Grant Notley The Social Conscience of Alberta HOWARD LEESON Grant Notley The Social Conscience of Alberta Second Edition Foreword by RACHEL NOTLEY 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA PRESS Published by Second edition, first printing, 2015. First electronic edition, 2015. The University of Alberta Press Proofreading by Brian Mlazgar. Ring House 2 Fact checking by Jim Gurnett, Keith Wright Edmonton, Alberta, Canada t6g 2e1 and Kathy Wright. www.uap.ualberta.ca Indexing by Judy Dunlop. Book design by Alan Brownoff. Copyright © 2015 Howard Leeson Front cover photo: Grant Notley, 1982, by Arnaud Maggs. Library and Archives Canada, library and archives canada r7959-1323-5-e. Used by permission. cataloguing in publication The University of Alberta Press supports Leeson, Howard A., 1942-, author copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, Grant Notley, the social conscience encourages diverse voices, promotes free of Alberta / Howard Leeson. speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank ¬Second edition. you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with the copyright Includes bibliographical references laws by not reproducing, scanning, or and index. distributing any part of it in any form Issued in print and electronic formats. without permission. You are supporting isbn 978-1-77212-125-4 (paperback). ¬ writers and allowing University of Alberta isbn 978-1-77212-128-5 (pdf). ¬ Press to continue to publish books for isbn 978-1-77212-126-1 (epub). ¬ every reader. isbn 978-1-77212-127-8 (kindle) All rights reserved. No part of this publication 1. Notley, Grant, 1939-1984. may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval 2. Politicians¬Alberta¬Biography. system, or transmitted in any form or by any 3. Alberta New Democratic Party¬ means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, History. 4. Alberta¬Politics recording, or otherwise) without prior written and government¬1935-1971. consent. Contact the University of Alberta 5. Alberta¬Politics and Press for further details. government¬1971-2015. I. Title. The University of Alberta Press gratefully fc3675.1.n68l44 2015 acknowledges the support received for its 971.23’03092 c2015-906022-2 publishing program from the Government c2015-906023-0 of Canada, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund. 7 Ede and I would like to dedicate this book to Nancy Eng. Like Grant Notley, Nancy was taken from us too early in life. ix A Note on the Text xi Foreword rachel notley xiii Preface to the First Edition xv Acknowledgements xvii Introduction to the Second Edition xxxiii Introduction to the First Edition 1 1 | A Prairie Child 15 2 | University Years Contents 45 3 | The Early NDP 81 4 | Provincial Secretary 141 Photographs 169 5 | The Leader 207 6 | The MLA for Spirit River-Fairview 255 7 | The Social Conscience of Alberta 285 8 | The Leader of the Official Opposition 313 Epilogue 317 Notes 323 Bibliography 327 Index A Note on the Text THE SECOND EDITION of Grant Notley: The Social Conscience of IX Alberta contains a new Introduction by the author, a Foreword by Rachel Notley, a new selection of photographs and a new Index. The main text of the book reproduces the original 1992 edition, with minor corrections. Foreword MANY PEOPLE I MEET describe my dad as having been a great XI public speaker; however as Howard writes in this book, my dad was quite shy. Public speaking often made him nervous, but he believed that anything could be overcome with a little (or a lot) of hard work. As I nervously prepared for the leaders’ debate in the 2015 election, I thought of my dad’s example: if I prepared enough, I knew I could do it too. It has been suggested that the election of Alberta’s first New Democrat government came out of nowhere, that it was due to voter fatigue with forty-four years of Progressive Conservatives, or hinged on that key leaders’ debate. I disagree. Our victory was a result of many, many decades of work by many, many people who built the reputation and integrity of the New Democrat Party in Alberta. While that work didn’t always reflect in popular support for the party, it was reflected in underlying levels of credibility. This book outlines much of the hard work that was done by Dad, but which unfortunately didn’t translate into popular support until after his death. It was then that Albertans experienced a collective recognition of how much they valued his contribution. In fact, when I talk to people who remember my dad now, they’re often surprised to learn that the height of his political career involved winning two seats¬both by very small margins. So what was it about him that had such a profound impact? I think the subtitle of this book holds XII the answer: he was the government’s critical social conscience. They knew they could rely on him for that. I’m often asked about his impact on my own career. Certainly Foreword I have felt the pressure that most children do to carry on their parents’ legacy; however, I got involved in politics because I enjoyed the camaraderie and the issues. I grew up in a campaign office and, unlike many other New Democrats in Alberta at that time, I took part in winning campaigns. I loved these elections and our family watching the results come in was a bit like Hockey Night in Canada, made even more important because winning and losing was about issues that mattered. My political life has been significantly shaped by the fact that I grew up in a house where politics was not about fame and fortune, but about hard work and the reward of feeling like you’ve done the right thing. Dad taught me about political work and, together with my mom, taught me my political values: justice, determination, and integrity. Through both my parents I learned that if you actually care about something, you better get up and do something about it. This book is a biography of my dad’s political life. However, it is also a primer for would-be politicians. Its most salient message? Political victory worth having rarely comes easy. rachel notley September 2015 Preface to the First Edition XIII WHEN THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS streamed into this land a hundred years ago, the prairies seemed a vast almost unending region, a tabula rasa awaiting only the imprint of their collective hands. It was virtually unspoiled and unresisting. Over the years the settlers changed the prairies dramatically, building farms, homes, towns, and eventually cities. Just as importantly, they also built new social structures. The experiences of isolation, oppression, and alienation plowed new social furrows beside those in the land. These cultural roots remain with us today. They nourish us, providing us with a sense of heritage, a stability, a sense of place in a world which constantly seeks to change our values and norms. As you might expect, we look to our community leaders for veri- fication of these values, for personification of what we hold closest. Some leaders stand out in this respect. They are almost archetypal, so vividly familiar that we immediately identify with them. Somehow they reflect a truth about ourselves which demands our attention. Such a man was Grant Notley. In the society and politics of Alberta he stood out. Albertans felt intuitively that he represented a part of their collective being, and his untimely death touched them deeply. When he died, a bit of Alberta died. He was us, and we miss him. XIV Preface to the First Edition Acknowledgements I WOULD LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE a number of people who XV have contributed significantly to the second edition of Grant Notley: The Social Conscience of Alberta. First, and foremost, I would like to thank Rachel Notley for taking time out of an incredibly busy schedule to write the Foreword for the new edition. That she would do so amongst the “minor” tasks of setting up a new government, putting together a throne speech, crafting a new budget and generally adapting to the job of premier of Alberta tells us much about her feelings toward her father. I would also like to thank all of the people at the University of Alberta Press for agreeing to do a second edition. A special thank you to those who did considerable work on pictures, research, fact checking, rewriting, cover design, and marketing. Unless you have worked for a press or served on the board for a press, you have very little understanding of how much work goes into putting out a decent book. It is especially important that university presses be acknowledged for their work during this period of time when academic publishers are under considerable financial pressure. Well done University of Alberta Press. I would also like to thank Brian Mlazgar, former head of the Canadian Plains Research Centre Press, for his help in proofreading and his general help and friendship in making this second edition XVI possible. As with the first edition, a special thanks to Aydon Charlton for helping out with the crafting of the new Introduction. Once again, I need to thank the Alberta New Democratic Party, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, and Tom Sigurdson for making photographs available for this edition Acknowledgements Finally, I would like to again thank all of those who made the first edition possible. In particular I wish to thank Sandy Notley Kreutzer for taking the time to talk to me about Grant, as well as all of those people who permitted me to record their observations and recollec- tions. I am also grateful to Mark Zwelling who sent me his tapes of conversations with Grant; to Linda Sarafinchan who provided many useful documents; and to Bill Dryden and Anne Hopp for their help interviewing and consulting.