A Wildrose defector describes a typical Tory caucus meeting
Alberta MLA Rob Anderson, who left the Tories earlier this week to join the Wildrose Alliance Party, feels “like a million dollars” these days. “I feel so free,” he tells Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, as he reveals that senior Tory MLAs encouraged caucus members to de-friend delegates not loyal to Premier Ed Stelmach prior to last year’s leadership review vote. Stelmach went on to win a 77 per cent approval rating. The young Anderson gets harsher still. Describing what it’s like to see upper-echelon MLAs stand in caucus and speak, he says “You kind of want to throw up afterward.” After crossing the floor Monday with former Tory cabinet minister Heather Forsyth, Anderson is now being branded by anonymous Tory voices as overly “ambitious”—or, as Braid writes, “a wildly impatient young man who lobbied hard for a cabinet job.” Funny, Tory insiders loyal to the premier said much the same thing about Guy Boutilier, a portfolio-holder under former premier Ralph Klein who was sent to the backbenches by Stelmach, then ejected when he yapped on about senior care in his Fort McMurray riding. To some, “vocal” may be synonymous with “ambitious.”