What a pathetic coda to the respectable if not quite illustrious political career of Jim Dinning!
What a pathetic coda to the respectable if not quite illustrious political career of Jim Dinning!
Once the whiz kid and heir apparent of Alberta’s Conservative establishment, Mr. Dinning has resurfaced years later as chief snake-oil salesman for the scam artists and would-be separatists dreaming of hijacking half the Canada Pension Plan’s investment fund.
Mr. Dinning may not have gotten to be the premier of Alberta in 2006, when he was widely seen as front-runner in what was supposed to be not much more than a two-horse race with another former Progressive Conservative finance minister, Ted Morton.
Still, he need not be embarrassed by what must have been a big disappointment after he raised $2 million for the contest to replace Ralph Klein and at one point held a 20-point lead over Dr. Morton and a 40-point lead over the eventual winner, Ed Stelmach.
We’ll never know how Mr. Dinning would have performed as premier – perhaps not that badly with his experience as a three-term Calgary MLA, finance minister from 1992 to 1997, and habitué of corporate executive suites after he left politics in 1997.
In the event, Mr. Stelmach turned out to be as good a Conservative premier as Alberta could have hoped for in 2006. Dr. Morton, of course, was almost certainly the worst premier the province never had.
