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Copyright 1997 The Calgary Herald. Reprinted with permission of The Calgary Herald, but permission to download from this page is denied.

There is a fresh wave of revisionist thinking taking root within Alberta's public institutions and, not surprisingly, being warmly embraced by many orthodox ideologues of the Left.

This view, which I am encountering more frequently in the course of my correspondence and conversations, essentially submits that the Klein Revolution was never necessary. It alleges that the past four years have been all for naught and that if the premier had continued to steer the happy course the province was on in 1992 (minus flawed business ventures), oil revenues would have had us all living off the fat of the land.

In other words, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the province's public sector and it should have been left alone.

Furthermore, this nonsensical notion would have us believe that Klein "invented" the deficit and debt crisis in order to launch a devious assault upon our public institutions and its workers-just for sport, one presumes. In this view, Albertans are seen to be mere lambs led to the neo-con slaughterhouse.

This is the essence of a book written by Kevin Taft and entitled Shredding the Public Interest, which I was asked to review prior to its distribution by the University of Alberta Press. I can't say I blame them for excluding my comments from its jacket. They would not have enhanced sales.

It is perhaps sufficient to say the Taft's allegations have been investigated by many journalists and found to be, at best, overstated. Furthermore, none of Klein's political opponents-even during an election campaign-have attempted to seriously pursue Taft's line of thinking, which is an enormous affirmation of its lack of credibility.

Yet Shredding the Public Interest and its hints of conspiracy provide convenient refuge for those who refuse, in the face of an over-whelming avalanche of evidence, to believe the province is better off today than it was four years ago.

To embrace it, you must, for instance, believe that not only the devious Klein but also the dastardly Liberal party under Laurence Decore were involved in this plot to balance the budget. Decore, after all, garnered nearly 40 per cent of the popular vote in the 1993 campaign by promising "brutal" cuts.

Neither Klein nor Decore can be described as ideologues. Their agendas in '93 were simply to read the public mood and get elected. If the public in this province was not in favor of balanced budgeting and debt reduction, why would the leaders of the province's major political parties choose, in tandem, to manipulate them into thinking it was?

So, if you believe the Klein Revolution was neo-con subterfuge, you have to believe that Decore and almost 85 per cent of the province's voting population were co-conspirators. Call that a plot if you want. I call it democracy.

However, it is not only Taft's publication that is at issue here. Indeed, now that sound stewardship is once again all the rage, expect to hear no end of public sector lobbying-at the administration and employee level-for a return to free spending.

Don't misunderstand. Most Albertans are deeply grateful for the sacrifices made by public sector workers over the past four years.

But it will all be wasted if we ignore the context within which those cutbacks were demanded and heed the hysterical calls for more of your tax dollars. For instance, the post-cuts revisionists would have you forget that in the years prior to the Klein Revolution, 10,000 private sector workers in this city were laid off and still more took pay cuts and freezes in the name of corporate debt reduction and survival. The streets were littered with the cadavers of broken careers. Thousands more began working harder than ever in the hope that somehow they would be spared when they dreaded "out-placement" consultants came calling. In some workplaces, such as Canadian Airlines, sacrifices are still being made.

And the counter-revolutionaries won't mention how, while this was taking place and the ability of the middle class to absorb rising taxation began to disappear, public sector employees, pre-1993, remained unaffected. In the past four years, they have been asked no more than to shoulder their share of the pain, to do their bit.

And they have done so, for the most part, with stiff upper lips. As such, they deserve to share in the long-term gain of this project just as much as the next person. But as the compensation queue continues to form, it is wise to review the past within its full context, not through the eyes of latter-day revisionism.

Source: The Calgary Herald, 97-03-06, p. A22.

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