After dropping out of High School in grade 11, Klein joined the Royal Canadian Air Force reserves for one year and then attended the Calgary Business College.

In 1980, Klein turned his attention to politics and as an underdog was elected Mayor of Calgary, where he oversaw the boom and bust of the oil industry in the 1980s, expansion of the CTrain, and the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.

Ralph Klein's parents separated when he was five or six years old and he spent time living with his maternal grandparents in the Calgary's north end, and Rocky Mountain House with his mother.

[17] Klein remarried three months after his divorce to the Victoria-born Colleen Evelyn Hamilton, a single-mother with two children working as an accounting clerk with Imperial Oil and as a bartender by night.

[26][27] The 1973 oil crisis created an economic boom in Calgary, and Klein reported on stories which emphasized the lower-class, outcasts and challenges faced by those who did not benefit from urban renewal.

[29] Klein's documentary focused on the poverty and difficulty of life, and interviewed grocery store owners who sold huge stockpiles of vanilla extract to desperate alcoholics at inflated prices.

[28] Although Klein valued his time living with the Blackfoot people, he rarely brought the experience up publicly, instead only sharing the elements outside the documentary with close friends and family.

[35][36] Klein's final documentary Dreams, Schemes and Sandstone Dust brought the human element to the civic centre debate, interviewing the bar regulars, hotel tenants and small business owners who were set to be bulldozed, creating a narrative that the areas historic but rundown buildings were worth preserving.

[37] On August 20, shortly after the film crew incident and documentary, Klein uncharacteristically appeared at the morning CFCN news meeting and announced he would run for Mayor against Alger.

[51] The community continued to fight the city over rezoning the land to allow for the new arena amidst fears of traffic congestion in their neighbourhood which resulted in numerous costly delays to the start of construction.

[52] In a bid to end the battle, Mayor Ralph Klein asked the provincial government in July 1981 to take over the land designated for the arena to bypass the appeals process and force approval.

[57] Ralph Klein and other civic leaders crisscrossed the world attempting to woo International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegates as the city competed against rival bids by Falun, Sweden and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

[59] The organizing committee, which was subsequently chastised by mayor Klein for running a "closed shop", admitted that it had failed to properly communicate the obligations it had to supply IOC officials and sponsors with priority tickets.

The federal government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program (NEP) which "effectively imposed revenue-sharing burdens on oil and gas revenues in Alberta,[5] in the October 1980 budget shortly after Klein took office as mayor of Calgary.

[69][71] Klein also dealt with several high-profile controversial issues including the Oldman River Dam, Alberta Pacific pulp mill and Swan Hills Waste Treatment Plant.

Many of Klein's opponents in the Progressive Conservative leadership did not contest the 1993 election including Nancy Betkowski, John Oldring, Doug Main, and Rick Orman.

Klein's final election as Premier in 2004 saw the Progressive Conservative's support drop, winning 62 seats with 47 per cent of the popular vote against Kevin Taft's Liberal Party and Brian Mason's NDP.

[78][79] The glut began in the early 1980s as a result of slowed economic activity in industrial countries (due to the crises of the 1970s, especially in 1973 and 1979) and the energy conservation spurred by high fuel prices.

"[5] Rich Vivone, who was involved in Alberta politics from 1980 to 2005, claimed Klein "had the trust and popularity to do almost anything he wanted and survive" and his "fiscal achievements early in his career were significant, but he "utterly failed at health reform and economic diversification" and he did "little for culture, recreation or the arts.

Klein's reforms for Alberta would have permitted for-profit care and made it possible to jump queues, to "allow patients to pay cash for some surgery and let doctors practice in both the public and private health systems.

[110] Klein's response to BSE was highly criticized when he made a public statement "I guess any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he didn't do that," referring to the farmer in northern Alberta whose animal was found to have the disease when it was taken to a slaughterhouse.

The United States eventually lifted restrictions on Canadian beef imports in stages, starting with cattle under 30 months of age in late-2003, then meat products in 2004, and later greater trade reductions in July 2005.

[113] As part of economic diversification initiatives as Minister of Environment, Klein approved in December 1990 the construction of North America's largest pulp mill by Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc.

Against the advice of the Auditor General and the Provincial Treasurer on March 31, 1997, Klein wrote off all interest of the loan, totaling $140 million to the Alberta-Pacific Joint Venture when prices were low for pulp.

Klein repeated a promise to use the Notwithstanding Clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to veto any requirement that the province register same-sex marriages, however the government recanted as legal scholars questioned whether the action have been constitutional.

In 2006, CAPS was renamed and the newly christened Sheriffs Branch was expanded rapidly to take on assignments that previously were the purview of the RCMP, the provincial policing authority.

[145] Klein found the spiritualism inspiring and prepared mentally for provincial elections in sweat lodges, carried an eagle feather in his briefcase and hung sweetgrass braids in his office.

"[151] Public opinion regarding Klein's alcohol consumption reached a boiling point in December 2001 when he visited the Herb Jamieson Centre, a 249-bed homeless shelter in Edmonton while intoxicated.

[155] Klein admitted to being intoxicated at many moments in his life, visibly during his 2001 general election party, a month earlier when he introduced former US President Bill Clinton, and at the public memorial for Calgary sportscasting legend Ed Whalen.

A column by Ric Dolphin, arguing that Colleen Klein has too much influence over her husband, quoted an unnamed source who said "Once she stops being the premier's wife, she goes back to being just another Indian.