This weeks column for 24Hrs Vancouver: Alberta NDP will hurt the premier

Posted on by Laila

I’ve missed post a few of my Monday columns for the last bit thanks to an extra-busy schedule, but found some time to post this while the coffee is brewing  🙂

This week’s topic: Could the NDP’s win in Alberta be good for the BC Liberals?

After 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule in Alberta, the NDP swept to victory to form a majority government.

The resulting shock wave reverberated across the country, taking everyone by surprise. Suddenly forced to confront the reality of an NDP government, everyone wondered what it would mean for the future of Alberta.

However, what wasn’t a surprise were the over-the-top reactions coming from supporters of the outgoing PCs across Canada about what would happen to Alberta.

Cries that “those socialist NDP’ers” were going to run Alberta into the ground were matched by doomsday-like predictions from some industry analysts that businesses would inevitably have to leave the province in order to continue operating. And this was all within the first few hours after the election.

While many British Columbians didn’t pay more than a passing interest in the Alberta election, it’s a fact that what happens in Alberta doesn’t always stay in Alberta. The policies and actions of Alberta governments impact B.C., and more can make life for Premier Christy Clark easier or harder.

Read Brent Stafford’s columnhere.

Many analysts and pundits have been predicting that the NDP win in Alberta can only mean good things for Clark as they envision businesses leaving in droves to escape the socialist hordes in the Alberta legislature. I say it’s time to step on the brakes and be realistic…

Read the rest of this weeks column, comment and vote here: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/05/10/the-duel-alberta-ndp-will-hurt-premier

 

And if you’ve missed a past column, you can find the majority of them at this link: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/author/laila-yuile

 

6 thoughts on “This weeks column for 24Hrs Vancouver: Alberta NDP will hurt the premier”

  2. It’s conspicuous the whole Canadian right’s worried instead of just Alberta’s rightly humiliated right. Right-wing pundits will feign concern about our economic wellbeing—while threatening to take their capital to more profitable climes, hubris being blind to the fact we can plainly see the insincerity.

    Christy’s anxiety was so palpable CBC’s news website had to take down her churlish reaction to Notley’s win (thank goodness MoCo’s taking diplomacy seriously, although I’ll bet it was Christy’s handlers who demanded the puerile quote be removed).

    Harper’s absence is, on the other hand, probably a carefully considered contingency.

    Is the right worried because there’s things that can’t be hidden if it loses power, or because it can’t hide that it’s worried? With its prognosis of decline well behind it, and its period of denial plainly coming to an end, its anger phase is now getting under way. If the right didn’t so deserve its continuing demise it might get a little sympathy instead of just being pathetic.

    I recall the right characterized reduced economic activity in BC and everywhere else during “Asian Flu/Meltdown” recession (that the NDP government of the day deftly stickhandled through) as capital leaving the province solely because of unfriendly government policy.

    Expect Albertan retirement investments that have been coming to the Comox Valley and many other places in BC for many years now to be attributed to the NDP’s recent Alberta win. We in BC have seen this kind of nonsense before. It’s nice to see they ain’t buyin’ at least some of these aspects of neo-right rhetoric in Alberta anymore.

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      1. I’m referring to a brief news report (text) on CBC’s news website that my most trusted friend in Vancouver saw for just a few moments before it vanished, then called me to find out if I’d seen it too. Well, no—and I’m remiss in finding where it was I saw confirmation that Christy had made some snarling comments about what she could teach Rachel Notley.

        I saw a similar thing in the Globe and Mail: a short report from Justine Hunter about the building foundation work in the ridiculous BC Liberal town with no people—Jumbo Peaks—which was hastily sited and poured directly in what experts subsequently identified as an avalanche track, and which therefore might be in non-compliance with the terms of the development permit. The piece quoted minister Polak as saying she’d approved of work commencement after visiting the site and deciding on her own that it didn’t seem like, nor had the “feel” (!) of being in a dangerous location—this, she said, because there are/were trees nearby.

        I mean, it was laughably funny to me, but I can understand maybe not so much for Polak, who might have made a potentially life-threatening, uninformed or inadvisable political decision (and I really don’t know whether she had expert reports prior—she should have, though), and for the contractor who seems to have been trying to get officials (there is a mayor, council and planner—all BC Liberal appointees because there is no population to be elected by) to extend the permit window, as well as slamming in an improperly sited foundation which now has to be removed. There must have been some pressing problem to require direct ministerial oversight—considering there is a “town council” that’s paid to do that work.

        The piece questioned whether this put the permit into non-compliance, who would pay for demolition, or if the same contractor would be awarded subsequent development work.

        This embarrassing piece was also quickly removed. No wonder!

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        1. Here’s the Premier’s snark :#bcpoli ‏@bcpoli May 6
          @justine_hunter B.C. premier says ‘we have a lot to teach Alberta’ after NDP’s stunning win http://bit.ly/1IPqpaI

          Gary Mason ‏@garymasonglobe May 6
          @bcpoli @justine_hunter oh, I’m sure Rachel Notley will love hearing Christy Clark saying BC “has a lot to
          teach Alberta.”

          *The link is to a Globe and Mail story, note that a commenter re the story remarks on the CBC taking down Christy’s comment.

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  3. Yes people are leaving Alberta, they have for some time. Something about the cold weather……….
    Not much will change in Alberta except perhaps corporations which are making a lot of money, will have a small tax increase.
    The latest Stats Can reports indicate Alberta is still doing better than other provinces, since the price of oil dropped. Now of course we may see right wingers blame the drop in oil prices on the NDP, but hey, work with what you got, if you don’t want to tell the truth. The truth is the voters in Alberta had enough of the PC’s lies and wanted change. They saw Notely as the vehicle for that change. Those great business people in the Alberta PC party managed to empty the coffers and put the province into debt.

    Will a win in Alberta translate into a win in B.C. or elsewhere? Perhaps if they use Gerry Scott to manage their campaigns they way Notley did. That is one thing Dix did not do.

    I expect Notley to use her own play book with a few pages from Peter Lougheed’s old play book, and get down to business. As long as there is work in Alberta for Albertans, they won’t be leaving and neither will anyone else. There aren’t those types of high paying jobs in B.C., nor do I expect there to be.

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