hope he continues to get his fishing licenses.
The Christian Fundamentalist rats have began their age old Conservative ritual of “Biting each other?”
Oh my God, that is so terrible to hear news of.(sic) Just as a Animal Planet sidebar it is interesting to note that Rats have no problem eating each other for lunch, it is inbred & completely natural for them to be Cannibalistic. This is kind of like that book named Willard where the main character decides that assembling a mob of bombastic & ruthless rats to eliminate his enemies is a good idea. Of course, the plot is so predictable in that the reader automatically recognizes that this evil plan is going to eventually backfire on the main character when the gang of out of control rats decide to make Willard the main character into a lunch for them to feed on. And so it goes in the Dog eat Dog world of Conservative Politicos, because when these rodents turn on each other and start viciously biting each other, the end result is going to be ugly. That is my analogy, and I am sticking to it.
Vindictive Alberta Tories pulling on the levers of power to punish those that displease them?
Surely not.