National swing to right sees Notley losing allies
Every time the voters of this land cast a ballot, they put NDP Premier Rachel Notley in a tougher spot.
No Canadian leader has such unreliable allies, and such a growing pile of leaders and governments who want her out on her ear.
Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party is conservative and deeply hostile
Manitoba was NDP when Notley was elected. Now it’s conservative.
Ontario turned to Doug Ford (really conservative) in the election that punted Notley’s strongest progressive ally, Liberal Kathleen Wynn.
Ford comes to Calgary on Friday for a United Conservative Party fundraiser alongside Jason Kenney.
It’s likely to be more like a revival meeting than a political gathering, with Ford and Kenney preaching hostility to provincial and federal carbon taxes.
This Ontario-Alberta conservative alliance is shaping up as a potent beast. The provincial election legitimized Ford and now Kenney professes his affection.
“And I am so excited that we have been joined by Canada’s newest premier, Doug Ford,” he said at the national Conservative convention in August.
“Doug and I had breakfast yesterday and, I’ll tell you, we’ve got the beginning of a bit of bromance there.
“We were finishing each other’s sentences. I love it.”
On Monday, Quebec flipped from Liberal to a new brand of conservatism with the election of Coalition Avenir Québec and its leader, François Legault.
Legault is conservative in fiscal matters and wants to wean Quebec off equalization (really!).
Separatism was crushed in this election; but in return for dumping all talk of sovereignty, Legault will make tough demands on Ottawa.
He’s already challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by threatening to invoke the notwithstanding clause to prevent people in authority from wearing religious garb.
Ford turned this constitutional escape hatch loose two weeks ago, and now it’s afoot in the second-biggest province.
The two new premiers are already sounding like best pals. Legault is offering to sell energy to Ontario. These guys are going to command a great deal of Trudeau’s attention.
Kenney could forge crossborder alliances with both of them. Notley doesn’t have much chance.
Her people already worry that these stampeding changes will push the Trans Mountain pipeline into the background.
Alert to failure, many Albertans would like to see a revival of the moribund Energy East project to Saint John.
On that front, the really crazy twist comes in New Brunswick.
The election there last week brings the spectre of the Greens holding the balance of power on both coasts.
That vote was a virtual dead heat, with the Progressive Conservatives finishing one seat ahead of the Liberals.
Liberal Brian Gallant continues to head government, shakily, while PC Leader Blaine Higgs plots to take over.
And Higgs is talking to the Greens. He has even studied B.C. Premier John Horgan’s written pact with Andrew Weaver’s Greens, looking for cool ideas.
The New Brunswick Green leader is David Coon, who as far back as 2014 was fiercely opposed to Energy East.
Liberal Gallant, meanwhile, is also courting the three Green MLAs.
No matter who governs, there won’t be any pipeline support in the province that was once Alberta’s staunchest ally.
There’s no comfort for Notley in the federal NDP, either.
Leader Jagmeet Singh has been hostile to Trans Mountain for months. He’s not likely to moderate as he tries to win a riding in Burnaby, B.C., the Trans Mountain terminus.
Notley’s only powerful ally is Trudeau. But Liberals and New Democrats aren’t natural friends, and their paths are already diverging.
Notley needs the pipeline to be a hot national issue. Today, it isn’t. And the further the project fades into the background, the more likely it is to stall for a long time.
The one tie that binds is that the Liberals, certainly including Trudeau, absolutely do not want Kenney to win the provincial election next year. That could prompt Trudeau to get the pipeline restarted by next spring.
Alberta premiers have been this isolated before. During long stretches of the 1980s dispute over the national energy program, PC premier Peter Lougheed was almost a national villain.
He handled that by uniting most Albertans behind him and quietly cultivating national friendships. One trick was to lend money to other provinces at extremely low interest.
Notley doesn’t have the cash for that, obviously. But she certainly needs allies. In her world, they are a vanishing breed.