Remembering the Orange Wave: Today marks the 10th anniversary of the election of the NDP in Alberta

Good morning! Today marks the 10^th anniversary of the election of an NDP government in Alberta in an Orange Wave that came as a surprise to many and a shock to some – arguably including most of the leadership of the NDP. 

The election of a majority New Democratic Government was not expected at the start of the 2015 campaign, which Progressive Conservative premier Jim Prentice had foolishly called a year earlier than necessary. 

The buzz at the beginning of the campaign was that the New Democrats, with four seats in the Legislature, might form the Opposition, perhaps even a big one. In the event, the party won 54 seats in the 87-seat Legislature. 

Still, that really needn’t have gobsmacked anyone who was paying attention to the effect of vote splitting between the PC and Wildrose parties, the final polls of the campaign, or the energy at party leader Rachel Notley’s campaign meetings.

Nevertheless, after nearly 44 years of PC rule by a series of premiers excellent and not-so-excellent, the idea of some other party forming a government in supposedly dynastically Conservative Alberta was unthinkable. 

This continued to be true even after it had happened. I recall asking a well-placed PC political aide a few days after the election when his party’s insiders had realized the NDP was going to win. He responded bitterly: “They still haven’t!” 

As a result, after the celebrations that went on into the night of the 5^th, the morning of the 6^th of May came with a feeling of profound unreality – for everyone who followed politics in this province, I think – as if we had awakened from a dream and faced another four years of Tory government. (The PCs were still Canadian Tories. The current government does not deserve that sobriquet.) 

In generally progressive circles – by which I mean most of Alberta including many who had voted habitually for the PCs for four decades – it was a moment of great optimism. It was a time when the Internet had not yet been completely weaponized by malign actors at home and abroad, and we had only just entered the post-truth era. 

And, in fact, despite being dealt a bad economic hand, Premier Notley’s government was remarkably competent. While some regular readers of this blog might not agree with this assessment, I believe the fact the NDP was the only government since 1953 to see a pipeline built to what was known that year as “tidewater.”* It encouraged, rather than blocked, the development of renewable energy. 

Election of the NDP also ushered in the only period of stability in public health care almost back to the government of Peter Lougheed, from 1971 to 1985, and certainly since the health care chaos of Ralph Klein’s 1992-2006 government.

Mr. Prentice, a decent man if not one of sound judgment, immediately stomped off the Alberta political stage upon the announcement of the election results, leaving the political right to the lunatics – although this was not immediately apparent. If Mr. Prentice had waited a year to call an election, it is said here, Alberta would probably still have a PC government, imperfect, but not deranged. 

The NDP had the bad luck to be elected during a period of declining world petroleum prices – for which it was quickly blamed, a preposterous argument that nevertheless has become deeply entrenched in a significant part of the Alberta electorate. But it also had the good luck, if you can call it that, not to still be in power when the pandemic hit in 2020. Had it been, you can rest assured, it would have been forever blamed for that as well. 

Fate left that to the hapless Jason Kenney, who united the right and was elected in the blue wave of 2019 but immediately began flirting with the rhetoric of sovereignty association, thereby setting the stage for the real lunacy of the of Danielle Smith’s government. 

Still, I believe history will judge Ms. Notley’s government kindly as competent, measured, and forward-looking – that is to say, both progressive and conservative. That is, assuming history is still studied and taught in the years to come, which is no longer a certainty. 

What the NDP tried to build – they were too cautious and too slow, in my opinion – Mr. Kenney resolved to tear down. Mr. Kenney’s “summer of repeal” channeled Donald Trump’s assault on Barack Obama’s legislative legacy in the United States.

Fate’s revenge on Mr. Kenney was served in 2020, with the arrival of the COVID-19 virus on Canadian shores and the subsequent MAGAfication of the entire Canadian Conservative movement, a genuine tragedy. 

Later today, by the sound of it, Premier Smith’s UCP will move to make things worse by cranking up its MAGA agenda with its plan to one way or another turn Alberta into Oklahoma North, a formula for economic devastation. 

So, here’s to the election of the NDP on May 5, 2015, the last Alberta government with the skill to handle a crisis.

*The ocean