NDP MISSING THE MESSAGE IN BYELECTION DRUBBING

Jason Kenney says his overwhelming victory in the CalgaryLougheed byelection on Thursday night sends a clear message to the NDP government.

He’s right. But what’s the message?

According to Kenney, the message is: “Stop quadrupling our debt. Stop your policies that have killed hope and jobs for so many Albertans and start putting common sense solutions ahead of your NDP ideology.”

And furthermore: “If we stay humble and work hard, we’re on track to defeat this job-killing, socialist government and to renew Alberta as a place of opportunity.”

But that’s not the message the NDP is hearing.

According to NDP candidate Phillip van der Merwe, the byelection result has no significance beyond demonstrating the extent of voter apathy.

“The voter turnout was around 30 per cent, which still tells me that there are so many voters out there who are disengaged, disenfranchised and not engaging in the process of democracy, and that concerns me.”

As far as Premier Rachel Notley is concerned, the byelection merely gives Kenney a seat in the assembly.

“I look forward to debating you in the house,” she said to him in a congratulatory tweet.

The NDP, understandably, is trying to downplay the significance of its loss. Or, more accurately, its drubbing.

Kenney won almost 72 per cent of the 11,000 votes cast.

Meanwhile, van der Merwe was so far behind in second place (with 17 per cent of the votes) that you would need a search and rescue team to find him.

Yes, the NDP has a point when it says you can’t read too much into byelection results. They routinely go against governments. And the provincial election is more than a year away. A lot can happen between now and then.

But the NDP can’t ignore the gore when reading the byelection’s entrails.

Kenney’s victory was onesided. It was as if the NDP didn’t even show up. Come to think of it, maybe that would have been better for them.

Perhaps they should have simply handed the byelection to the leader of the official Opposition unopposed, like they used to do for party leaders in the days of yore (Premier William Aberhart, for example, won his 1935 byelection in Okotoks-High River by acclamation).

That would have saved the NDP the embarrassment of Thursday night.

Conversely, Kenney and the UCP should remember byelections aren’t always bellwethers.

The Progressive Conservatives won four byelections in October 2014 before losing the general election in May 2015.

A lot can happen in the next year. The price of oil might rise, the economy could continue to recover, and construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion to the West Coast might get underway. All of those things would help the NDP.

But the NDP really has to focus on the economy in 2018 and show Albertans they’re serious about cutting government spending, reducing the deficit and unveiling a plan to pay off the debt.

It’s all well and good to pass legislation to protect consumers and workers, as the government did in the fall sitting.

But it’s not as if Albertans have been marching in the streets demanding the government force Ticketmaster to do something about bots buying all the good concert seats.

Albertans are worried about the economy as the province crawls out of a devastating recession.

The NDP’s social justice agenda is noble, but it’s the icing on the cake. The problem is that we don’t have much cake.

The economy is experiencing a jobless recovery, with companies doing better but afraid to hire back staff. Unemployment is still around 7.3 per cent in the province (compared to six per cent in Saskatchewan and 4.8 per cent in B.C.).

That’s why Kenney keeps hammering away at the NDP on economic issues. And why it’s so effective.

Some observers wonder if the NDP should now slow down its agenda, maybe roll back its carbon tax or cancel hikes in the minimum wage.

That’s unlikely to happen. The NDP would be risking a backlash from its own supporters if it began reversing course.

What the NDP has to do is convince Albertans it deserves to be in government more than the UCP — but it must do more than simply bash Kenney at every turn. Notley and the NDP need to present a clear, positive plan for the future.

They didn’t do it in the Calgary-Lougheed byelection.

They have a little more than a year to do a better job.