He reminds them that it was Dinning, not Ralph, who really created the Ralph Revolution, the creation of the Republican neo-con state in Alberta in the ninties. Yep supposedly 'liberal' Jim Dinning. Like Bell I remember those bad old days, with mass demonstrations in the streets of tens of thousand Albertans hurt by the cuts, ordinary Martha's and Henrys who had never demonstrated before protesting.
His policies are still in place today, causing thousands of Albertans to go homeless. And while Dinning brags about being the Chair of the Calgary Health Authority it was when he was in power the government blew up a Calgary Hospital.
Of course these same BT dweebs forget that his protege was one Paul Martin who did the same thing federally. And Reform Party MP Stephen Harper at the time was complaining that Martins cuts didn't go far enough, using Dinnings as an example.
They like to claim his corporate/political relationship with Martin proves he is a Liberal. Au Contraire.If Dinning supported Martin as Head of TransAlta it's because they are both corporate shills and 'neo-liberals', not social conservatives. And last time I checked 'neo-con' was interchangable with 'neo-liberal'.
Far-right wonks must have had their eyes wide shut during the early '90s Ralpholution
n fact, if those now blathering about Dinning had actually been there in the trenches, they would have seen Jim slammed for being too tough, screeched at for sticking too closely to a plan, slimed for keeping colleagues on track when they began to feel like wavering or could no longer stand the sound of protests.
It was Dinning who brought in Sir Roger Douglas, the New Zealand tough-guy politician, to help convince Conservative MLAs their balancing of the books could be done. Sir Roger even gave the PCs the buzz word for when the going got tough. Don't blink.
It was Dinning as treasurer who appointed a blue-chip panel of experts to advise where Alberta's finances needed cleaning up. It was Dinning who introduced the law to outlaw deficits. It was Dinning who forced government paper-shufflers to make three-year business plans.
It was Dinning who was a leader of the fight to get government out of the business of business. And it was Dinning who gave Albertans a report every three months on the state of the province's bottom line and didn't allow any cash to be blown on anyone's pet projects.See