What can you say nine years after we all woke up and realized that the night before Albertans really had elected a majority NDP government? Well, it was a great night, a great morning after, and, despite some disappointments, the government run by Rachel Notley wasn’t a bad one by any measure. To know that, all we have to do is look in the rear-view mirror and then look ahead at where the second of Ms. Notley’s Conservative successors is trying to take Alberta. Ms. Notley is still at the helm of the NDP, now in Opposition, but not for much longer. A new NDP leader is to be chosen by the end of next month. And then, maybe, one of these days, Alberta voters will make history again by choosing a better future than the one on offer from the present government. In the mean time, while we think about that, I thought I’d post my column from the morning after the night before and see how that first draft of history stacked up against the reality that followed. DJC
Pinch me! Am I dreaming? Canada’s ‘most conservative’ province elects an NDP majority
EDMONTON, Alberta (May 5, 2015) — Well, how d’ya like them oranges?
Alberta New Democratic Party, 53 seats; Wildrose Party, 20; Progressive Conservative Party, 11; Alberta Liberal Party, 1; Alberta Party, 1! And that Progressive Conservative Premier, Jim Prentice, who was supposed to restore the dynasty? About to resign.
They were still referring to Alberta as “Canada’s most conservative province” on the CBC just after midnight this morning as I drove home from the NDP’s massive victory celebration in Edmonton’s Westin Hotel. Actually, I think the national broadcaster might want to update that script!
There’s a good case to be made it hasn’t really been true for quite a while, anyway, notwithstanding the nearly 44-year history, 80 years if you count Social Credit, of Albertans electing conservative governments by large majorities.
In many ways, as plenty of public opinion polls have illustrated – and I think public opinion research has just sort of redeemed itself, don’t you? – Albertans’ attitudes in the past couple of decades have paralleled those of Canadians throughout the country.
Sooner or later all those folks moving here from other parts of Canada were bound to change things – and last night’s general election showed just how much things have changed.
Still, it was very hard for Albertans to believe epochal change was about to happen yesterday, even when it was starting to be pretty clear something electrical was in the air. And this included most die-hard New Democrats from these parts, your blogger included. The most common phrase I heard at the party’s celebration last night was, “Pinch me! Am I dreaming?”
There’s a reason for this. If there’s anything at all to the idea that Alberta’s still conservative place, it’s this: After literally generations of conservative governments in power Edmonton, there’s a little tiny Tory in the back of every one of our Albertan heads whispering, “No you can’t!”
You can’t change anything. You can’t protect the environment and still provide energy to the world. You can’t benefit from the resources you own like the good people of Alaska or Norway do because … well, you just can’t!
For several generations now, our tiny inner Tory has been, as a famous American conservative once put it in a slightly different context, “a nattering nabob of negativism.”
Don’t try to change anything. Our inner Tory says, You can’t do it. Don’t try to build a better Alberta. You can’t do it. Forget about a more diversified economy. You can’t do it. Don’t ask us to pay our share when we tell you to pay yours. You can’t do it.
So Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley’s pitch perfect campaign, which crested at exactly the right moment, achieved the feat of allowing us Albertans to think, “Yes we can!”
Ms. Notley made that happen by telling us – way back on pretty much the first day of her campaign to lead the Alberta NDP – that she was running to be premier of Alberta.
A lot of people, some of them New Democrats – were skeptical of that claim. During the leadership campaign, and even more during the campaign leading up to the election called by Mr. Prentice, some were downright dismissive. Some NDP supporters were afraid it would scare voters away in droves.
But it’s said here it achieved the nearly impossible: it was the key to making Albertans believe the change they craved could happen, if only they were brave enough to make it. Yesterday they were, and it did!
That’s why this election – as miraculous as it seems – was no miracle on the Prairies. Hard work, vision and courage made it come about.
Yes, Mr. Prentice helped, with one of the most spectacularly awful campaigns imaginable – a combination of dumb strategy, bad luck and a tin ear that couldn’t pick up what Albertans were telling him, no matter how loudly they said it. As in, “Don’t call an early election, please!”
But this was a case where the traditional defensive logic of politics – which says governments lose elections, opposition parties don’t win them – rings hollow. No, Ms. Notley won this one, with a hope-mongering campaign that overcame PC negativity and threats, and made believers of huge numbers of voters who a year ago could never have imagined themselves voting anything but Tory.
I doubt this means that Orange is the new Blue – if by Blue you mean another multi-decade, multi-generational dynasty.
No, Ms. Notley’s campaign has made possible an Alberta that is more like the rest of Canada – more humane, more inclusive, more respectful, more democratic, and therefore more prone to healthy changes of government from time to time.
The hard work for the NDP will start today – or, at least, tomorrow, when the hangovers wear off.
Yes, Ms. Notley has an inexperienced caucus, some members of which never imagined they would be MLAs when they agreed to run. But, seriously people, how could they do worse than the experienced clowns that made up the last PC government?
Yes, once they recover from yesterday’s shock, the right-wing opposition will go wild. It is not unreasonable to assume that some elements of the business community will go as far as trying to sabotage the economy, as happened when Bob Rae was premier of Ontario.
Yes, the right-wing press will start by telling us immediately this election result really means Albertans want more conservatism, which it manifestly does not.
Yes, some of Ms. Notley’s strongest supporters will be disappointed and bitter when the realities of politics, which is the art of the possible after all, mean they cannot have their wish list instantly fulfilled.
And, yes, even though it’s springtime in Alberta, it’ll probably snow today.
But while I don’t know about you, I just have the feeling Ms. Notley might very well be up to these challenges!
She was certainly up to the challenge of ending the dynasty started by Peter Lougheed in 1971. And if Mr. Lougheed is watching somewhere, I have a suspicion he might approve almost as much as would Ms. Notley’s dad, Grant Notley, who was the leader of the NDP opposition when he was killed in a plane crash in 1984.
Last Sunday, Ms. Notley urged Albertans not to repeat history, but to make it. Last night they proved they were up to that challenge.
I remember that provincial election very well. It was a well deserved win for Rachel Notley and the NDP. The Alberta PCs had lost the drive, determination, focus, and good governance that Peter Lougheed had, and this became especially true with Ralph Klein. Very costly boondoogles were happening time after time, the proper oil royalty rates, and corporate tax rates of Peter Lougheed, were no more, which lost us even more money, insurance and utility costs went through the roof, poverty rates shot up, due to cuts to social programs, public education and public healthcare also suffered from bad cuts, seniors were struggling to get by, and infrastructure was left in a state of disrepair. The Wildrose were merely Ralph Klein clones, and had policies that would be further to the detriment of Albertans. Rachel Notley and the NDP were the closest thing we ever had to Peter Lougheed’s government. We would have been seeing the comeback of Peter Lougheed’s oil royalty rates, and corporate tax rates, proper funding to public education and public healthcare would have happened, utility and insurance costs would have been lowered, and the overall well being of Albertans would have been taken care of. Rachel Notley and the NDP had the misfortune of sagging oil prices, which began in 2014. It would take longer than four years to alleviate the longstanding problems that the Alberta PCs caused, but Rachel Notley and the NDP were getting there. When Peter Lougheed and the Alberta PCs came to power in 1971, most of his government had no previous political experience. They were still there for the betterment of Alberta. Rachel Notley and the NDP were the same way, when they got elected in 2015. There weren’t any very costly blunders either, under Rachel Notley and the NDP. Albertans however, made the big mistake of putting the UCP into power, who made a horrific mess of things, and the NDP were blamed for it. With the UCP, we are seeing broken election promises, a return to very costly boondoogles, which cost us billions of dollars, poverty rates are climbing, insurance and utility costs are soaring, crime rates are rising, seniors aren’t being taken care of, our democracy is eroding, the public education and public healthcare systems aren’t being properly looked after, and there is no environmental protection. Pierre Poilievre and the CPC would be very similar. Had Albertans listened to people who said that the UCP were no good, we wouldn’t be in this awful predicament we are in now. Angie Klein, Ralph Klein’s daughter, Allan Warrick, and Jim Foster, who were a part of Peter Lougheed’s cabinet, all agreed that Rachel Notley and the NDP were better for Alberta. It’s going to get worse under Danielle Smith and the UCP.
I remember it well. I was coming home from an event and stopped at a gas station. The radio was on, playing the hockey playoff game between the Anaheim Ducks and the Calgary Flames from the Saddledome. A news break announced the NDP win. I said out loud, “I can’t believe it.” Then I bought an orange slushie to celebrate. I’m not a fan of slushies, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I was wearing an orange sweater.
Change had been in the air ever since Jim Prentice’s “math is hard” or “look in the mirror” moment, but no one dared jinx it. Some were mad that the election was happening on game night.
I imagine this was similar to the night that Peter Lougheed took down the Social Credit dynasty. As we know now, once the genie is out of the bottle, it can’t be put back in.
And then…it snowed, which proved Hell had frozen over.
But in the end, what was really gained? In the aftermath of the ABNDP win, what was the rather moderate PC party was dissolved into a tribe of CON crazies called the UCP, and then the clown show really got going. At this point, Alberta may never see another election, never mind a fair and equitable on ever again, so maybe it’s time to rethink that notion that the Alberta voter will come around. It’s many of those same voters that are willing to hand off everything to the whims of Queen Danielle as she wrecks everything and calls herself the victim.
All the Alberta voter wants to do is party on and blame PMJT. We are truly living in dark and getting darker days.
Thanks for the great memories! I sure hope the NDP can win a majority again! Do you remember that we also had a freak snow storm the day after that election? Some fellow citizens said hell had frozen over! LOL
Yep, 2015 was a heck of a year. Because I’d previously lived and worked in, and formed a deep affection for my favourite province outside of BC (where I live), I’d been watching Alberta politics since the great Lougheed. My close experience was Getty and Ralph’s World, the latter making me a keener observer from away than I might have been otherwise.
Hitherto 2015 it was pretty grim in most places in Canada: the partisan right controlled most western provinces and was about to regain power in a few big ones in central Canada. Yet the right was getting steadily more surly as the affections of their respective voters were plainly on the wane.
I don’t think Canadians were necessarily any more or less conservative-minded than they ever were; rather right-wing parties, some only nominally conservative, were becoming more like globalizing neoliberals but, by putting on wolf’s clothing—or the right’s nastiest mien, including elevation of the supposed religious right—, they hoped to keep duping the sheeple of traditional Tory voters so essential to winning power. Many conservative-minded Canadians either didn’t appreciate or didn’t want to admit the extent to which the leadership of ostensibly Tory parties was secretly embracing sovereignty-undermining ethoi and abandoning conservative communitarianism. That allowed these pseudoCon leaders—, or what I call “neo-rightists”—to advance their service to stateless corporatocracy further than most Canadians—even many traditional conservatives—would approve.
The neo-right movement, as well as being a globalizing force, was also a globalist one in the holistic sense. It aimed to influence every political stripe everywhere, and rankled supporters of all. The Tory right, traditionalism struggling to keep up with fast-changing times, was low-hanging fruit for neo-right usurpers, but other parties were impacted, too: the Dippers’ Mulcair was fired for ‘pulling the party too far to the right’ even though he won the NDP’s 2nd-highest number of seats; the Liberals tore themselves apart over which way to go, effectively knocking them out of the running for a decade; the Greens likewise fried in their own sweat as they struggled to rationalize SJWs with alt-tech capitalists.
Festering uncertainty and voters’ existential and philosophical tumult resulted in a spate of surprising default victories: Christy Clark’s 2013 victory in BC was a default win; Jack Layton’s capture of the Loyal Opposition was by default; the Liberal collapse gave HarperCons a 9-year government by default; and, yes, Rachel Notley’s victory in 2015, stunning as it was, has to be called a default win.
These harbingers of change in uncertain times eventually led to the political dilemma we face today: the neo-right, which for 25 years had gotten away with fooling traditional Tory voters, became uncomfortably exposed and impolitically doubled down, earning serious voter disaffection in 2015 when it got double whammied: in May, Canada’s most ‘conservative’ lost an upset contest to the NDP; in October, Alberta-centred HarperCons were waxed by the revived Liberals.
The neo-right wore out its welcome elsewhere, too: Obama forced Bush Jr to Rove his boat into ignominious history, and in BC—although we wouldn’t be free of the corrupt BC Liberals until Spring, 2017, the perfidious regime was plainly in its throes when the two big neo-right parties got smoked; then it was only a matter of time.
Now the dying neo-right is like a cornered rabid skunk: doomed, but still too dangerous to move in for the kill, crazed by the likes of tRump and PP who can still win but cannot be redeemed since inviting in more and more extremists while more and more moderates abandon ship, a vortex from which I don’t believe they can be saved.
In many ways 2015 brought democratic politics into the homestretch. The race isn’t over yet but it’s fair to say saner political victories bode well for more to come.
From my perch, MAGA makes me appreciate the tranquil political discourse we’ve had in BC ever since our own neo-right party was defeated seven years ago (although that might change as we approach October’s election). I sincerely wish as much civility for Alberta.
It might be reassuring to know that since we turned our corner the BC Liberal party has fallen apart. Doesn’t mean we can’t get a reunited neo-right party like Alberta did, but the longer we enjoy good, dull and boring government, the more likely we will never vote for anything remotely associated with extremism.
You done good in 2015, my Alberta friends. You can do it again.
I may have said this before but I am still gobsmacked that after one term by the NDP and one by the ucp, a majority of albertan’s were still more worried about a second term by the NDP. For me I think it’s the lack of decent conservative voices speaking up to denounce many of the things the ucp have done that shouldn’t require moral self-pretzeling. There where some in the last election, hopefully more outside of it start to appear. Guess we have to wait and see.
Hey DJC, thank you for re-posting this. Although May 6, 2015 does seem so very long ago now……
With Parker, Anderson & Associates© (acting CEO Smith has not had the ‘interim’ tag removed) having just over 3 more years to run amuck, that will mean that the UCP will have been in power for 8 years when the next election is held. Not quite at the 10 year diaper changing limit, but plenty of time to enact so many punitive laws, that should the NDP win the 2027 election, they will be faced with a situation similar to the one that Ms. Notley faced. They will need to spend the first half of the term passing or revoking legislation to remove/fix/correct all the purposeful blunders of the previous administration (with the right wing Postmedia and associated acolytes kicking and screaming the whole time) before they can focus on governing in a forward looking manner.
The passage of time will hopefully reduce the bleating of right wingers that Notley’s 4-year term did more damage than (as you highlight) the previous 44 or 80 years of conservative rule. Alberta was one 5-year plan away from total communism! I’ll take the quiet competence of Notley and her soon to be chosen replacement over the rhetoric and alarmism of Kenney and Smith any day.
Will the money-bleeding Postmedia rags still be around in 2027 if the federal government stops giving them cash infusions? I picked up a mid-week edition of the Blue Bore last week that was 14 pages of comics, puzzles, obituaries and a two-page spread about the Trans Mountain Pipeline. I did not pay for it, of course. It was a complimentary copy from a business. Its companion, the Red Bore, was not any better. The puzzles section was the same in both.
Abs: I have a yellowed copy of the Thursday, June 19, 1969, edition of the Victoria Daily Times lying around my office for some reason. It has 40 broadsheet pages packed with news. On the front page, there are 12 stories. The stories, though, seem familiar. Among them: Conservatives complaining about the use of French and also refusing to attend St. Jean Baptiste Day events, evidence of Trudeau Derangement Syndrome, worry about student unrest on U.S. campuses, health care workers marching on the legislature about poor equipment at a New Westminster hospital and authoritarian activities by a Canadian provincial government (Quebec). The attorney general is quoted saying B.C.’s new Human Rights Act “should eliminate the last vestige of discrimination in the province.” Perhaps Scotty on Denman can let us know how that turned out. DJC.
It is well written and quite informative. The advertisements are entertaining – cars, booze, and steak for 99 cents a pound.