Premier Rachel Notley delivered her State of the Province Address on Wednesday afternoon and “stability” was her word of the day.
Certainly Albertans want stability, but it hasn’t been present during Notley’s term as premier.
Notley herself said the province is in “serious fiscal crisis”, but she didn’t say much to give hope that we will return to stability. Her address mainly reiterated the same goals we’ve heard all along: carbon tax, minimum wage increase and shutting down coal power plants. None of those goals offer much to help businesses that are struggling during the downturn. Businesses crave stability too, and despite Notley claiming that "we're getting back on our feet,” some may feel as though the government is kicking them while they are down.
Other than restating the NDP platform, Notley took some time in her speech to attack her opponents and it’s easy to see why. A new poll released this week from the Citizen Society Research Lab at Lethbridge College showed Notley’s party has only 19.7 per cent support, making them third place in the province among decided voters.
While Notley didn’t directly name either opposition party, she wasn’t above partisan rhetoric:
"It makes no sense to try to deal with a crisis in the price of oil by creating a second crisis in basic public services like health and education. That was tried in the past, and it failed,” said Notley, in regards to her government taking a non-austerity approach.
She also criticized the past PC government for non-action on climate change.
“This failure to attend to the fundamental strategic interests of Alberta is a key reason why we remain landlocked today, despite 10 years of promises that the issue was going to be addressed effectively.”
Is the State of the Province Address the right place to deliver such partisan rhetoric? Wildrose Party member and Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken doesn’t think so.
“What concerns me is that we have a premier that has decided to have a state of the province address on the taxpayers’ dime, which appeared to be more of a campaign style event than a state of the province address,” he told the Gazette this week. “I would suggest that Albertans were wanting to hear from their premier a message that could give them a little bit of hope for the future as opposed to a message of: we are going to stick to our ideological agenda and lambaste all the opposition parties.”
The NDP have a majority in Alberta and they are the ones steering the ship through the economic downturn. Notley’s government has full rein – for better or for worse – and if its methods aren’t working or aren’t resonating with the populace, it’s on them.
Perhaps Notley foresees even less support once Albertans are paying more for energy due to the carbon tax, or the phasing out of coal power. Whatever the reason, Wednesday’s address didn’t do much to ease the economic anxiety Albertans are feeling and didn’t offer any hints of the stability many are looking for.
The polls are showing that Albertans aren’t sold on their future under the NDP, but the answer isn’t to direct criticism at other parties. The NDP hold the balance of power and need to own some of the blame for the current economic situation. They may not see it that way, but if recent polls are any indicator, it’s clear that Albertans do.
