NDP to roll out dozen bills in legislature’s fall session
Everywhere you walk these days, Halloween decorations are out in force.
Trees have shed their summer bounty. Leaves are crunching underfoot.
A renewed crispness is in the wind, a hardening of purpose as Albertans begin preparations for a long winter.
The same is true under the dome of the legislature, where 87 MLAs took their seats Monday for the start of the fall sitting.
All the familiar sights and sounds of the season were back.
The thumping of desks in the chamber. Accusations of hypocrisy and incompetence. Demands for points of order.
For public servants and political junkies, this is the best time of year, a revival of their favourite reality show, if not an outright rerun.
As expected, the latest Rachel Notley versus Jason Kenney match took centre stage on Day 1 with the premier fending off the UCP leader’s attacks on — surprise, surprise — the carbon tax and the pipeline mess.
But truth be told, the whole showdown seemed a little more subdued than usual, the rhetoric turned down at least a couple of notches.
Perhaps this was due to a certain malaise that afflicts performers who have recited the same lines a few too many times.
It’s also possible the stakes have become fretfully high for both leaders with an election looming on the horizon and a provincial economy under siege.
That was the overriding theme of the first day, in which the UCP requested and was granted an emergency debate on how to kick-start construction of the Trans Mountain expansion project.
The issue is certainly a dire one for the province. Western Canada Select oil is now selling at more than $50 a barrel below world prices, a forced discount largely caused by a lack of pipeline capacity.
Low prices make it difficult for producers to reap a profit, prompting many to put more of their oil into storage, which in turn has worked to further depress the product’s value.
At the same time, business leaders say the low prices and uncertainty around the pipeline project have diminished investor confidence in Alberta.
While much of the rest of the country has their attention elsewhere, the lack of market access has become such a significant crisis for Alberta that there could be no more appropriate subject for an emergency debate.
Unfortunately, the discussion that was held Monday offered little beyond another rehash of political theatre we’ve seen before.
By even asking for a debate, the UCP knew it was laying something of a trap for the NDP.
Had the government opposed the request, it would have fed the Opposition’s narrative that the NDP hasn’t been taking the issue seriously enough.
But by agreeing to the debate, the NDP gave its rival another platform from which to continue hammering the government’s performance.
You see, both parties share the view of a crisis that needs to be fixed quickly. They disagree significantly on who identified the crisis first and who is to blame for it.
Kenney’s contention is that the NDP celebrated Trans Mountain too early, didn’t respond hard enough to opposition from B.C. and laughed off UCP warnings about Ottawa’s Bill C-69 that aims to overhaul Canada’s energy regulatory process.
In attacking the NDP, Kenney and UCP house leader Jason Nixon continued their line of attack that Notley has been far too trusting of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They characterized the two leaders as “close personal friends” so often during the debate you’d almost think the UCP was paying $20 a mention.
In response, NDP members contended that they have been intensely lobbying Ottawa on Bill C-69 and Trans Mountain and that the carelessness of the former federal Conservative government — in which Kenney was a key player — is partly to blame for the lack of progress on pipelines.
Both parties made some legitimate points.
But repeatedly debating who got us into the mess isn’t going to get us out of it, which is why the emergency debate was so disappointing.
Despite Kenney’s desire to dump this at the feet of Notley and claim he would have done better, the truth is that the origins of this issue are largely beyond the control of any Alberta leader.
It is not Alberta’s fault that Ottawa failed to properly consult Indigenous communities or decided not to appeal the court’s quashing of Trans Mountain.
It is not Alberta’s fault that B.C. elected a government bent on obstructing the expansion project.
The seasons are changing in Alberta, but at the legislature it seems we’re being subjected to the same broken record.
With the province truly facing an economic crisis, let’s hope our politicians soon decide to engage in some fresh, scripted drama that focuses less on political points and more on collaborative solutions.