Notley taking pipeline cues from Mulcair, Prentice says
Progressive Conservative Leader Jim Prentice ratcheted up his antiNDP rhetoric Thursday, warning supporters that NDP Leader Rachel Notley is taking policy cues from her party’s federal leader in Ottawa.
Speaking to 1,600 Tory faithful at a $500-a-plate dinner in Edmonton, Prentice said federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s fingerprints are all over Notley’s policy on pipelines.
“We don’t need a pipeline policy that feels like it’s been scripted by Thomas Mulcair,” Prentice said. “Fundamentally, the NDP could undermine the heart of Alberta’s economy.”
Notley has said she will not pursue the Keystone XL or Northern Gateway pipelines, believing both to be bogged down in legal and political wrangling that could go on for a decade or more. Instead, she will push for the Energy East pipeline and Kinder Morgan expansion, both of which she says could be exporting Alberta oil sooner.
Mulcair opposes Keystone and Northern Gateway; he says Keystone will export jobs to the U.S. and that Northern Gateway threatens B.C.’s sensitive environment. He, too, supports Energy East and has remained neutral on the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion.
Prentice said Alberta needs pipelines in every direction and pledged to fight for all four lines.
“We know these pipelines are not easy propositions, but the premier of Alberta should not be the first to give up,” Prentice said to applause. “If the premier of Alberta will not support our exports from this province, ladies and gentlemen, who will?”
Notley’s NDP is surging in the polls. A Leger poll commissioned by the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald shows the NDP leading across the province with 38 per cent of the decided vote, compared to 30 per cent for the Tories and 24 per cent for the Wildrose.
However, NDP support is heavily concentrated in Edmonton, and it is not clear the party will win enough seats in Calgary or rural Alberta to threaten the 44-year-old Progressive Conservative dynasty.
At a Journal editorial board Thursday, Prentice said he believes “the Wildrose is fading” and the election race has come down to two competing visions for the province: his, and the NDP’s.
In Calgary, where the Tories, Wildrose and NDP are in a threeway race, Prentice said he hopes all fiscal conservatives will consider his policies so as to avoid vote-splitting on the right, which observers say is the only way the NDP could make serious gains in the city.
“I would encourage them not to divide conservative votes and to be supportive of our government, and to not inadvertently elect NDP representatives,” Prentice said. “I think conservatives always find ways to work together.”
Prentice said acrimony between the two right-wing parties won’t stop Wildrose supporters from coming back to the Progressive Conservatives, even in the wake of 11 controversial Wildrose MLA floorcrossings to the PCs last fall.
“I don’t think it was a mistake,” Prentice said of the floor-crossings. “They knew they would have to step forward and earn the right to be the PC candidate. They also knew they would face the electorate.”
Asked if it worked out the way he expected it to, politically, he said: “I think so. I think it has, yes.”
As he wrapped up his speech Thursday night, Prentice implored supporters to do whatever they can to help the party keep its majority in the face of the NDP surge. kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com twitter.com