WHAT WILL THE ELECTION MEAN TO ALBERTA’S FUTURE?
With two days to go until the election, many Albertans have questions for federal politicians, including party leaders Jagmeet Singh, Elizabeth May, Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer, related to the economy and the energy industry.
For many Albertans, the real issue of this federal campaign is our province’s economic future.
And yet none of the federal parties talk about it or bother to toil seriously on Alberta soil.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau comes in Saturday for only his second Alberta visit of a six-week campaign.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the sole solid ally for the energy industry, has been to the province twice.
Alberta is secure for the Conservatives, of course, and visits are less important than what the leaders are actually saying.
But Scheer does not say what he should to the other leaders: Hey, do you realize your climate policies would tear Alberta apart? Got any ideas to help with that?
Provincial NDP Leader Rachel Notley once made some people angry by saying that Alberta was Canada’s “embarrassing cousin” under the Progressive Conservatives.
Today, Alberta is the cousin who’s out of the will.
The Greens, NDP and Liberals all promote climate change action that would radically shrink the oil and gas industry. That’s just a given.
There’s been a steady drift during the campaign toward the shut-it-down prescriptions of the Greens and NDP. Trudeau has floated right over there with them.
He shocked many in the industry when he said all subsidies and tax incentives will end by 2025.
Many Canadians want strong climate action — among them, the thousands of sincere Albertans who turned out in Edmonton Friday to hear teenage activist Greta Thunberg.
But what comes next? There has to be more than blind faith that green energy will spin off massive numbers of jobs.
Politicians who propose to bury the bedrock of Alberta’s economy have an obvious duty to be specific about the future.
For starters, Alberta and the other oil and gas provinces could be designated the major centres of green energy and research in Canada and given the grants and subsidies to make it happen.
But nobody says anything like that. These political leaders have no plan for helping Alberta through one of the most difficult transitions any province is expected to face. Green Leader Elizabeth May talks of a “just transition,” but that’s about it.
After this election, there could also be a serious threat (another one) to the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Trudeau still defends it, looking queasy, but what happens if he leads a minority backed by the Greens, NDP and/or Bloc Quebecois?
They’re all fiercely opposed. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh talks of using the money that’s being spent on Trans Mountain to fund green projects instead.
That would mean writing off the $4.5 billion that already has a new home with Kinder Morgan in Texas.
The only way to recoup the cash is to build the line and reap the profits. Trudeau says he’ll do that. But the pledge could be forgotten overnight if he faces defeat by the opposition.
Premier Jason Kenney, already bellicose in these matters, will face pressure to retaliate.
He could find himself trying to corral a political wild horse. There will be much agitation for a separatist party and possibly a new western federal party.
In the 1980s, the separatist Western Canada Concept actually elected an MLA.
The premier of the day, Peter Lougheed, managed to contain the anger and that movement faded.
But by the end of the same decade, Preston Manning and his group had created the Reform party, which eventually destroyed Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives. The initial motto was “The West Wants In.”
A Scheer victory Monday could calm things down on the conservative side, for a time.
But there will be no end of conflict over the industry and climate change. Friday’s demonstration at the legislature gave a taste of that.
If that’s to be the future, would some federal politician please come up with a serious, detailed transition plan? Everybody will still need a job, including climate activists.