Watching Alberta’s New Democratic government these days is both compelling and disturbing. It’s very much like driving by an accident on the highway, and wondering if everything is OK, but knowing full well that it isn’t. And boy-oh-boy, life is unfolding like a slow-motion crash under the dome in Edmonton.
If you are looking for things that have gone right for Premier Rachel Notley and her crew since they took office just short of a year ago, you would have to use a magnifying glass. True, Alberta’s employment numbers shot up by 14,000 jobs last month, and it looks like ridiculous new rules regarding housing for disabled people have been scrapped, so they may not be doing every little thing wrong. But many people are probably wondering why so many voters threw such enthusiastic support behind this rookie government.
Raising taxes and the minimum wage during the province’s biggest economic slump in 30 years may fit with the party’s ideology but these moves could not have come at a worse time. They have not only hurt businesses, but also their employees, as firms have struggled with ways to balance the books. More than a few business people have rightly asked why they were not consulted on any of this. Did the government give any thought to business?
Then came the farmers angered by a lack of consultation on farm safety legislation, again mostly due to terrible communication. Should this not have been a good news story? That fiasco was followed by another one; the ban on the right-wing Rebel online reporters from attending press conferences. Just a small point, but if a government wants to alienate the press, there is no better way than to try to control it. Add to this mix growing distrust over a $10-billion deficit, reports of unhappiness in the civil service due to ideology-driven decision-making, a clearly weak, inexperienced caucus, and a lack of success in selling its vision of Alberta’s primary industry to anyone – even its own comrades at the national level at this past weekend’s leadership convention in Edmonton.
Despite Notley’s apparently impassioned speech in support of oil pipelines Saturday night, the federal NDP turned around to support the anti-oil Leap Manifesto, which even Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan likened to Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program of 35 years ago. The gall of the federal NDP leaving Notley – and by extension many Albertans – to flap in the wind like this is appalling but perhaps also understandable. The fact that Notley and many of her colleagues are on record opposing the oil patch in the past isn’t doing them any favours today. The whole thing is like being invited to a feast lasting decades paid for with oil money, eating like a pig and then badmouthing the food with a rather childish homage to Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Provincial New Democrats may rail in disgust at the federal party, but the move also signals the loss of yet one more group of Notley supporters.
Later this week, the provincial government will unveil its budget for the next year and as Notley said herself at the convention, there’s a big difference between a manifesto and governing. Like any budget, it is certain to contain a few surprises. Let’s hope they bring more than images of a car wreck.
