Ralph Klein


Ralph Philip Klein was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 2006. Klein also served as the 32nd mayor of Calgary from 1980 to 1989.
Ralph was born and mostly grew up in Calgary, Alberta. After dropping out of High School in grade 11, Klein joined the Royal Canadian Air Force reserves for one year and then attended the Calgary Business College. Klein later worked as a teacher and principal at the Calgary Business College, and later public relations with non-profits. After that, Klein became a prominent local journalist in Calgary where he reported on the challenges of the working class, social outcasts and First Nations, endearing himself to those groups. In 1980, Klein turned his attention to politics and as an underdog was elected Mayor of Calgary, where he oversaw the boom and bust of the oil industry in the 1980s, expansion of the CTrain, and the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. Klein resigned as Mayor in 1989 and turned his attention to provincial politics where he served as Environment Minister in the Cabinet of Don Getty for four years.
In 1992, Klein was elected as leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and went on to lead the party to a majority government in the 1993 Alberta general election; Klein continued the Progressive Conservative dynasty and won three more majority governments afterwards. Klein's informal style endeared him to Albertans early in his term, and his political longevity and centralized management style earned him the nickname "King Ralph". As premier, Klein oversaw a short period of drastic cuts to the public service and privatization of government services; this fiscal strategy ended in the late 1990s as rising oil and gas prices increased provincial tax revenues resulting in spending increases and paying down of the provincial government debt. Klein's 14-year-long tenure as premier ended when the Alberta Progressive Conservatives' new leader, Ed Stelmach, assumed office on December 14, 2006.

Early years

Klein was born in Calgary, to Philip Andrew Klein and Florence Jeanette Harper. His paternal grandparents were immigrants, from Germany and England, respectively. His father, Phil, was born in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, grew up poor and rode the rails during the Great Depression in search of work. In the early 1940s he married Florence Harper, a waitress, and lived in her parents' basement in Calgary while trying to make ends meet working in construction. Ralph Klein's parents separated when he was five or six years old and he spent time living with his maternal grandparents in the Calgary's north end, and Rocky Mountain House with his mother. After separating from his mother, Klein's father worked as a professional wrestler in the Alberta circuit for most of the 1950s using the name Phil "The Killer" Klein and later became a businessman.
Ralph Klein grew up in a working-class part of Calgary and dropped out of high school in grade 11, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force reserves, then completed high school later in life. Klein's time in the Air Force was limited, returning home a year later shortly after his 18th birthday. Klein attended Calgary Business College studying accounting and business administration, and later served as a teacher and principal of the college. He later studied at Athabasca University. Following his role at the Calgary Business College, Klein took a position as a public relations official at the Southern Alberta district of the Red Cross and United Way's offices in Calgary from 1963 to 1969.
Klein married Hilda May Hepner on April 29, 1961. They met at Portage-la-Prairie while Klein was training with the Air Force. As two strong willed individuals there were many difficulties in maintaining their relationship, and after several separations in the late-1960s and early-1970s, Klein and Hilda formally divorced on March 29, 1972, with adultery cited as the grounds for divorce. Hilda received custody of their two children. Klein remarried three months after his divorce to the Victoria-born Colleen Evelyn Hamilton, a single-mother with two children working as an accounting clerk with Imperial Oil and as a bartender by night. They were married in Colleen's mother's basement by Reverend Robert A. Simpson, and together Ralph and Colleen had one child.

Journalism career

Klein rose to public prominence in Calgary as a radio and television personality between 1969 and 1980. He was the Senior Civic Affairs reporter with CFCN-TV and CFCN radio. Klein built a reputation for thorough reporting and gritty, street-wise "down and dirty" reporter who could see through rhetoric. Klein's reporting style left him ostracized from the journalist community and provoked jealousy amongst the CFCN news group. Klein routinely skipped morning assignment meetings, rarely checked in, yet still would still appear in the afternoon with a new story. During his early career Klein became a staple patron of the St. Louis Hotel bar in Calgary's East Village, an area of synonymous with urban decay in the city.
Klein's early civic affairs beat revolved around following newly elected anti-establishment Mayor Rod Sykes. The relationship between the Mayor Sykes and Klein could be described as fickle, Klein alerted the Mayor to a Calgary Police Service's cannabis bust involving the Mayor's 13-year-old son which Klein believed would involve planting the drugs on the minor. Klein also alerted Sykes about a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation story on a proposed convention centre benefiting from city sources, which Sykes was able to temporarily delay, although Klein's reasons were somewhat selfish as the CBC story would have been released before Klein's story on the topic. Klein's story The Marriage later resulted in invasion of privacy charges pressed against Klein and CFCN over the leak of a meeting recordings, the charges were subsequently thrown out of court.
The 1973 oil crisis created an economic boom in Calgary, and Klein reported on stories which emphasized the lower-class, outcasts and challenges faced by those who did not benefit from urban renewal. Among those challenges was the challenges faced by Chinese-Canadians and overcoming the negative public perceptions stemming from publicized drug sales, prostitution, and other anti-social behaviour taking place in Calgary's Chinatown, through his work, Klein built strong relationships with the community and helped show a more accurate and generous view of the Chinese-Canadian community. Klein produced compelling and vivid stories about biker gangs which were both open and critical about the organizations, all the while building strong relationships by both living and partying with the gangs.
In 1977, CFCN news director Thompson MacDonald commissioned Klein to complete an investigative report on the Blackfoot people and their feelings about the 100th anniversary of Treaty Seven. Klein and a camera man left for Gleichen, Alberta and did not contact MacDonald for a long period of time, which while normal behaviour for Klein, was worrying for the news director. Klein finally made contact from jail after he was arrested by RCMP officers after a bar fight with a government official. Klein continued to work with members of the Blackfoot, who introduced him to the indigenous religion, and provided him with a spiritual advisor. The outcome of Klein's reporting was a moving documentary highlighting the "gap between white intentions and aboriginal realities...on reservations". Klein's documentary focused on the poverty and difficulty of life, and interviewed grocery store owners who sold huge stockpiles of vanilla extract to desperate alcoholics at inflated prices. Although Klein valued his time living with the Blackfoot people, he rarely brought the experience up publicly, instead only sharing the elements outside the documentary with close friends and family. For his effort the Siksika christened Klein "White Writer" and called him a friend.

Mayor of Calgary

Klein grew dissatisfied with the direction of Calgary City Council, urban sprawl and Mayor Ross Alger's proposed civic centre. The enormous proposed city centre required City Council to purchase properties in a five block radius, purchasing historic and small buildings one-by-one. Klein voiced his dissatisfaction through a monthly column in Calgary Magazine, his topics included his displeasure with the city's heavy-handed "block busting" and expropriation tactics, the polluted state of the Bow River, transportation planning and the CTrain, weakness of open government and freedom of information, but always ended his columns with a note of optimism and a challenge to his readers to think of how to improve the city. Through his articles, Klein was able to grab the attention of Calgary voters highlighting the issues they faced. Finally Klein was alerted by former Mayor Rod Sykes to a film crew and actor portraying a "bum" digging through garbage in a downtown alleyway, Klein rushed over and filmed the event. The film crew belonged to an advertising agency which admitted to producing an election television advertisement for incumbent Mayor Alger. Alger had previously noted his new "civic centre" would remove undesirable populations, and the CFCN report on the advertisement showed Alger as cynical and manipulative, eroding his support. Klein's final documentary Dreams, Schemes and Sandstone Dust brought the human element to the civic centre debate, interviewing the bar regulars, hotel tenants and small business owners who were set to be bulldozed, creating a narrative that the areas historic but rundown buildings were worth preserving.
On August 20, shortly after the film crew incident and documentary, Klein uncharacteristically appeared at the morning CFCN news meeting and announced he would run for Mayor against Alger. Klein's campaign started on rocky footing, he had little funds and limited knowledge of how to run a campaign or organize volunteers. He hired his friend Webster MacDonald, a lawyer, and labour organizer Ted Takacs to run co-manage his campaign, but neither was particularly adept. Finally he convened a group of 20 of his friends to discuss moving to the Alderman ticket, and after convincing Klein to continue to run for Mayor, they formed what became known as the "Klein Gang" a group of diehard supporters who remained with him throughout his political career. Shortly afterwards he opened his campaign office in a small space donated by local businessman Jack Singer and his campaign began to take off. It was in this office he first met Rod Love, a recent University of Calgary political science dropout. Love had initially offered to work for Alger's campaign, but was not offered a position he was interested in. The Klein campaign continued to grow, although remained strained financially, with Klein only raising a total of $22,000. In the week before the election Klein's public position improved as many estimated he was neck and neck with Alger, and ahead of the third candidate, Alderman Peter Petrasuk. Alger the incumbent had accumulated $150,000 for the election, had strong support in the Chamber of Commerce, and a clean name. His other opponent, Petrasuk was a prominent lawyer with a large ethnic voter base and significant fundraising capabilities. Klein sought an endorsement from former Mayor Sykes who still held considerable sway amongst voters, Sykes declined as he had previously promised the other candidates he would not endorse any candidate, but agreed to an interview which he would say that Klein stood a chance in the election. The final mayoral debate took place 36 hours before the polls opened, with Alger and Petrasuk battling over rising budgets while Klein ignored the topics and spoke of accountability, open government and making Calgarians proud of the city.
Klein's victory on October 15, 1980, came as a shock to many in the city including his own father who refused to believe the news, and shortly afterwards Klein was installed as the 32nd Mayor of Calgary, and the second Mayor of Calgary to be born in the city. A day after the election the Calgary Herald declared Klein "The People's Mayor" in describing his "stunning victory". Klein was subsequently re-elected twice, first in 1983 and again in 1986.