Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and journalist, and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald. Her column appears every other week. Kevin Taft never thought he'd be a politician. A public policy analyst and head of his own Edmonton-based consulting company, Kevin's life took a sharp turn when he returned to Alberta in 1994 after a year away studying for a business degree. "Alberta had changed," he recalls. "The government was gutting our health care system without a plan, throwing people's lives into chaos." Kevin watched in growing dismay as the government took aim at education and other public services Albertans had carefully built over many years. In 1997, Kevin wrote Shredding the Public Interest, a national bestseller which confirmed many Albertans' concerns about the PCs. Clear Answers, a second bestseller in 2000, co-authored by Gillian Steward, exploded the myths of private, for-profit health care. Kevin stepped into public life in 2001, handily winning his Edmonton Riverview seat in the provincial election. In 2004, he was elected Leader of the Alberta Liberals and of the Loyal Opposition in the Alberta Le Duane Bratt is professor and chair in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. Keith Brownsey is a professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. Richard Sutherland is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. David Taras is the Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies at Mount Royal University. He is the author of The Newsmakers: The Media's Influence on Canadian Politics and Power and Betrayal in the Canadian Media. Roger Epp is Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He served as founding Dean of the University's Augustana Campus in Camrose from 2004 to 2011. Much of his recent writing has explored what it means to live in the prairie West with a sense of memory, inheritance, and care. He is author of We are All Treaty People: Prairie Essays (2008), co-editor of Writing Off the Rural West (2001) and co-producer of the documentary "The Canadian Clearances" for CBC Radio Ideas.