As Premier, Getty was faced with an economic slowdown and falling energy prices, which hit Alberta's petroleum-dominated economy hard.

Getty was also facing political problems within Alberta, including a defeat in his home riding of Edmonton-Whitemud in the 1989 election (leading to a successful by-election in Stettler, vacated by a P.C.

[2] His father had dropped out of McGill University's medical school due to the Great Depression and worked a variety of jobs—sometimes more than one at a time—to support his wife, three sons, and two daughters.

Getty's childhood was spent in Verdun, Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Agincourt, sharing a three-room apartment with his seven-member family in the last.

Returning for London in time for high school, he became an accomplished athlete (drinking eggnog to gain enough weight to play football) and was elected students' council president.

After graduating, Getty enrolled to study business administration at the University of Western Ontario, where he became a football star and a member of The Kappa Alpha Society.

[3] He quarterbacked the Western Ontario Mustangs to Eastern Collegiate Union Championships in 1954 and 1955,[4] and was awarded the Claude Brown Memorial Trophy as the outstanding athlete at UWO in 1955.

[6] In 1965, Getty was approached by fellow Eskimos veteran and Progressive Conservative leader Peter Lougheed to run in the 1967 provincial election.

[3]: 233  Getty agreed to run in Strathcona West, and defeated incumbent Social Crediter Randolph McKinnon by more than one thousand votes.

[7] Four years later, in the 1971 election, Getty was re-elected by more than 3,500 votes in the new riding of Edmonton-Whitemud and was appointed Minister of Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs in the new Lougheed majority government.

[3]: 233  At an October convention, Getty won a second ballot victory against Minister of Municipal Affairs Julian Koziak and former legislator Ron Ghitter.

[3]: 237  Getty's Treasurer, Dick Johnston, reacted by raising taxes by $1 billion and cutting program spending by 6.3%, including decreases of 3% in grants to schools, universities, municipalities, and hospitals.

During his first budget, he targeted spending at the province's struggling agricultural sector, including a $2 billion loan program meant to address high interest rates.

[3]: 242  A court-ordered investigation led by Bill Code found that the company was in trouble as early as 1980 and, though subsequent economic downturns hurt it, "it would not have been profitable in any event".

[3]: 242  It also found that Consumer and Corporate Affairs Minister Connie Osterman had disregarded 1984 warnings from a regulator in her department that the company was likely insolvent.

[3]: 242  Though Osterman was fired shortly after the report's release, Getty's immediate offer of an $85 million settlement to investors further hurt the government's reputation in areas of business.

[3]: 238  Once it became apparent that the Meech Lake Accord would fail, Getty's government introduced the Senatorial Selection Act, which provided for an election process whenever there was a vacant Senate seat for Alberta.

[3]: 240  Getty also broke with Mulroney on a number of issues other than Senate reform, including the new federal Goods and Services Tax, which he fought unsuccessfully against implementing.

In addition to creating Canada's first Métis land base in 1989, Getty took the lead in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to negotiate a settlement between the federal government and the Lubicon Cree.

Getty called the 1989 election less than three years into his 1986 mandate to take advantage of the economic optimism prevalent in the province, partly as a result of the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement.

[3]: 243  While the P.C.s made spending promises including paving all of the province's secondary highways, the Liberals under new leader Laurence Decore stressed dealing with the deficit.

[3]: 244  Brian C. Downey resigned his seat in the rural central Alberta riding of Stettler to allow Getty to run in a by-election, which he won handily.

[3]: 245  They felt that the party was perceived as being tired, directionless, arrogant, and deaf to urban concerns, and that it was in political trouble in the crucial battleground of Calgary.

[3]: 247 In 1992, as the national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord and the release of a report on the NovaTel incident loomed, Getty decided to leave politics.

[15] Given Klein's aggressive spending cuts, which shaped the political climate of Alberta for much of the 1990s, Getty's legacy with respect to public finances has been criticized.

However, Kevin Taft, writing four years before entering politics, challenged this view, asserting that Getty was running "the tightest government in Canada".

[3]: 230  Lisac suggests that this is because, unlike his predecessor and successor, he lacked a central message: Lougheed had booming prosperity and a constant fight for provincial rights against the federal government.

[18] Eskimos coach Pop Ivy surprised many observers when he started Getty at quarterback in the third game of the 1956 western final (which was a three-game series at the time) during the 44th Grey Cup, with Parker at running back.