The Alberta Progressive Conservative Transition to Government, 1971-1974

• In Event: Political Party Strategies and Ideologies / Electoral Boundaries

Abstract

In the August 1971 Alberta provincial election the Progressive Conservative Party defeated the incumbent 36-year-old Social Credit government. Within a few days it was apparent that this was no simple transition of government. When the Progressive Conservatives became government they discovered offices stripped of any records or files and little administrative support. No preparation had been done by the civil service for the arrival of the new cabinet. This was a very unique situation.

The 1971 transition was a unique situation. It was a transition to a new governing party, but it was also a transition to a new different style of government. After the 1971 election there was no infrastructure to aid the new Premier and cabinet in taking control of the machinery of government. The Secretary to Cabinet had spent the election away from the provincial capital, Edmonton, and did not return after the election. Except for polling data in a desk drawer, the new Premier found an empty office. The Progressive Conservative government was faced with a very difficult task of putting into place a framework for cabinet/ executive policy making which could better reflect the needs of a growing and urbanizing society. The new government began a process of building the organizational infrastructure necessary to take decisions in a complex economic and social polity.

The 1971 transition was a moment when a pre-institutionalized, simple cabinet system was transformed into an institutionalize decision-making model. There are a number of different transition categories in a parliamentary system. The first is a transition to a new governing party. The second is a transition to a new premier and cabinet but of the governing party. The 1971 transition to a Progressive Conservative government is an example of the first category – a transition to a new party government. But it is unique in that a) the outgoing government had been in office for thirty-six years and the incoming party had no governing experience and b) there was no recognizable executive support or organization in place to aid the incoming government.

The 1971 transition is an illustration of a sudden shift from a pre-instiututionalized model of governing to an institutionalized model. There were several reasons for this dramatic change. The first is that Alberta in 1971 was no longer the small agricultural community. It was largely an urban society with very different needs/ requirements from previous generations. The existing cabinet structure simply could not provide the proper solutions for a myriad of issues facing the province. Second, and the focus of this study, the incoming government reflected a new understanding of decision making. The Progressive Conservatives were led by a premier with experience in the corporate world and an appreciation of the need to design a decision-making process which was able to better deal with the issues facing the province. Under the direction of the Premier and his advisors the Progressive Conservative government set out to rationalize the cabinet decision-making process. Instead of an unaided cabinet and an informal decision making process, a system was put in place to understand the issues, collect information, and chose among a variety of policy options. It was a new system of governance that took several years to put in place.

Using process tracing, a narrative of the transition to a new government as well as the creation of a different style of governance will be constructed. Archival material, interviews with participants, newspaper articles and other primary sources will help answer the question of how Alberta moved from a pre-institutionalized cabinet system to a rational decision-making model.

Author

• Keith Douglas Brownsey, Mount Royal University