happy birthday ralph klein!

it's former premier of alberta ralph klein's birthday today.

i was born in alberta, and raised there, and i can safely say that a lot of albertans fucking loved this dude. they LOVED ralph klein. they call him "ralph" and act like he's their best friend.

so, in honour of klein's 67th birthday i'd just like to relive his best moment as premier of alberta.

december 12, 2001: arguably klein's most famous moment. he has his chauffer drive him to a government supported shelter for homeless men at like 1am. shouting and swearing at the men, klein repeatedly told the men to get jobs and he threw change at them.

it's funny because a lot of the men in the shelter did have jobs, and were presumably trying to sleep so they could get up and go to them in the morning.

at first klein tried to deny that version of events. his chief of staff was all "no way, he wasn't drunk" and even went as far to say that klein visited the shelter out of the goodness of his heart.

eventually he had to admit he was drunk, has a drinking problem, and maybe he was wrong.

he remained premier until 2006 and the incident at the homeless shelter, while revealing a lot about alberta's approach to any social ifnrastructure issue, didn't put a dent in his political career.

only in alberta.