After the election of Rachel Notley's NDP government in Alberta, toppling a stagnant incompetent conservative dynasty of 40-plus years, a certain panic filled the air.
One analyst described the situation as “completely devastating.” Not to mention extremely dangerous.
In other words the four horsemen of economic apocalype were going to ride through Alberta swinging their swords and scythes, laying waste and devastation to Wildrose Country.
The fact that this had been happening – a sort of death of a thousand cuts — the terrible environmental mess that the Athabaska tar sands the proposed pipeline to nowhere (Northern Gateway and Keystone XL) is packing Alberta jobs away, the ruined environment – no drinking water in place like Rosebud or the Peace under successive Conservative government. Well that wasn't even acknowledged.
When oil prices were at their highest, with the money rolling in, Alberta ran a huge deficit, $6 billion at one point.
Despite all the prediction of waste and destruction, there have been saner voices coming from some very unlikely sources.
In the Edmonton Sun Ricky Leong asks, “What took us so long?” Leong points out “On the public side the NDP transition team will have to tackle a rusty bureaucracy that's been doing the same thing for 44 years.”
He goes on, “On the private side you have to wonder what got into the heads of those Edmonton business leaders when they held a press conference to plead with Albertans to maintain the PC dynasty.”
They argued that a new government would harm their businesses, impeding innovation and profits.
From the pages of the Vancouver Province in a paraphrase of FDR's famous words, “All business should fear from Notley is fear itself,” by Stewart Prest.
Prest points out that Notley's government is likely to be very pragmatic, whether in raising oil royalties or corporate taxes.
In other words, some financial armageddon from Alberta's newly elected NDP government is strictly nonsense.
Not that one would ever know by listening to the voices of doom coming from certain sectors of the country.
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.