Stelmach's First Year as Alberta's Premier

Premier Stelmach has had a busy first year as Premier. He had a shaky start. He seems to be getting his legs firmly underneath him now and is well on his way to delivering on most of his Leadership campaign initiatives. Some accuse him of being a ditherer but the events and actions over the last year and the recent accelerating pace of politics in Alberta proves otherwise.

Lots more in the hopper too as this session winds down and the new budget get finalized and the platform planks for the forthcoming election get framed. There are only 4 candidates yet to be nominated for the PC Party and that has gone well too…especially in terms of the recent rejection of Mr. Chandler.

It is nice to see the positive bounce for him in the recent poll in the post royalty review period. It is worth noting the Taft Liberals also got a positive bounce in the same poll.

Now Stelmach has to get Oberg to take speech lessons from Marcel Marceau and get him to stop talking and sabotaging the policy development and deployent process on royalties.

Any meetings with Energy and the industry better be in public or held off until the Lobbyists Act is proclaimed with the regulations so we can be assured there is no closed door dealings between government official, politicians and the energy sector.

Albertans as the Owners of the resource will want to know every thing that is being said and to understand the significance of all of the discussions and the implications.