Article content continued

It marks the first time since 1971 that Albertans have handed the reigns of power to a new party. Jim Prentice immediately resigned as Tory leader and said he will not stay on as MLA.

“While I’m personally saddened by the decision, the voters are always right in our democracy,” he told about two dozen supporters. “I’ve been of this party since I was a young man, and I share your disappointment.”

Continue reading…

[/np_storybar]

Watching the former leader leave the stage, I couldn’t help but think of the scene from the 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight where The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, limps towards the camera as a hospital wing explodes behind him. The audience knows The Joker was the one who lit the fuse, and yet, he doesn’t even look back — or stick around — to see the walls crumble. In the wise words of the deranged cartoon villain, “There’s no going back. You’ve changed things, forever.”

Jim Prentice is no villain. But he walks away from a party in ruin — having taken a cataclysmic fall from 44-year ruling dynasty to become the third party in the Alberta legislature — without so much as a look back, or the decency to stick around. In 2012, the PCs, led by Alison Redford, won 61 seats in the legislature; this time, under Jim Prentice, it won an embarrassing 11.

It’s not all Prentice’s fault. For one, he was left to pick up the pieces after Redford left the premiership — and the party — with the lingering stench of her entitlements — her liberal use of government jets, her plans to create a luxurious “Premier’s Suite” in the Federal Building, and so forth. And it was certainly not Prentice’s fault that the price of oil plummeted during his months leading the party.