Good morning! Today marks the 10th 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 5th, the morning of the 6th 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
“…the hapless Jason Kenney…”
“The incompetent, dishonest, and vindictive Jason Kenney”, you mean?
Lars: Yes, I do. DJC
History, although studied by some, is not currently taught. The miasma of schizoid propaganda that stands in for historical coherence is what has produced the void filled by MAGA and Woke fairy tales. Apparently the grifter yokels have seized upon the notion that Skippy’s job was stolen from him by some nefarious entity in Nunavut. Same source tells me that bestiality was legalized by Li’l Magus and the Liberal Jeebuz-haters. Reality is now a Choose Your Own Adventure game, and anyone can play.
So while these ignorant Alberta farmers and ranchers continue to reward these phoney conservatives, Reformers, for polluting their land with abandoned oil wells by re -electing them over and over again we are thankful we have other intelligent Canadians smart enough to save us and vote Liberal.
These Reform Party supporting fools don’t care that with the oil well pollution they will be unable to sell their land when they want sell it to retire. Nor do they care that the oil industry is being allowed to ignore taxes owing to their municipalities but what has us former once proud conservative supporters most excited about is the lack of respect they show our children and their own children with the massive debt being created by these Reformers while they continue to cheat Albertans out of their oil royalties and corporate tax wealth.
We estimate that we have lost $1 trillion and a retired oil executive thinks it’s more like $1.2 trillion and he is likely right when you compare us to Alaska and Norway and what they have accomplished with their oil wealth.
Alan Spiller: I remember hearing cabinet ministers from Peter Lougheed’s cabinet praising Rachel Notley. They knew how she was on the right track. Even Ralph Klein’s daughter, Angie Klein, supported Rachel Notley, because she knew how bad the Alberta PCs were. Peter Lougheed, himself, had warned Albertans about Danielle Smith, many years ago. People didn’t listen. See how these people are supporting Pierre Poilievre coming into Alberta, despite the fact that he was defeated in his own riding?
The royalty review could have generated a better outcome. The NDP government should’ve been more fearless.
The way I see it, the NDP took a slow and steady approach when they were in power. For many they did not tackle things aggressively enough albeit they had 40 some years of Conservative screw ups to fix and it is a little unrealistic to expect they could fix all in 4 years. Sadly they were not given the chance to work at it more.
I see Dingy Smith is barking about a readjust on equalization payments. Well maybe she should talk to Harper and Kenney who were at the table giving everything away, rather than trying to blame the Liberals.
With her ramblings today, it seems there is no doubt she is in the nutbar 6 category. Maybe we need to have a referendum to kick out Smith?
Alberta thinks The Great Oil Boom is just around the corner.
Newsflash. It isn’t. And never will. Oil, as a resource, is plentiful. There’s more than enough of it to make all the plastic geegaws the globe could ever want or need. Every country with an ocean view has buckets of it, right on their doorstep. Alberta can’t come to grips with the fact that with all the new drilling tech–they just ain’t that special any more. Alberta was conveniently located to lubricate America’s war machine but that empire is dying and their war tech is fast becoming obsolete. Notley wanted to make them *more* than America’s gas station. Silly woman.
Alberta’s major problem is that it needs a future. Not a future based solely on oil extraction or the few farms that are still viable after the oil barons polluted half the place. Once upon a time they were the place you got beef. They could be the place you get beef again or buy an electric car, or a cool electric scooter or maybe even an airplane or chock full of engineers and tech operators.
If they could see past their 1970’s obsession with gas-guzzling muscle cars.
On another note, Dixie Dani just put out a *20 minute diatribe on separating* on The National post *while* Mark Carney is landing in Washington to deal with Trump who is, simultaneously, saying he’s taking over Canada as the 51st state as he claims they’re subsidizing us to the tune of 200B dollars (if I was Mark Carney I’d say, “Fine. Then stop sending it.” which would put pad to that bullsh*t right away)
https://youtu.be/p5fzrOSDpds
I nearly upchucked my dinner when Dixie Dani started blathering about “upholding the rights of Native people” because they already told her to stop threatening to separate and it’s clear–she’s not listening.
Oh, for some sober governance!
Hic!
I feel Alberta politics will be divided into two eras for all of us around at the time, before May 2015 and after. It was hard to imagine that the party in power for over 40 years would be so soundly defeated and although there were signs of fatigue, their demise seemed to happen quickly and without much warning.
When the election was called in 2015, everyone thought the PC’s would be reelected, as they always had been for decades and Alberta had the feel of a state where one party is entrenched. It wasn’t until close to the end of the campaign it became apparent that change could happen and even then it was hard to believe because the PC’s were entrenched and in power for so long. It seemed they always won.
Also surprising was how quickly after that election loss the PC’s faded away, faster than their conservative predecessors and were replaced by something different. The PC’s, although they had gone back and forth between the centre and the right over the years, were essentially at their core a big tent, moderate conservative party, created in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I don’t feel their UCP successors have an interest in being that.
So, while the UCP has now won two terms, Alberta politics remains more competitive over the last decade than before. It will be easier for the NDP to win again, having been in government and one big legacy of that NDP government will be to have pulled Alberta back from becoming a one party state into now being a fairly healthy democratically competitive one where it is not assumed the party in power will always win.
Rachel Notley was an incredible premier, despite the fact that she had to contend with a horrific mess that was left behind by the Alberta PCs, who turned the amazing work of Peter Lougheed upside down. Oil prices were also very low, beginning before Rachel Notley was the premier of Alberta, which did not help.