Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Hugh MacDonald

True grit from a true Grit is pretty much what the Alberta Liberals require in this dark hour.

So a blogger’s suggestion last night that Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Hugh MacDonald may emerge later today as the interim replacement for Dr. David Swann as leader of the Liberals’ hapless Opposition caucus could turn out to be the best thing that’s happened to the struggling party in years.

If it is, the development comes none too soon — last week as Alberta’s governing Tories were noisily melting through the floor of the Legislature Building, the eight-member Liberal caucus was quietly preparing itself for imminent spontaneous combustion.

Each passing day Swann appeared more out of touch as Liberal leader, with rumours of MLAs defecting to the new and quite-Liberal-like Alberta Party swirling and journalists publicly cracking mean jokes about how the Liberals had no plans for a palace coup only because there was nothing left in the palace worth having a coup over.

Nevertheless, the stubborn Calgary-Mountain View MLA appeared determined to hang on come what may — or, more to the point, go who might — through to the next general election. All the while the rudderless Liberal party drifted ever closer to the rocks.

But in a move as shocking in its own way as Stelmach’s decision less than a week ago to pull the plug on his political career, it now appears that Swann has had a moment of clarity and realized there is nothing he can do for his party.

Reports last night in the Globe and Mail and on Global TV, plus commentary on the Daveberta.ca blog, all suggest the Opposition leader will follow the premier’s example today.

This won’t end the turmoil for the Alberta Liberals, of course, or calm the turbulent period of Alberta politics we have been living through. But if, as Daveverta author Dave Cournoyer suggests, MacDonald takes the helm of the Liberals’ foundering ship, it could calm things considerably for the venerable party which still enjoys a significant core of support in north-central Alberta.

For one thing, it would allow the Liberals to hold a speedy leadership campaign while the Conservatives get their much more complicated campaign in order. And, who knows, if MacDonald doesn’t want the job, perhaps someone charismatic and interesting will emerge from the sidelines to give the party the breath of life it needs.

In the mean time, the Prince Edward Island-born MacDonald may have the navigational skills to keep a steady hand on the party’s tiller for the first time in months. He may even be able to persuade potential defectors to the untested Alberta Party to hang on long enough to effect the beginnings of a Liberal revival.

MacDonald, his Islander accent still resonating, is a serviceable orator, a strong believer in the rights on ordinary working folk, a former Boilermaker with good connections in the union movement, and a determined researcher who knows a story that the media will like when he comes upon it.

Unlike Swann, he’s a dogged debater in Question Period who knows how to get under the government’s skin. That is, MacDonald’s questions sound like questions!

If he is named the interim leader today, it’ll be another thrilling turn of events on the roller-coaster ride called Alberta politics.

Just days ago serious political commentators were starting to predict the Progressive Conservatives, Alberta’s Natural Governing Party, really could fall to the far-right Wildrose Alliance if Stelmach hung on. The same pundits were also beginning to make noises about a total wipeout of the Liberals.

Stelmach’s announcement last week and Swann’s anticipated announcement today throw a curveball at such prognostications. One suspects that neither the New Democrats nor the Alberta Party will be cheering this development.

Hugh MacDonald is a dyed-red-in-the-wool Liberal. It’s looked for a while as if he might be the last man standing in the Alberta Legislature with a red rose pinned to his lapel.

This doesn’t change that, but it could mean he’ll be standing there a little longer than we expected.

This post also appears on David Climenhaga’s blog, Alberta Diary.

David J. Climenhaga

David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike...