HANNAFORD: How an American from Wyoming became the best premier Alberta never had

Some people say Ted Morton was the best premier Alberta never had.

He was a favourite to win the top job in 2006 when Ralph Klein’s retirement sparked a three-way race between himself, Jim Dinning and the ultimate winner, Ed Stelmach. However, in a text book case of ranked ballots electing everybody's second choice, he lost to Stelmach.

Morton is not bitter, however. In the last 25 years, he was arguably the most consequential politician in Alberta who didn't actually become premier. Whether as a University of Calgary professor instructing future conservative leaders, a signatory to the Firewall Letter, as a spokesman for Senate reform or as a three-times cabinet minister in charge of key Alberta priorities, Morton wrote his conservative world view into Alberta's history.

And now, he's written the book on those years.

Not that he's one to overstate his accomplishments. Asked what was achieved in the name of Senate reform, he replies, "Absolutely zero. We're worse off than we were before."

However, in "Strong and Free: My Journey in Alberta Politics," Morton doesn't confine himself to looking back at what was done and not done. Rather, he speaks optimistically of what a younger generation of conservative leaders — some of whom he taught and others of whom had worked on his campaigns — are now preparing to do.

He writes, "Almost all the people in UCP’s 2023 “war room” were involved in my 2006 leadership campaign."

He goes on to list Rob Anderson, today Danielle Smith’s top advisor, who in 2006 was a law student at U of A, and who organized Morton's campus membership sales. (His father, Calgary lawyer Robert Anderson, was on Morton's 2006 fundraising and steering committee.)

"Another second-generation player was Lauren Armstrong, whose father, Sam Armstrong, was my 2006 campaign director. Lauren is now with Navigator, the influential national consulting company. Rob Griffith, Mat Gelinas, Bill Bewick and Dustin van Vugt — all key members of my 2006 campaign — were also in the UCP 2023 war room."

"And of course, their boss, now Premier and party leader, Danielle Smith had been one of the eighteen people at the 2003 meeting in Red Deer where I first announced my intention to run for the PC leadership when Klein resigned."

And so the baton is passed.

Tomorrow, the Western Standard will offer Morton's optimistic reflection upon Alberta politics now and his hopes that what he wanted to accomplish might be accomplished under the leadership of Premier Danielle Smith. 

There must be something special about Alberta that would make an American love it so much that he'd devote the best years of his life to making it an even better place. But that's Ted Morton's story. And in a place where more people are from somewhere else than were born here, it's the story for a lot of people.