Jim Prentice 'changed my life,' says former PC Party president
A former president of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party remembers Jim Prentice as "a happy warrior" who worked hard to get things done.
"He truly was there to make a difference," said Katherine O'Neill, who later left the party.
Prentice, Ken Gellatly, Sheldon Reid and pilot Jim Kruk died Oct. 13, 2016 when their small plane crashed shortly after leaving Kelowna, B.C. en route to the Springbank Airport near Calgary.
An 18-month investigation into the crash did not identify its cause, but Transportation Safety Board of Canada officials said Thursday the "most plausible" scenario was that Kruk became spatially disoriented due to a heavy workload at the controls.
At a news conference in Calgary, TSB board chairwoman Kathy Fox said the investigation was hampered by the lack of flight recording systems onboard the plane.
The board is now recommending that Transport Canada require all commercial and private business operators to install these systems.
"We can't bring back the four people that have been lost," O'Neill said Thursday on CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.
"I really hope people think about the families of those men today and really think about the legacies they've left," O'Neill added.
At the time, TSB investigator-in-charge Beverly Harvey said the plane was "destroyed from high deceleration forces after a vertical descent."
Prentice encouraged O'Neill to pursue politics
O'Neill said Prentice was the driving force behind her entry into politics.
The former Globe and Mail journalist had young children and was freelancing when she was approached to run for the PC party.
O'Neill said Prentice sat down with her and explained the reasons why he thought she should run.
"One of his No. 1 reasons for talking to me was he wanted more young women with small children in politics," she said.
"Now we have lots of women in politics with young children, but at the time in Alberta, we didn't see a lot of women at the table. He changed my life."
O'Neill ran for the PCs in Edmonton-Meadowlark in the May 2015 election but was defeated.
Prentice, who was 60 when he died, resigned immediately after the NDP swept the PC government out of power in May 2015. He had been premier since September 2014.
O'Neill, who called Prentice "a true public servant" and one of the hardest workers she has ever met, said she was one of many people disappointed by his resignation.
"He felt he should clear the way for someone else to come in," she said.
"Some people disagreed with it, but we can't go back and change what happened."
Before he became premier, Prentice was a federal cabinet minister in Stephen Harper's government and a vice-chair and senior executive with CIBC.
