"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

As predicted in this space three years ago, it was only a matter of time before we Albertans had added to our premier provincial collection new portraits of first ministers Alison Redford and Dave Hancock.

Today marks the official opening of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leadership race, although it's probably not the most important date in the third effort by the former Natural Governing Party of Alberta to recover the mojo that went missing when premier Ed Stelmach threw up his hands and announced he was quitting back in 2011.

Alberta's Tories are praying there's enough truth to save their bacon in the old saw "Third time's a charm!"

Stelmach -- whom I suspect hadn't expected to win when he ran up the middle to victory in the 2006 race to replace Ralph Klein -- was a decent person, but didn't really have the constitution required for the rough-and-tumble that comes with being a premier, a game played with elbows up at the best of times.

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Today is the 45th anniversary of Peter Lougheed's historic election victory in 1971, which brought the Progressive Conservative Party to power with a comfortable majority, where it more or less remained with the general approval of Albertans until May 5, 2015.

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Will Grant Hunter, the Wildrose Opposition's labour critic, apologize to Alberta's New Democrats for his intemperate accusation Wednesday that the Notley government is in bed with the province's largest union because of a sensible practice that dates back to when Alison Redford was premier?