Alberta is set to lose another of its top-level politicians, as Liberal and Opposition Leader David Swann plans to announce his resignation Tuesday.
The surprise move would be an about-face for Dr. Swann and would come less than a week after the province's premier and finance minister made their own departure announcements.
Dr. Swann, who won the 2008 leadership but has failed to make gains in polls, has a caucus meeting scheduled for Tuesday and is expected to announce then that he'll step down, sources tell The Globe and Mail. Among the items on the agenda for the meeting is discussion about the party's position "going forward."
The leader hasn't shared his plans with caucus, and in recent days had insisted he planned on leading his party into the next election, something he hasn't yet done in his brief time as leader. Asked about the reason behind the move, one source said: "Lack of confidence, I would say, [on the part of]party and caucus."
Repeated calls to party officials and to Dr. Swann went unanswered Monday evening. A caucus spokeswoman said she couldn't comment.
The party is also planning a press conference for 11:30 a.m., two sources said.
Dr. Swann left his career as a physician and was first elected to a seat in Calgary in 2004. He was re-elected in 2008, when Progressive Conservative Premier Ed Stelmach won an overwhelming majority. Later that year, Dr. Swann beat out rival Dave Taylor to win the Liberal leadership.
Dr. Swann says regularly that he's "a different kind of politician," and both opponents and supporters might agree. He preferred to try and take a high road in debate, but often saw his arguments overshadowed by the more brazen style of fellow opposition members.
"He's an extraordinary human being, but an extraordinary human being who believes in doing the best for humanity doesn't necessarily have what it takes to be an instinctive, galvanizing, knife fighting leader," said veteran Alberta politics observer David Taras, a professor at Calgary's Mount Royal University. He added: "You're not going to find a finer human being. He's the kind of person who should go into public life, but just perhaps he shouldn't have been leader."
His party struggled to make inroads in polls despite a series of gaffes by the Tories and a split on the right with the nascent Wildrose Alliance - the Liberals, as the official opposition and de facto standard bearer of the left, should have made gains. Instead, their poll numbers have stagnated.
The party has also seen extensive turnover. Party President Tony Sansotta resigned last year after disagreements with Dr. Swann over his efforts to unite the left vote, by merging parties or agreeing not to run candidates against one another (the New Democrats rebuffed the idea). After Mr. Sansotta's departure, communications director Neil Mackie was fired. Some within the party suggested the communications problem lay instead at the feet of Dr. Swann, who evokes more of a friendly professor vibe than that of a government watchdog, which many opposition leaders typically turn to.
The party even lost Michael Decore, a researcher. The move wouldn't be that significant except for its symbolism - Mr. Decore is the son of former leader Laurence Decore, the last Liberal who posed a bona fide threat to PC rule.
The Liberals have already seen at least two of their eight MLAs announce they won't seek re-election. The loss of Dr. Swann as leader and potentially as an MLA would be another blow to their hopes of forming government or maintaining official opposition status.
The move is the latest that leaves the Alberta political scene in an ongoing state of flux.
Premier Ed Stelmach announced his resignation on Jan. 25 in a sudden move said to have been precipitated by a battle with Finance Minister Ted Morton over the budget. Mr. Stelmach ultimately won that battle with Mr. Morton agreeing to support the budget, with its large deficit. Mr. Morton subsequently stepped down as Finance Minister on Jan. 27 and announced he'd seek the leadership to take over from Mr. Stelmach.
A day before Mr. Stelmach's announcement, Mr. Taylor - who'd been sitting as an independent after clashing with Dr. Swann and leaving the Liberal Party - agreed to join the upstart Alberta Party (meant as a trans-partisan new face on the centre-left), giving it its first MLA. The Tories and Alberta Party are already both preparing for leadership races. If Dr. Swann were to follow through on his resignation, it would leave the two MLA New Democrats and the four-member Wildrose Alliance as the only parties not undergoing a major redesign. Wildrose also has plenty of momentum, and has seen its poll and fundraising numbers jump in the past year.
"Everything is in flux," Prof. Taras said, adding the centre-left is looking for a "a transcendent figure."
But "at this moment I'd be hard-pressed to say who that person would be, or if anyone would want that role," Prof. Taras said.
It's not clear when Dr. Swann's resignation will take effect. Mr. Stelmach has pledged to stay on for the spring session, set to begin February 22, before triggering an official leadership race. Dr. Swann may take a similar path.
The political landscape is now going to depend largely on which leaders take their parties into the next election. The last full provincial poll, released in December by Environics research, put the PC party at 34 per cent with Wildrose close behind at 32. The Liberals were at 19 per cent, with the New Democrats at 13 per cent. (The Alberta Party wasn't on the poll).
Calgary Pollster Janet Brown analyzed those numbers and projected that it would lead to either a slim majority or a minority government for the Tories, with Wildrose forming the official opposition, taking about two dozen seats, and roughly equal seat totals for the other parties.
But a leader can make all the difference, she said, and Mr. Stelmach and Dr. Swann were still leaders at the time of the poll.
"A leader change is huge, and a good example of that is the Wildrose Alliance. The Wildrose Alliance was sort of floating along in obscurity. but then the presence of Danielle Smith, once she won the leadership, that gave the party literally a 20-per-cent boost in popularity," Ms. Brown said.
The Liberal Party is said to be looking for a leader from the north, in the Edmonton area. Politics in Alberta is often split between Edmonton and Calgary. Premier Stelmach is from the north, and the next PC leader is expected to emerge from the south, where the Wildrose leader is also from. As such, the Liberals may look to capture votes with a northern leader.