Conservatives will need real policy to go with their attacks on NDP
Some conservatives seem to think the next Alberta election is like a video game. Capture the spinning gold coin called Unity, hurl it at the hated NDP castle, and poof, Rachel Notley’s regime disappears.
A Jason Kenney staffer even tweeted a thank-you to the NDP for guaranteeing conservative unity after 10 years of division.
The NDP’s next job is to ensure conservative victory, just by being itself.
It will be far more complicated than that. The United Conservative Party, if it’s formed, will have to move past one-note attacks and become a credible alternative. Albertans will have to see it as a government, not just a skilled scold.
That means credible, reasonable and specific policy, of which there is not a scrap in the ninepage agreement between the PCs and Wildrose.
The deal says a 10-member committee will develop the policy. It will go before a UCP founding convention early next year, likely in February, for debate and voting.
By that time the parties will have agreed to merge (July 22 vote), picked a leader (Oct. 28 vote) and become a united force, happily wrapping up the right and the centre within the fold.
In theory, anyway. Early rumblings suggest a backlash from Wildrose hardliners, who could see this as a chance to move the whole show farther to the right.
You can imagine the scene if LGBTQ rights came up for debate on the floor of that founding convention. The NDP would broadcast it live, with soundtrack by the caucus Extremism Chorus.
The current conservative parties would abolish the carbon tax; do, um, something to reverse NDP electricity policy; balance the books and pay down debt. They are generally quite aligned.
But these are mostly aspirational goals rather than specific plans.
The united PCs and Wildrosers would suddenly have to decide how much to cut spending, where to do it, and how quickly to pay down the debt in order to reach those goals. Jim Prentice merely danced around the edges of those problems, and he lost the 2015 election.
The NDP also has free will and all the power of government at its disposal.
The premier could bring austerity to next year’s budget by cutting the size of the deficit, making some debt repayment, and trimming services. NDP governments have done that before; Roy Romanow’s Saskatchewan New Democrats even closed hospitals.
Notley is already edging toward spending restrictions with her almost-public policy of zero raises in the public service. If this allows her to produce a 2018 budget that shows fiscal progress, she could take heat out of the issue, and make conservative policy look harsh.
The UCP will surely demand repeal of the carbon tax. Both PC Leader Kenney and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean thunder about this all the time.
The new party would align with Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.
He refuses to legislate such a tax, and promises a court challenge of Ottawa’s pledge to impose a carbon levy on provinces that don’t have one.
But if that challenge fails, as it likely will, the air goes out of Alberta conservative policy.
Would Kenney or Jean really repeal a provincial tax only to have Ottawa impose a virtually identical federal one, which Ottawa already said will be modelled on Notley’s?
The conservatives have also made plenty of noise about the minimum wage hurting business. But do they dare promise to roll back wages for Alberta’s lowestpaid workers?
Similarly, would they let the electricity monster out of the box again by un-capping prices and subjecting the market to (whole new word coming up) re-deregulation?
There are plenty of problems with NDP electricity policy, as Wildrose was quick to say Tuesday when capping legislation came down. But unravelling it could spook every consumer in the province.
Getting people to really hate the NDP was easy in the midst of a deep recession.
But quite soon, the UCP will have to say what it would actually do as government, in detail. That’s harder.
The United Conservative Party, if it’s formed, will have to move past one-note attacks and become a credible alternative.