Meet Stephen Khan: Part two of our conversation with former PC leadership candidate

In the February issue of T8N, we sat down with PC leadership candidate Stephen Khan to talk to him about his vision for modernizing Alberta’s conservative party. Among other things, he spoke of the need to bring his party into the 21^st century and to bring it in line with the values of Albertans today.

Last Friday, however, Khan announced that he would be dropping out of the race, saying that the vision he has for the province wasn’t compatible with the values of the majority of the PC membership and that there are more people who want to destroy what is left of the party than there are people who want to save it.

“This race has not been the arena for our ideas and values” he wrote on his website Friday morning, adding that it has been a race of “vitriol, anger and division.”

Khan may not be in the race any longer, but there is a lot to be learned by taking a look at his platform and taking some time to think about why it didn’t hit home with voters. With only three candidates left in the race, and two of them calling for a Wild Rose merger, it seems that this election is getting more interesting by the day.

t8n: What do you see as the main points of conflict among PC voters in Alberta?

SK: I don’t think that PC voters are different than any other Albertan right now. Obviously, the biggest concern is our economy and the fact that our province, which was one of the most competitive jurisdictions in confederation, has become a place of political instability. We’ve become a place where people have become very reluctant to invest, from large industrial projects to smaller investments into small-to-midsize businesses. That’s a real concern. It boils down to a question of whether or not our children and grandchildren are going to have the same opportunities that the rest of us have had, just by virtue of being Albertan. As I travel the province, this has been the biggest concern, and I don’t think that it’s unique to PC voters. It’s a concern that all Albertans share.

People are seeing that the province is moving backwards as a result of the decisions that are being made by the current government. These decisions are completely out of tune with a value-for-money approach and completely out of tune with any sense of pragmatism. The current government’s policy is largely driven by ideology, and with this experiment, I think we’ve seen that Alberta has quickly become a have-not province.

Alberta works best when we are the most competitive jurisdiction, when we’re the place that people come to invest and when people want to move here, not just for the jobs, but for the incredible quality of life that we enjoy here. That is what people want to get back to, and that is what my platform plans to deliver.

t8n: Business owners have been critical of Alberta’s minimum wage increase. Is there is a way to balance the economic concerns of small businesses with the financial needs of low-income earners?

SK: Absolutely. And I think that there is a role for government to help out there, but the minimum-wage increase is one of the biggest examples of the NDP government making decisions based on ideology and not data. As Albertans, we all agree that we need to address poverty, but I don’t believe that the $15 minimum wage will be an effective way to do that. And as a consequence, it will make things extremely difficult for both small business and for Albertans who are on a fixed income. Less than two percent of Albertans, population-wise, make minimum wage to begin with, and almost half of those people come from what Stats Canada calls “High-income Range Households.” They’re spouses of high-income earners, or they’re the children of high-income earners. That means that only one percent of Albertans, we all agree, can’t make ends meet because they’re living on minimum wage. That’s what we should be focusing on.

There are things we can do in government in terms of tax relief and training that can begin to move those folks away from minimum-wage jobs and into a higher income bracket. We all agree that we want to help those single parents who have trouble raising their families because they’re stuck earning minimum wage. But I don’t believe that they’re going to be able to get ahead by earning $15 an hour as opposed to $11.50. It’s just not supported by the facts. Albertans want to make sure that people who need a hand can get that hand, but a $15 minimum wage doesn’t do that. It penalizes small business, and who it really adversely affects are the folks who are on a fixed income. Minimum wage earners primarily come from from two industries: service and retail. Margins in those industries are so slim that the only way that people will be able to sustain their businesses is by passing on the cost to the consumer. Seniors who currently might be eating out two to three times a week are really going to feel that impact. Folks on AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) who are struggling just to get by right now are really going to be hit hard. Typically, when you make decisions like this based on ideology, they’re going to be ineffective, or in this case, jam-packed with unintended consequences that are going to become very damaging.

t8n: How would you balance this concept of fiscal conservatism with issues like climate change here in Alberta?

SK: Like most Albertans, I believe that we don’t have to pit our economy against the environment. I also believe that Albertans have always been environmental stewards. I’ll admit that in the past, one of the mistakes of government was not promoting the fact that every year, based on industry research, the carbon footprint went down per barrel of oil, and it continues to do so. We haven’t been promoting these amazing and innovative technologies and the accomplishments that have been made in Fort McMurray. Most Albertans don’t really know about any of that, and consequently, the world doesn’t know about it either.

We need to acknowledge that we’re a natural-resource-driven economy, and we need to do things that ensure that we’re maximizing our window of return on those resources. It’s not a matter of when we run out of them. The world is already moving away, and in order to make sure that we’re sustainable during this transition, we need to maximize what we already have with an eye on the future. We need to make sure that we’re remaining economically relevant as a jurisdiction and that we’re producing revenues that will support our population. The model I always talk about is Detroit. Alberta needs to look at those jurisdictions that were some of the global leaders in terms of revenue, but who lost focus on how to continue and how to modernize their economy. I don’t believe that the current government is answering these kinds of questions, and I don’t believe that they’re trying to modernize our economy, either. They’re being reactive. Evidence shows that the price of a barrel of oil is the same in Saskatchewan as it is in Alberta. Yet there is still investment in Saskatchewan, and there are still new projects being developed there. We need to get back to that place where we are competitive, where we have investment coming in.

t8n: Is that how you would focus on job creation? Innovation that attracts investment?

SK: It’s crucial. A few years ago, people weren’t asking what our government was doing to create jobs. In my opinion, it’s not the government’s role to create jobs. It’s the government’s role to enable businesses, large and small, to be the job creators. We’re clearly in a position now where we’ve got a government that places a higher value on public sector jobs than private sector jobs. Albertans, I firmly believe, don’t agree with that. When I was knocking on doors back in 2015, there wasn’t one person who said, “Look, we know that the economy is going down right now. The solution is to make government bigger.” As incongruent as that sounds, that’s exactly where we are in the early days of 2017, where the government’s response to the biggest economic crisis since the Depression has been to run 12-billion-dollar deficits by expanding the government. It just doesn’t make sense on any level.

t8n: What is the difference between bullying and criticism when it comes to public figures? What is off limits?

SK: That is a fair acknowledgement. I don’t believe that it is a black-and-white issue. There are shades of grey. I’m somebody who believes there are times when we can be too politically correct as a society. When it comes to political discourse, there needs to be respect being shown to the opposition and an acknowledgement that the opposition has a difficult job. That debate should come from a spot where you’re both working to understand what the other person is saying and not just putting up your blinders. That’s the type of political forum that I would like to build as the leader of the PC Party.

I think this is a real opportunity for a new and better style of politics. This is something that Albertans are expecting of their leaders and, frankly, something that Alberta could be a leader in. It’s something that excites me. This is a great opportunity to fix the PC Party, acknowledge some fundamental flaws that have existed and to get to a point where we can fix what is happening in the province. We serve Albertans best when we’re in a mutually respective climate, and that’s exactly what I propose to create when I’m leader of the party.

t8n: Are good ideas good ideas regardless of which party they originate from? How would you work with the other parties to adequately represent all Albertans?

SK: In my experience as the MLA for St. Albert, and in my experience as the Minister of Enterprise and Advanced Education, and as the Minister of Service Alberta, I developed a reputation as someone who was not very partisan. I’m definitely the kind of guy who thinks a good idea is a good idea; I don’t care where it comes from. And I think, overwhelmingly, this is where Albertans sit as well. The people in this province don’t want a government that plays games with politics. I know this from experience; I hear it all the time as I tour. What Albertans want is a government that is focused on doing the right thing. Politics doesn’t have to be chess, and it shouldn’t be chess. Politicians should focus on doing right by their constituents and by Albertans. It doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that.

t8n: How do you think the results of the American presidential election will affect Alberta economically and socially?

SK: It’s interesting times. I think that there were a lot of people the day after the election that thought the world had turned upside-down. As we move forward here, I think that we need to take a little bit of a “wait and see” approach. I don’t think that we can be too reactionary. When it comes to US policy on trade as it pertains to pipelines and our petro-chemical industry, Alberta is in a spot where we may receive some benefits from the new leadership. Albertans have a very strong sense of social justice, and there are folks with a healthy amount of skepticism, but to them I’d say, let’s wait and see which direction the US government takes when it comes to issues like foreign policy.