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“Alberta needs a doctor, and the doctor is in.”
That’s what physician-turned-Liberal Leader David Swann assured the 140 delegates attending his party’s annual convention May 14–16 in Edmonton.
Swann suggested that, under Premier Ed Stelmach, Alberta has been mistreated, misdiagnosed and mishandled. The province needs a doctor, not “a quack,” and Swann is ready to be that doctor.
“For the last year and a half, I’ve been studying, learning, reading, thinking, discussing and diagnosing what’s wrong and what we need to do to make it right. I sometimes go slowly, sometimes too slow, I admit it. In my profession, you move too quickly, you miss a diagnosis, the decision can be fatal. But time is starting to tighten up. And like my friends who still work the ER, sooner or later you have to jump in, jump in with your training and your experience and your know-how and make a decision, make a difference, man up and do your job,” Swann said.
“To those frustrated by my pace as leader so far, I don’t think I can apologize—it’s who I am—but I can say this. Today marks a new day, a very new day. The learning curve is flattening out.”
Swann lamented that, just when Liberals are ready to come together as a team, they have been distracted by a lot of background noise both within and outside the party. Emphasizing that he needs the input of party members and highlighting the policy work done by his predecessor, the caucus and the party, he pointed out that the party requires more seats if it is going to capitalize on that work.
“When schools start firing teachers and forgoing repairs just to honour the contracts negotiated by the province, we don’t get to revel in ‘I told you so,’” he said. “And when the [Progressive Conservatives] piss away over two hundred billion in resource revenue when we were demanding they save something, anything, we know we had the policy right. But we need the power to cure the problem.”
Swann suggested that, without a diagnosis, the Stelmach government always prescribes the private sector for what ails the province, a prescription tantamount to malpractice. At the same time, he insisted that his party is not anti-business.
“We’re the opposite; liberal democracies are the most business-friendly systems in the world,” he said. “But we’re long-term business, business that can sustain itself in every way possible. We want the energy sector to thrive now, of course, but we need it to carry on well into the future.”
Describing the Liberals as guardians of the centre, Swann expressed his belief in progress, public health care, public education, liveable cities and free enterprise. Liberals, he insisted, are mainstream Albertans from planet Earth.
“On my planet, you don’t balance the budget on the backs of seniors. On my planet, you don’t balance the budget on the backs of kids. On my planet, you don’t balance the budget on the backs of the sick and disabled,” he said.
In speaking to his portfolio during the Bear Pit, Liberal education critic Harry Chase equated education with the economy. He also stressed the importance of junior and full-day kindergarten to solving the high school dropout problem.
Meanwhile, delegates adopted resolutions calling for the increased funding necessary to eliminate school fees and fundraising activities for essential educational tools and services and supporting the creation of cross-ministry policy to support urban density initiatives and keep local community schools open. Also adopted was a resolution supporting the decentralization of cost and quality initiatives in health and education on the grounds that “the highly trained, well-educated, caring and capable people working within education and health care systems know their jobs better than anyone else.”
