ChristianWeek

I just finished reading The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, owners of a Madison Avenue advertising agency who pur posefully decided to treat their clients with sincerity and kindness in the ruthless world of advertising.

Who would have thought that sending your customers flowers and chocolates, giving compliments, taking the time to listen and putting others before our selves could be considered intelligent business strategy?

We here in Alberta wonder if our new premier, Ed Stelmach, is harnessing the power of nice up in the Big Office in Edmonton. The soft-spoken 55-year-old Alberta-born farmer–Alberta's first Ukrainian Catholic premier–worked his way up the ranks of Ralph Klein's Conservative regime, lassoed up the rural vote and became head of the party and premier last December. Stelmach has been referred to in the media as "nice," "a fine gentleman," "pious," "a man of faith," "a man of good char acter" and "good, profound Christian character." He is a man who regularly attends church and sings bass in the choir with his wife of 33 years, Marie.

Archbishop Lawrence Huculak, met ropolitan of all Ukrainian Catholics in Canada, says: "The political world is a difficult world and yet a very important one and it seems so often that Christian principles are put in second place. I am hoping certainly that Ed will be a leader of the community where the Christian principles that are common to so many Albertans will become important in the political decisions that are going to be made."

Basically, Stelmach clinching the top Tory spot is living proof that nice guys don't always finish last. But can they last?

So far, in five months of office, we haven't seen much action from Steady Eddie's government. The most contro versial thing that's happened under his leadership is the scandalous pay-to play at a fundraising meet-and-greet, where for a cool $5,000 party cheer leaders could have exclusive access to the Premier, a plan the Conservatives quickly backed out of due to loud public outrage. And, maybe there have been a few spats within the ranks, a bit of heckling from the opposition and a little tiff with David Suzuki over the environment-but even those minor burns were responded to quietly with a nice soothing Band-Aid.

It would appear that Mr. Stelmach is still making nice with the citizens of Alberta and after the outspoken and brash way the last guy ran our province, we're starting to wonder if Stelmach's nice yet somewhat turtle-like govern ment is going to get anything done.

Can a fine gentleman of good Christian character get tough with a misbehaving, morally decrepit environment-abusing province in need of a sound whipping (and maybe a few more hospitals)?

Let's hope, that in time, the power of nice turns out to be intelligent government strategy, too.