TIDE TURNING AS NOTLEY GETS CHEERED IN CALGARY
Alberta NDP may be building municipal base, a base Conservatives long held
Rachel Notley seemed to be bouncing on air as she walked along the hallway in the Telus Convention Centre, on her way to a news conference. This was one happy premier. She’d just been cheered heartily several times by a huge crowd at the annual meeting of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association. As she finished, the delegates gave her an almost unanimous standing O.
This is new. It may also be a lot bigger than applause from one audience. The New Democrats believe, and they may be right, that 2½ years after they won, civic decision-makers are finally warming to them.
That would be a huge change. Many Calgarians remember Notley’s frigid reception by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce in October 2015.
A hostile silence hung over that crowd for 40 minutes. It was painful, even insulting.
Notley shrugged it off — people were just listening hard, she said. The animosity was partly her fault. She’d got the tone wrong by failing to talk about the thousands in Calgary who were being laid off.
Notley gets another chance Friday when she speaks to the chamber. But whatever happens there, her friendly welcome by the AUMA crowd was significant.
These are politicians from urban municipalities all over the province. Forty-six per cent of them have just been elected for the first time, in last month’s civic elections.
From now until the next provincial election (and maybe after) their only experience will be with the NDP. They’re the incubator of a new power base, if the NDP can win them over.
One councillor from Hinton, Dewly Nelson, said, “People don’t like all the NDP policies, but, in general, I think they’re doing the right things, the things that had to be done.”
That drew nods from his colleagues at the Hinton table.
Notley suggested people are getting used to the NDP, and recognize the government has good intentions and wants to work with them.
The NDP’s generous infrastructure spending doesn’t hurt, either.
Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous said, “People in the municipalities are happy that they’re getting things built that they had been requesting for many years, without success.”
In the PCs’ end-of-days phase, one of their many problems was an oddly combative attitude to municipal councils that had been the core of their power base for decades.
The NDP arrived with what they hoped was a friendly and co-operative attitude. Also with money.
The first reaction was often open hostility to the unfamiliar.
Who could a mayor call? Where were the contact points? After more than 40 years of the PCs, it was almost frightening to deal with a new and very different crowd.
A lot of that feeling is fading as familiarity grows. Notley is also more adept with her audiences.
The AUMA people loved her unambiguous backing for pipelines and the energy industry.
They applauded her call for Ottawa to “step up” for the Kinder Morgan pipelines, and for fair National Energy Board rules. She blasted the “overreach” of suddenly making Energy East subject to downstream emissions review.
The premier also rolled out her general strategy for the budget and deficits.
It may make these municipal people wonder how deeply United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney plans to cut. Civic leaders and many voters could find the NDP approach more palatable.
“We invested during the downturn to grow,” Notley said. “Now is the point in the plan where the same steady approach that saw us through the recession is going to see us carefully and compassionately tighten our belts, and ask others to tighten theirs.
“Rest assured that a starting point in these conversations will always be stability and predictability for our municipalities.”
Thursday evening, Notley was at the NDP candidate launch for the Calgary-Lougheed byelection.
The New Democrats intend to fight this one hard. Their goal isn’t necessarily to win on Dec. 14, but to give Kenney a serious scare and show that he and the UCP are vulnerable.
At a Manning Centre function in Red Deer last weekend, UCP MLA Nathan Cooper told the audience his party has to be careful not to underestimate Notley and the NDP, or appear arrogant to the voters, because the election is no sure thing.
That fear may not be exaggerated.
People don’t like all the NDP policies, but, in general, I think they’re doing the right things, the things that had to be done.