Carbon tax flap helps UCP hide shortage of real solutions

UCP’s blame game allows it to sidestep serious policy issues that face Albertans

Well, that went pretty much as expected.

UCP: 2

NDP: 0

The United Conservative Party handily won Thursday’s byelections in Innisfail- Sylvan Lake and Fort McMurray-Conklin. Neither were close races. The NDP candidate in Innisfail- Sylvan Lake was so far behind we’re still waiting for her to finish.

So, what does it say about Alberta politics when the UCP gets 82 per cent support (8,000 votes) in Innisfail- Sylvan Lake to the NDP’s nine per cent (900 votes)?

Or when the UCP gets 66 per cent support (2,600 votes) in Fort McMurray-Conklin to the NDP’s 30 per cent (1,200 votes)?

Or that the Alberta Party was ahead of the Liberals in both ridings, and actually finished not too far behind the NDP in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake?

You could parse the byelection results to the subatomic level to find meaning. And there are those who will do that, particularly those who lost.

The NDP will find solace in its second-place finish in Fort McMurray and point out the Liberals and Alberta Party were not factors there.

The results don’t change the makeup of the legislature. Both ridings were held by UCP MLAs before the byelections.

It is status quo. Unfortunately for the NDP, status quo also means the UCP continues to breath down the government’s neck. And it will continue to hammer away at the government over obvious issues including the still-recovering economy and the still-controversial carbon tax.

For the UCP, the carbon tax is the gift that keeps on giving. It allows the UCP to play a blame game by gratuitously tying all bad economic news to the carbon tax. A company has laid off workers? Blame the tax. The price of groceries has gone up? Blame the tax.

Greyhound is shutting down bus service? Blame the tax.

Yes, the UCP is tying the two together.

The UCP wonders if the carbon tax is responsible in part for “making it harder for businesses like Greyhound to operate in Alberta.”

That might be a valid point if Greyhound was only cancelling routes in Alberta.

The company, however, is shutting down routes in every western province because ridership has fallen.

But to the UCP the carbon tax is a villain for all occasions.

And complaining about the tax allows the UCP to sidestep offering solutions to complex problems.

Take the Greyhound bus cancellations, for example.

UCP leader Jason Kenney has said he supports Premier Rachel Notley raising the issue at the annual premiers’ conference next week in New Brunswick. Other than that, the UCP says it has been in contact with the government and Greyhound officials to ensure the voices of rural Albertans are heard.

It’s a remarkably limp response from a party that is focused on finding solutions to the myriad problems facing rural Alberta.

In the past few days, both Notley and the federal NDP have suggested that rural transportation is an essential service. Federal leader Jagmeet Singh is even demanding a “federal funding plan” to keep Greyhound buses running.

Is rural transportation an “essential service?” If so, should government get involved? Or do we leave it to the private sector to figure it out?

TappCar issued an enthusiastic news release Thursday saying ride-share companies “could fill the gap and ensure rural and remote communities aren’t left behind.” But there were no details on how that would work.

If nothing else, the looming transportation crisis has focused people’s attention, as crises are wont to do.

Ideas are starting to flow. Doug Griffiths, a former minister of municipal affairs who now runs a consulting company that helps struggling communities across North America, says there may be a solution already sitting in virtually every rural town and hamlet.

There is an unofficial fleet of minibuses scattered around the province run by groups as diverse as the local seniors’ lodge to the local Kiwanis Club — many of the vehicles paid for by government grants over the years and many of them sitting idle most days.

“I don’t think it would take very long to gather up an inventory of where all these minivans and buses are sitting all over the province,” said Griffiths. He suggests local communities work together on a regional basis to figure out the logistics of using the mini-buses to form a feeder system to larger communities. Perhaps then Greyhound could afford to continue running routes between the larger centres.

The key is not necessarily government money but government organization.

“The government is the one that can say, ‘We’re done fooling around. It’s time to fix this,’” said Griffiths.

It’s an intriguing idea, one worth examining closely — unlike the results of this week’s byelections.