Rachel Notley determined to change Alberta’s outlier image
Who could have imagined this time last year what was about to hit Alberta?
During the past 12 months Albertans have faced a dramatic drop in the price of oil; the election of the province’s first NDP government, and the loss of Stephen Harper as the province’s chief advocate in Ottawa.
But 2016 promises even more change. According to Premier Rachel Notley, Alberta will shed its outlier status for a more collaborative approach with other provincial governments and the new Liberal government in Ottawa. Alberta will be joining the mainstream. The holdout position in the federation will probably be taken over by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, even though Saskatchewan does not have nearly the weight to throw around that Alberta has.
It will be an entirely new role for Alberta and it’s going to be fascinating to see how it plays out both at home and across the country.
Once upon a time a Liberal government in Ottawa provoked a call to arms by Alberta politicians. Protecting the province from the high-handed, exploitative Liberals, especially when it came to Alberta’s rich natural resources, became a rallying cry that succeeded in getting PCs elected over and over again.
When Alberta-based Harper and his Conservatives took the reins of the federal government, it was relatively easy for the Alberta government’s agenda to become the national agenda, particularly since massive development of the Alberta tarsands meant jobs and manufacturing contracts from one end of the country to the other.
Alberta could throw its weight around. It could go it alone on fiscal policies, indigenous rights and environmental strategies. It didn’t have to work with other provinces on climate change because both the premier and the prime minister believed the unhindered success of the petroleum industry was much more important.
Trouble is, most of those strategies didn’t work. Key oil pipeline proposals were met with massive resistance in other parts of Canada and the United States when tarsands oil was dubbed “dirty oil.”
“The perception that we were an outlier on so many issues hasn’t helped our industry move forward,” Notley told the Edmonton Journal recently.
And then the price of oil tanked and the whole tarsands project as a key national industrial strategy was in jeopardy.
Alberta’s economy wasn’t so upbeat any more and the rest of the economy began to slump as well.
But Notley is not about to retrench by circling the wagons as former Alberta premiers did.
Instead she intends to be a “productive player” at federal and provincial negotiations.
But will using honey instead of vinegar to get what she wants for Alberta work?
The first test will come when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assembles all the premiers to plot a national climate change strategy that will mesh with the goals set at the United Nations conference in Paris this month.
Notley and her NDP government revealed their own groundbreaking climate change strategies just days before the Paris conference and went there to promote them.
But as it stands now Alberta will continue to increase its carbon emissions until 2030 when they will start to level off.
Of course, no other provincial economy depends on the petroleum industry as much as Alberta does. And indeed much of that oil and gas is exported to other provinces and is a key component of Canada’s international trade.
For that reason, Alberta has always insisted it is a special case and shouldn’t have to concede so much when it comes to environmental and climate change strategies because its petroleum production is so important to the rest of the country.
Notley will probably plead the same case again, but in a friendlier way, and ask other provinces to commit to deeper carbon emission cuts than Alberta so the overall national goal can be met.
She has already made significant headway when it comes to establishing positive relations with other premiers, especially those of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. But when the hard bargaining begins will her honeyed approach convince them and the prime minister that this is the way to go?
Or will Alberta return to outlier status once again?