Ralph Klein

The Honourable Ralph Phillip Klein (born November 1, 1942) is Alberta's current premier.

Klein rose to public prominence as a radio and television personality, much as did radio-evangelist–cum–premier William Aberhart. Klein gained his first political experience when he was elected mayor of Calgary, Alberta, on October 15, 1980. While he was mayor the city was enjoying an economic boom, attracting many unskilled labourers from all over the country. Klein gained unfavourable national attention by blaming "eastern bums and scums" for straining the city's social services and police. Calgary hosted a very successful Winter Olympics during his tenure as mayor.

Klein made the transition from civic to provincial politics in 1989, becoming a member of the legislative assembly and the minister of environment in Don Getty's government. He was elected leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party on December 5, 1992, and became the province's 12th premier on December 16, 1992.

Although his government has been generous in funding arts and has not cut health programs to the degree as some other Canadian governments (notably Ontario), Klein's social and environmental views are seen by opponents as very primitive. Supporters argue in response that Klein is merely choosing appropriate priorities for limited government funding.

An admitted alcoholic, Klein under the influence once verbally abused homeless people at an Edmonton-area shelter. After the incident, Klein reportedly sought to end his alcoholism, which had once been regarded as a sort of amusing, harmless quirk by many Albertans. Though Klein was intoxicated during the incident, this was consistent with an earlier stance on welfare he had taken, which was to offer destitute people "a bus ticket to Vancouver" to exploit the more generous social assistance of British Columbia (since the election of fellow conservative Gordon Campbell in that province the gap has narrowed somewhat).

Regarding global climate change, Klein, whose province subsists largely on oil and natural gas revenue despite many attempts to diversify (into forestry, software, and beef ranching), mused in a speech in 2002 that from his point of view it was just as likely that "dinosaur farts" caused the ice age. This led a few to observe that not only were fossil fuel emissions themselves the output of the decay of ancient life forms into petroleum, and thus fart-like in some ways, but that "dinosaur farts like Klein" himself might cause new climatic disasters by continuing to emit both fossil fuel emissions and more hot air.

In 2003, mad cow disease was discovered in a cow in Alberta that had been removed from the food processing chain, but only examined six months later. This triggered a new crisis as Canadian beef were stopped at the US border. Alberta ranchers were vending beef for as low as C$1 per pound in Calgary. Klein called on the federal government in Ottawa for support, citing the response to the Toronto SARS crisis in previous months.

In June 2003, an Ontario Superior Court Charter ruling removed federal restrictions on same-sex unions being recognized legally as marriage. This being very unpopular in Alberta, Klein repeated a promise to use the Notwithstanding Clause to veto any imposition of the word "marriage" on the province of Alberta's regulations regarding same-sex couples (which did more or less provide economic equality). This was, contrary to many media reports which annoyed Klein, a position of the Alberta legislature itself passed five years earlier, and not a new reaction of his own.

In late June 2003 Klein and U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney, widely reported to be friends, met to discuss the beef ban and the route of an Alaskan oil pipeline which Klein has vehemently argued must be integrated with the extensive Alberta pipeline system. This is popular with Cheney and other advocates of North American energy independence in the oil industry.

At the 2004 Calgary Stampede Klein announced that the province had set aside the necessary funds to repay its public debt in 2005. The debt stood at about C$23 billion when Klein took office and its repayment was one of the most significant long-term goals of Klein's premiership. Klein is expected to call another election by the end of 2004, and has said that should he be re-elected, and health-permitting, he will retire after serving his next term.

See also: List of Alberta premiers.