A Mayberry (Alberta) Machiavelli 

A Mayberry (Alberta) Machiavelli

I have suggested that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal, might have deliberately made his Budget bad news just in time to hurt the federal Liberals. Voters might prefer different parties to be in office provincially and federally; and it is convenient for a province to be able to "fed bash."

Now a suggestion by Lawrence Martin in the Globe that Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, a Conservative, is deliberately announcing a possible private-sector type departure from medicare--the kind of thing Stephen Harper is trying to deny he is in favour of.

Would Klein deliberately hurt the national leader of "his" party? Certainly he has more of a record of inconsistency, and looking out for Number 1, than McGuinty.