PHOTO: AlbertaPolitics.ca has received this exclusive image of a pin mocked up with a new logo reflecting one of the new names under serious consideration by Alberta’s NDP. Below: Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan.

April 1, 2018

Alberta’s New Democratic Party is considering a name change to reflect the new political realities of Alberta and Canada.

“This is the 21st Century and we need a name that reflects the political situation in Alberta, Western Canada, and the whole country now,” said a party insider, said to be associated with the discussions, which are said to be taking place.

AlbertaPolitics.ca has also received an exclusive copy of a photograph showing a pin mocked up with a new logo reflecting one of the new names under serious consideration.

“Everybody knows we aren’t getting along with those eastern bastards in the national party, let alone those shitheads in B.C.,” said the insider, who is not authorized to speak about the name change talks, and not authorized to use bad language when doing so.

The pro-oilsands-development Alberta NDP was angered by passage of a motion at the federal NDP’s April 2016 policy convention in Edmonton calling for consideration of the Leap Manifesto, which if implemented would restrict development of the oilsands and pipeline construction, and by the B.C. NDP government’s talk this year of restricting the flow of diluted bitumen through a planned pipeline to the B.C. Coast.

“Some of our strategists thought it would be a good idea if we could get the word ‘conservative,’ or even ‘oil,’ in there, or maybe just name the party after the provincial flower, the Wild Rose,” the source said. “But most of us thought we should go for a change that only modernizes the brand a little, like calling ourselves the New Democrats, or the NDs, without any reference to the party.

“Anyway, other parties’ members party at their conventions. We mostly just hand out leaflets.”

The source said the Alberta NDP mocked up the ND lapel pin just to see how it looked.

“You know, it’s all about rebranding. Like New Labour, only more like the New Democrats in the States. Modern. Not Tommy Douglas, Medicare and the rest of that that old-fashioned stuff,” the source added. “Seriously? Mouseland?

The party is still open to suggestions, though. About the name, that is.

It is not known what federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh thinks of this idea, but a spokesperson for B.C. Premier John Horgan said the B.C. New Democrats would be delighted if their Alberta counterparts changed their name to something else.

Dear readers, do not fret. Before you cancel your donation to the Alberta NDP, check the date. This is your blogger’s annual lame April Fools joke … I think. At any rate, everything in this story was just made up by the author, mostly out of spite, for the occasion. In other words … it’s genuine Fake News! If it’s not very funny, well, that’s the zeitgeist. Old Alberta New Democrats will recognize the lapel pin, and the reason it still exists in a few sock drawers, like the author’s. Speaking of which, in case you were wondering, Pam Barrett was not Dave Barrett’s daughter. DJC

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15 Comments

  1. I also recently heard some shit-head comment that the NDP 2015 campaign agenda to create a standing oil/gas royalties commission that would ensure Albertans get an ‘owners’ share of non-renewable resource revenue will also be in the 2019 campaign agenda.

    I really am again sure going to be happy to pitch that agenda again on the phone calls to get NDP voters out to vote in 2019.

  2. And I’m sure glad the AB NDP discovered that the dual mandate of promoting/regulating the energy industry and also protecting the environment by the Alberta Energy Regulator and being funded 100% by the industry did not in fact warrant any legislative or regulatory change. Change would have been so hard on the industry, who knows how many CEOs would have needed therapeutic help to sustain the oppression. The opiod crisis would have been so much worse.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/2378102/ndp-minister-reassures-alberta-energy-regulator-about-review/

    excerpt: ‘Jim Ellis, president and CEO of the AER, said the agency is heartened by the decision.

    “The government of Alberta recently advised us that they will not be proceeding with a review of our mandate,” Ellis said Thursday in an email.

  3. After 2019, the NDP may call themselves the Opposition Party. I have a few choice names for the AB NDP — none of them printable.
    The name really won’t matter. The NDP’s turn to the right and Notley’s capitulation to Big Oil render them irrelevant.
    Whatever the NDP call themselves, they are likely to find that a good fraction of their traditional supporters won’t follow them.

    The NDP was a force for good in opposition. Now their goal is to out-conservative the conservatives.
    Now we have zero oil industry critics in the Legislature. And there won’t be any after 2019.
    Banished to the opposition benches for the next generation, the NDP will be able to say nothing about oilsands expansion, oil & gas pollution, and climate inaction — because they bedded Big Oil in office.

    The NDP will use the spectre of Kenney as a bogeyman to stifle dissent against their oil-friendly and climate-disastrous policies. Notley thinks she can scare progressives into supporting the NDP uncritically — no matter what.
    On pipelines, oilsands expansion, boosting AB’s emissions, and ignoring science, Notley and Kenney are Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

    A vote for the NDP in 2019 is a vote for Big Oil, bad policy, and betrayal. Voting out of fear for the NDP in 2019 is just asking for more abuse.

    1. Notley will leave a province locked even deeper into a fossil-fuel future. A province mired even deeper in climate change denial. A province with increasingly degraded life-support systems. A province more eager to seek short-term gain, illusory wealth, at long-term loss. A province even further out of step with 21st century realities. A province even more dependent on the oil industry. An industry even more dependent on billion-dollar subsidies. A province even more vulnerable to global oil price crashes. A province even deeper under the sway of petro-politics. A province even weaker in democratic spirit. A province that takes pride in bullying its neighbours. A province hell-bent on being the problem, not the solution.
      Not the future this Albertan is voting for.

      I’m not going to vote out of fear of Jason Kenney. Kenney isn’t a reason to vote NDP.
      I’m going to vote for the sustainable future I believe in. Which Notley’s NDP will NEVER deliver. There is NO path from massive oilsands development to lower emissions or Canada’s climate targets.
      The urban progressive base is not going away. It just needs a genuinely progressive choice. Notley isn’t it.

      Send Notley and her oil-soaked crew packing in 2019, and the next “progressive” party won’t be so quick to renege on its campaign promises, ignore its mandate, and betray its supporters and future generations.

  4. The NDP’s should rename themselves the “PC’s” -as in “progressive conservatives”

  5. It’s a sorry state of affairs when we forget those who worked so hard. That state seems to be ours now now. A nation of amnesiacs. Now I know how the special cattle feel.

  6. How about “New Tory Party”? Notley is sucking up to the oil patch as hard as Ralph ever did. It’s embarrassing to see her defending the indefensible expansion of bitumen extraction. Have they EVER said “No” to a new oil-sand permit application?

    Granted they had some early success overcoming the 19th-century attitudes of Oilberduh’s more reactionary business goons. But I can’t recall a single progressive move after their second year in office. Oh–right. There’s the New & Improved HSE code that’s finally coming into effect this year. At least now our labour and occupational-health codes will use the best practices of the 20th century.

    I voted NDP to help end 44 years of Tory dominance, and 20-odd years of Big Oil oligarchy. What we have now is conservative-lite social policy and corporate-capture Big Oil dominance. Next year, I vote Green.

    1. Awww jeez…you got me. April 1st. It’s not that I gots no sense of haw-haw. It’s just that I doesn’t gets it when the haws is on me.

      Still…I stand by my rant. I expected better out of Rachel & Co. We don’t need another 50 years of dominance by oil barons.

  7. Then, there’s the actual, comical and embarrassing naming of political parties, without much thought?
    For example, now,the UCP (you see pee) or, Up Close and Personal.
    “You can’t make this stuff up.” 🙂

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