Kevin Taft
Encyclopedia
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party
Alberta Liberal Party
The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time...
and Leader of the Opposition
Opposition (parliamentary)
Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. Note that this article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state...
in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...
, from 2004 to 2008. Taft was raised in Edmonton, Alberta.
In 2001, Taft entered politics and was elected to the legislature as an Alberta Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly
Member of the Legislative Assembly
A Member of the Legislative Assembly or a Member of the Legislature , is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to the legislature or legislative assembly of a sub-national jurisdiction....
(MLA) in the riding of Edmonton Riverview
Edmonton Riverview
Edmonton Riverview is a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district is mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting....
, defeating Progressive Conservative
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta is a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta...
candidate and former city councillor Wendy Kinsella. Three years later in the spring of 2004, Ken Nicol
Ken Nicol (politician)
Ken Nicol is a Canadian politician and academic.He served as the MLA for Lethbridge East from 1993 to 2004. During his final three years, he was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, and leader of the official opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta...
resigned as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, and Taft was elected to replace him. Taft was generally given credit for being more tenacious than the soft-spoken Nicol in his performance in the legislature during the lead-up to the 2004 election
Alberta general election, 2004
The Alberta general election of 2004 was the twenty-sixth general election for the province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on November 22, 2004 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
, especially on issues such as public auto insurance, public accounts, and government contracts. Despite leading a party saddled with a $900,000 debt, he helped his party more than double its seats in the election from 7 before the election call to 16, regaining seats in Edmonton, and making a breakthrough in the traditionally conservative city of Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
. Taft also saw his support in Riverview
Edmonton Riverview
Edmonton Riverview is a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district is mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting....
solidify; he received more votes than any other candidate, of any party, in the 2004 election. In the 2008 election, the Liberal Party won only nine seats.
On June 26, 2008, Taft announced that he will be stepping down as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party but intends to remain as an MLA.
Education
Taft has a B.A.Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
and Master's Degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Community Development from the University of Alberta
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
, and a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
from the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Experience in China
In the spring of 1989 Taft was travelling in ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
leading a dinosaur fossil expedition. It was here that he witnessed the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
and the brutal suppression of students
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
by the Chinese government.
When asked later, Taft said; “There were thousands of them.... It felt like Woodstock
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
, as if someone had taken the chains off these students.... There was a sense of revolution.”
The response came weeks later in early June, when the military was called in and, in a night of bloodshed and chaos, killed — depending on reports — hundreds to thousands of protesters. Taft said, "It was like springtime and then the depths of winter."
Career
In the past, Taft has been appointed by Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government to a team monitoring and investigating horrific conditions in hospitals and homes for seniors and the disabled.He later worked as a consultant and policy analyst in the public and private sectors.
Books
He was propelled into the public eye as the author of Shredding the Public Interest, a book published in 1997 that accused the Ralph Klein government of unnecessarily cutting funding for public services; Klein responded by accusing Taft of being a communist. The book spent 12 weeks on the Financial PostFinancial Post
The Financial Post was an English Canadian business newspaper, which published from 1907 to 1998. In 1998, the publication was folded into the new National Post, although the name Financial Post has been retained as the banner for that paper's business section and also lives on in the Post’s...
bestseller list, and was chosen as "Alberta Trade Title of the Year" by the Book Publisher's Association of Alberta. In 2000, Taft co-authored a book with Calgarian journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Gillian Steward, titled Clear Answers: The Economics and Politics of For-Profit Medicine. In 2006 he authored a book titled Democracy Derailed which details his observations and criticisms of the present government in Alberta.
Speeches
In 2007, Taft delivered many speeches that were noted across the province, of particular note are "The Western Tiger" and the "Alternate Speech from the Throne".Electoral record
|-|Liberal
|Kevin Taft
|align="right"|7,420
|align="right"|49.7
|align="right"|
|-
|Progressive Conservative
|Wendy Kinsella
|align="right"|5,883
|align="right"|39.4
|align="right"|
|-
|New Democrat
|Doug McLachlan
|align="right"|1,469
|align="right"|9.8
|align="right"|
|-
|Green
|Jerry Paschen
|align="right"|165
|align="right"|1.1
|align="right"|
|}
|-
|Liberal
|Kevin Taft
|align="right"|10,280
|align="right"|65.5
|align="right"|15.8
|-
|Progressive Conservative
|Fred Horne
Fred Horne
Fred Horne is a Canadian politician and current Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta representing the constituency of Edmonton-Rutherford as a Progressive Conservative.-Early life:...
|align="right"|3,575
|align="right"|22.8
|align="right"|-16.6
|-
|New Democrat
|Donna Martyn
|align="right"|1,058
|align="right"|6.7
|align="right"|-3.1
|-
|Green
|John Lackey
|align="right"|357
|align="right"|2.3
|align="right"|1.2
|-
|Alberta Alliance
|David Edgar
|align="right"|313
|align="right"|2.0
|align="right"|
|-
|Social Credit
|David Power
|align="right"|116
|align="right"|0.7
|align="right"|
|}
| 2008 Election Results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation | Candidate | Votes | % |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Kevin Taft | 7,466 | 50.60% |
Progressive Conservative | Wendy Andrews | 5,170 | 35.04% |
NDP Alberta New Democratic Party The Alberta New Democratic Party or Alberta NDP is a social-democratic political party in Alberta, Canada, which was originally founded as the Alberta section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation... |
Erica Bullwinkle | 1,283 | 8.70% |
Green | Cameron Wakefield | 506 | 3.43% |
Wildrose Alliance Wildrose Alliance Party of Alberta The Wildrose Party, formerly Wildrose Alliance Party, is a conservative provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. It includes free market conservative, libertarian and socially conservative factions and was formed in 2008 following a merger of the Wildrose Party of Alberta and the Alberta... |
Kyle Van Hauwaert | 330 | 2.24% | |