Vote UCP and if you’re lucky they won’t suck as badly as other right-wing governments! Yeah, that’s a campaign I can get behind. I can see the appeal.
Not sucking as badly as the others is about the best you can hope for these days. Around the world we have the worst ruling class in my memory. Feckless, compromised politicians everywhere.
I don’t think the results are much of a surprise. It’s Rachel Notley’s birthday today. I think she did a competent job of promoting pipelines and trying to balance this with reasonable environmental compromises. I’m not sure the federal government helped her out much in either regard, and Trudeau will presumably find it harder to deal with Kenney.
Although some Canadian voters are more polarized than in the past, the truth is that Canada’s two biggest parties share more similarities than differences. Obviously, much is made of small differences. Jason Kenney was a competent and effective federal minister. Though the UCP were not free from scandal, and there are limits to what Kenney can do, I am not sure there is justification for ad hominem attacks. Alberta needs to attract investment and figure out a solution to its considerable problems. Kenney seems reasonably suitable to do this, but it doesn’t seem easy.
Agreed, but I don’t see what plan Kenny has to attract investment and diversify the economy. Alberta’s economy has needed diversification for the past 25+ years, but this whole concept was an anathema for the former conservative government. Notley never had a chance to make changes.
Kenny seems likely to simply try all of the old conservative techniques that failed in the past, only he’s going to do them harder this time.
More corporate tax cuts. Because of course that means they will hire more people (pro-tip; this is not true).
Suck up to the major oil corporations. Because the oil will last forever.
Explode the debt and cut social programs. Because of all of those entitled poor people.
There does not seem to be an actual plan for diversification or attracting any business other than oil corporations.
Some folks I know in Calgary are thrilled with the election. These are not people who actually do any productive work in the oil patch, per se. These are not electricians, or plumbers or trades or accountants, or project managers. The folks who are really happy that I know are those middle managers whose job it is to go golfing, take 3 hour lunches, and have “meetings”. They’re happy as hell that their 6 figure incomes are going to keep on.
Notley deserved better. She was dealt a bad hand and played it as good as she could. Ironically, 31 years of Conservative rule (1971-2015) did very little to diversify Alberta’s economy (despite billions in royalties) and that did her in when oil prices tanked. And Trudeau the villain threw her under the bus because he preferred an enemy on the right rather than an enemy on the left.
I’ve started working on my “Welcome to the Dystopian Hellscape” sampler.
Stabbing something over and over again is making me feel better .
I don’t think it will be THAT bad.
The NDP still is an opposition with reasonable numbers. It’s not like the days with two whole MLA’s in opposition.
The debt will go up and large corporations will profit more.
The employment situation will continue to be OK
Social programs will suffer, but backlash will prevent them from being totally destroyed
The UCP will probably have some major scandals/mouthy MLA’s to worry about
Above all, Kenny will bluster and blame. Blame will be his prime focus. He needs a villain, an enemy to blame. In the short term, this will be British Columbia, and above all, Trudeau. This is the Conservative party platform for the next Federal election: “We hate Trudeau, and so should you”
I must admit I don’t follow provincial politics that closely - does the size of the opposition matter that much? I imagine in the case where it was, say 45 seat majority vs. 42 seats opposition it might be a big deal as a few people from the majority party abstaining from any particular vote might mean that they wouldn’t be able to pass certain bills - but with a 30+ seat gap, are there likely to be many situations where the opposition party has any influence whatsoever?
I tend to agree that it’s likely not going to be too bad. I disagree with a lot of the UCP’s policy proposals, and their intended adversarial approach to inter-provincial and federal politics, but I don’t see Alberta regressing into some socially backward redneck hellhole just because the UCP is in power now like some people on social media are lamenting. Notley’s government actually performed much better than I expected, given the vast amount of inexperience in her legislature, and I thought she said all the right things representing Alberta’s interests to the rest of Canada - unfortunately, it seems like most Albertans don’t agree.
I guess we’ll see over the next 4 years whether having a war room is a better strategy for the energy industry than maintaining a social licence to operate.
Since our debt went from $10 billion to $76 billion in four years, I’m trying to figure out how they spent so much money and what we got for it. More government employees, for sure. A few billion to shut down our coal plants a little earlier than planned. I’m sure social spending was high, what with all the jobs lost. And the tax revenue from all those jobs went bye-bye.
The point is that if Kenney kills the carbon tax (and he pretty much has to), that’s going to kick an even bigger hole in our fiscal situation. That means unless he wants to absolutely explode the debt he is going to have to cut billions out of the budget. Where will he find those cuts?
If he is hoping to restore Alberta’s energy sector to its previous glory he is sadly mistaken. That investment is not coming back. Not unless oil goes over $100/bbl, and maybe not then because the oil companies know that Alberta is ground zero for anti-oil activism. Our oil costs more in greenhouse gases than pretty much anyone else’s, so the anti-oil activists are not going away. Keeping Alberta’s oil in the ground is their first priority. That’s why so much out-of-province money from organizations like the Tides Foundation flowed in to help the NDP, and why so much foreign money has been flowing into the campaigns to keep pipelines from being built.
I think Alberta is basically a pariah to the oil industry until we have proven that we can guarantee the flow of oil out of the province, and maybe not then.
Kenney inherited a terrible situation just as Notley did. I don’t know how we get out of it. A nuclear plant to provide the energy for the tar sands would really help, and we were planning one once, but I don’t see that happening any more.
This is an essentially anti-democratic post. It appears that if your side doesn’t win, the other side is tyrannical.
The essence of democracy is to accept that there can be good faith differences in society.
A democratic system requires an acceptance that the other side might win. That your side didn’t convince enough people to vote for them.
Labelling anyone who disagrees with your views as a “tyrant” just because they won a democratic election is anti-democratic.
Really, not much different than chanting “lock her up” every time the opponent’s name is mentioned.
I don’t think Alberta’s a pariah as much as it’s a one-industry province, which is bad, bad news.
Yes, it’s a fricking well-paying industry and it’s given the province the highest average income in the country, but fracking changed the industry and Alberta hasn’t adapted.
That’s a bit silly. I’m not a fan of Alberta conservatives, but in no way are they comparable to the likes of Doug Ford. They have an entirely different problem.
The core problem in Alberta, as I see it, is that they have become so accustomed to oil & gas royalties paying for everything that they believe they are too special to pay provincial taxes at anything like the level required to pay for the services they expect. This means that when the oil sector goes into crisis (which has happpened before, mind, and taught them nothing then either) their provincial budget goes right into the crapper.
The proper way to fix this issue is to tax Albertans at a rate that will pay for the services they demand, and when/if oil revenues recover stick those in a properly managed sovereign wealth fund that can decrease the tax burden over the long term in a sustainable fashion, ie by using only investment returns from said fund, not the principle. Unfortunately, this fix is a complete non-starter as Albertans are too special to pay provincial taxes at an appropriate level.
And don’t think I’m just calling out Albertans here. The same political currents run through Saskatchewan as well, though they’re not quite as strong and some of the details are different - we’re not as undertaxed relative to govt spending as Albertans are, and our resource royalties aren’t just oil & gas but also include potash and uranium.
Speaking of which, by all means build a reactor to decrease the carbon footprint of the oilsands. Build a dozen! Maybe Cameco would be able to re-open MacArthur River.
Yeah, maybe we should be like Quebec, which has sky-high taxes, gets over $10 billion per year in transfer payments, and still has a huge debt and a lousy economy. But hey, at least we’d be taxing people ‘appropriately’.
Maybe a better answer is to cut the size of government. Ralph Klein managed to run large surpluses when oil prices were low, While other premiers have run deficits while oil prices were high.
Another answer would be to stop sending billions of dollars per year to Quebec. Then maybe they’d be forced to get their own fiscal house in order.
Here’s a hint for you; Check out the charts of world oil prices over the past 5 years. Also, look into the royalty payments that Alberta was charging corporations.
Now figure out what happened to the Alberta’s income over this time period.
Spending is one half of the equation. You may want to pay some attention to the other half.
You.
Nailed.
It.
Yes, one thousand times yes.
I know a lot of people in Alberta, and I get quite tired of the attitude that they are smarter than everyone else because they pay no sales tax, because they were clever enough to live in a place with oil under the ground.
I guess for some people, there’s no middle ground. Either you’re the province with the lowest income tax and no sales tax, or you’re Quebec paying people to have babies, flushing money down the toilet and stealing from the rest of Canada.
Do you disagree that it’s appropriate to tax people at a sufficient rate to pay for the government services they demand, rather than using non-renewable resource royalties to provide short-term tax relief when commodity prices are high and run giant deficits when they aren’t?
(Note that references to Quebec are not appropriate here, as they don’t follow this principle either.)
Then, when the world decides that the oil under the ground is not worth that much, my friends run about crying that the rest of the country is being mean to them.
Good points. That provincial sales tax and the lack thereof is really the elephant in the room. When times are good and oil is high, it doesn’t really matter and Albertans have been able to get by without a sales tax (and yes, we are special 
) by when oil is low, we can no longer afford this lifestyle. Trouble is, we don’t want to give up the lifestyle or the perception that we can afford to live large. A provincial sales tax would solve a lot of problems—and make Albertans no more special than anyone else in Canada.