Alberta’s roller-coaster premier faces big hurdles

Is this the end of the beginning for Alberta’s NDP government, or the beginning of the end?

We are at the halfway point in the government’s mandate. It was two years ago on May 5 that the untried NDP won its first-ever election victory over the geriatric Progressive Conservatives. And what a ride it has been. The government has banned political donations from unions and corporations, (somewhat) revamped energy royalties, introduced an Alberta Child Benefit and reduced school fees.

It has consulted Albertans on a litany of issues including farm safety, climate change, energy efficiency, grizzly bear protection, the Municipal Government Act, the Employment Standards Code, the Labour Relations Code, and the Workers’ Compensation Board.

This is a socially conscious government that came into office to fix stuff broken or ignored by 44 years of PC government.

“There was a lot of work that needed to be done, sometimes referred to as ‘pent-up governance,’ ” Notley said Thursday.

For NDP supporters, the past 24 months has been a fast-moving rollercoaster ride with plenty of ups as they watched the government borrow billions of dollars to spend on education and health, raise the minimum wage, introduce workplace protection for farm workers, and introduce a carbon levy.

For NDP critics, the ride has been more like the Drop of Doom as they watched the government borrow billions of dollars to do these things.

The success or failure of this government is very much in the eye of the beholder. Reasonable critics of Notley say her policies have made the oil-price-driven recession worse. Unreasonable critics largely blame her for the collapse in the price of oil.

Notley’s response has been to keep chugging along, despite the drop in energy prices and her government’s popularity. Even though she’s running another $10-billion deficit this year, she’s hoping Albertans will realize she’s doing that so she can keep building more schools and hospitals and keep paying the public sector workers needed to provide government services.

Fiscal constraints have forced Notley to scale back some of her social justice promises. A schoollunch program for all children has devolved into a pilot program for inner-city schools. Her universal $25-a-day daycare has also been whittled back to a pilot program.

The government is pushing ahead with plans to revamp the Employment Standards Code and the Labour Relations Code. It’s pretty much a given that Notley will change the codes so that Albertans, for the first time, can take a job-protected sick day off work without being fired.

However, it’s not so clear how far she’ll move ahead with a proposal to make it easier for unions to organize in the workplace.

One of Notley’s biggest blunders was pushing through the Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act, to give workplace protection to paid farm workers.

As far as she was concerned she was on the side of the angels. But then all kinds of folk with pitchforks turned up at the legislature to complain that she had moved too far too fast without consulting with farmers.

The government passed the bill, but it’s still in consultations with farmers on how to introduce regulations.

But is it the beginning of the end for the NDP? If B.C.’s NDP win on May 9 and make good on their promise to hold up the pipeline, Notley will be in big trouble.

And then there’s the unification movement between the Wildrose and PCs. A united conservative front could pose a major hurdle for Notley in 2019.