- Ted Morton
.
In 1952, Morton moved with his parents to Casper,
Wyoming , where his father,Warren A. Morton (1924-2002), worked in theoil andnatural gas exploration business and was the Republican Speaker of theWyoming House of Representatives from 1979-1980 and his party'sgubernatorial nominee in 1982. Morton's mother, Katharine Allen Morton (born 1926), was the daughter of formerU.S. Representative Robert G. Allen , a Democrat from westernPennsylvania . Morton moved to Canada in the1980s . In 1991, Morton and his wife, Bambi, became Canadian citizens.Academic career
Morton obtained his B.A. from
Colorado College and earned his Masters and Ph.D. inpolitical economy from theUniversity of Toronto . During his time in college, Morton was involved in protests against theVietnam War . In 1981, Morton joined the faculty of theUniversity of Calgary as apolitical science professor. He is currently on an extended leave of absence so that he can carry out political duties.Morton is part of a group of academics called the
Calgary School whose teaching and writing exercised a very significant influence on the future of conservatism in Canada.He has published five books, one of which won the 1992
Alberta Writers' Guild award, and more than fifty scholarly articles.Fact|date=February 2007 His columns have appeared in theNational Post , theCalgary Herald , theGlobe and Mail and theCalgary Sun .Political career
Morton was an early supporter of the
Triple-E Senate Committee and a public critic of the Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottetown (1992) Accords.He was elected as a Reform Party Senator-in-Waiting in the 1998 Alberta Senate nominee election.
In 2001,
Canadian Alliance leaderStockwell Day appointed him Parliamentary Director of Policy and Research for the party. That same year, he was one of a group of six Albertans (includingStephen Harper —later to become Prime Minister in 2006) who authored the “Alberta Agenda “, also known as the "firewall letter", a manifesto that calls on the government of Alberta to use all of its constitutional powers to reduce the influence of the Federal government on the lives and personal finances of Albertans.In the 2004 Alberta general election, Morton won the newly created seat of
Foothills-Rocky View and now sits as an MLA for the Alberta Progressive Conservatives. In that role, he has advocated fortax cut s, against same-sex marriage, for increased saving of energy revenues, for a lobbyist registry, and for fixed election dates.Fact|date=February 2007 A primary facet of his environmental policy is the revocation of Métis hunting rights [https://secure.ewebspot.com/upload/w_tedmorton/documents/platform_brochure.pdf] . He was the only Conservative MLA to publicly oppose theProsperity Bonus .Fact|date=February 2007 Within six months of his election, theCalgary Herald gave Morton the highest grade of all new Calgary-area MLAs and rated him “Most likely to succeed.”Fact|date=February 2007On December 15th 2006 he was named Minister of Sustainable resource development.
Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership campaign
As a candidate in the 2006 Progressive Conservative leadership race Morton placed second to front runner Jim Dinning on the first ballot. The second ballot took place Saturday, 2 December, 2006. In the leadership campaign Morton's primary policies include:
*Maintaining publicly funded health care, while allowing private health care for non-emergency procedures.
*Providing fixed election dates, and maximum term lengths for the office of Premier.
*The creation of a lobbyist registry and strengthening of the office of auditor general.
*Promoting a bill that would ensure no Alberta laws penalized someone expressing disagreement with same-sex marriage, allow provincially appointed marriage commissioners to refuse to marry same-sex couples, and place restrictions on the teaching of marriage as including same-sex couples.
*Advocating "more Alberta, less Ottawa," including starting an Alberta pension plan, replacing the RCMP in Alberta with a provincial police force, and exercising greater provincial influence in the area of immigration.
*Ensuring that Alberta has greater control over its non-renewable energy resources.Morton has referred to Edmonton as "the capital city of northern Alberta." [http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=266dec13-6f11-485a-a5ed-ee98441a179a]
Criticism
Several figures have publicly expressed worry that Morton's private member Bill 208 would have the effect of protecting, in statute, public discrimination against gays and lesbians. [http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060508/klein_gays_060508/20060508?hub=Canada] .Morton has been criticized by his constituents on the issue of logging in the beloved Kananaskis region. Under his watch, critics argue that part of Kananaskis Country, including part of the Trans Canada Trail, has been logged. Morton argues that the logging was done to prevent pine beetles, but many experts in the area disagree [http://www.savekananaskis.ca/] , [http://www.nowpublic.com/coming_soon_rape_kananaskis] .
External links
* [http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_bio&rnumber=53 Biography for Dr. Ted Morton on the website of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta]
* [http://www.tedmorton.ca Ted Morton Official Website]
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