We’ll pay the price for NDP’s heedless haste

Deals made by a previous party can’t be overturned on a whim

“I never thought I’d see the day,” says that bloke on his horse in those seemingly endless government ads, which we pay for, of course, praising the upcoming glories to transpire across Alberta under the NDP’s climate change plan.

Well, I never thought I’d see the day, either, when a government is so confused by its own heedless haste that it’s forced to essentially sue itself in a bizarre attempt to stop the chaos we’ll soon face with escalating energy costs.

Last week, the government asked the Court of Queen’s Bench to void a provision in power purchase arrangements (PPAs) allowing energy companies to walk away from agreed deals if changes in the law made such agreements “more unprofitable.” They can toss them back in the government’s lap, along with the associated red ink.

Now I know listening to talk about things such as PPAs is as exciting as wondering if that Large Hadron Collider is ever going to really nail down the properties of the Higgs boson. Yet, there I was three months ago, enduring such talk from a buddy high up in one of Alberta’s utility companies.

It was like listening to your spouse at the breakfast table relate in excruciating detail a vivid dream from the previous night that makes no sense. You smile, nod, gaze longingly at the yet-to-beserved bacon and wonder how much longer?

Then I awoke from near slumber. “The government hasn’t a clue what they’ve done. The bill’s going to be massive and utility rates will go through the roof in a few years. It’s crazy.”

It’s going to cost me lots of money. That I understood.

So when last week’s lunacy erupted, I had a feeling of deja vu.

So now the government wants the courts to overturn a government deal. Yes, it was a different party that signed it, but it was a Crown signature and the deal should stand. Otherwise, why trust any contract if Alberta’s word isn’t worth the paper it’s written upon.

Now I sometimes give our mayor a hard time. He suffers from the same curse as me in that he sometimes takes a good case and then lets his mouth run off with the proceeds. But the boy has gusto, precision and a gift for purple prose. He can nail it better than any Canadian politician.

“This suit is outrageous. We have the spectacle of the provincial government suing itself because apparently it didn’t know its own policies that have been in place for 15 or 16 years and that Enmax has been abiding by,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

So why did this silliness erupt? This is where we should put PPAs in their place in the boring bin and look at the bigger, simpler issue involving a change of government the victors never expected.

That’s not to say they didn’t deserve to be in power. Heck, after the eternity of the Tories, everyone needed a change. We were like the Prairie version of North Korea, for goodness sake.

But the NDP was caught completely off guard. That’s understandable, but in such cases, you take your time, get up to speed on details and proceed with caution until your feet are firmly under the table.

They didn’t do that. Instead, driven by idealism, they forged ahead to implement a manifesto never intended to be a governmental blueprint, announcing the most stringent carbon pricing plan in Canada and doing deals to shut down the cheapest form of energy — coal — while hoping some cheques in the mail would cover the outcome.

It wasn’t the small print they didn’t read in this rush to environmental Nirvana. No, it was big, bold writing on things called government contracts they ignored in their zeal. They changed the game, but that gave the energy players involved a getout-of-jail free card. Naturally, they played it.

It’s an utter mess, but eventually, you know who’ll pay the price.