How many pension plans do you get?

The majority of Canadians have only the Canada Pension Plan and it is incumbent on them to save and invest on their own if they want a comfortable retirement.

Roughly 40% of Canadians have a workplace pension plan. Those plans vary in contribution requirements and how much (if any) contribution matching is done by the employer.

Only a tiny tiny fraction of people get to enjoy the massive pension benefits that Calgary city council members get.

On top of the incredibly generous taxpayer funded pension plan, Naheed Nenshi gets a second pension plan on top of that which is 100% taxpayer funded. Not only is Nenshi one of the highest paid mayors in Canada, he appears to be the only one who gets not one but two pensions.

While Naheed Nenshi may be thick in many ways his skin remains paper thin. Particularly when somebody dares question his golden pension plan. In a classic Nenshi temper tantrum he dismissed concerns raised about his pension plan as being “showboating”.

Councilor Jeromy Farkas is the usual target of Nenshi’s ire as Farkas has dared yet again to challenge the compensation cow which is Calgary City council. It is rather difficult to accuse Farkas of “showboating” when he has led by example in declining his own bloated taxpayer backed pension plan which could conceivably be worth over million dollars if he were to stay in office long enough. Jeromy has put his money where his mouth is.

His Worship however is rather well renowned for his showboating ways.

The gravy train is generous for the Mayor and council and Nenshi clearly never likes to pass up on gravy. Look at the chart below to see how much taxpayers kick in on top of the councilor contributions to their pension plan. Working folks can’t dare dream of a pension plan so generous but they get to pay for it with their ever increasing taxes in the city of Calgary.

On average, city councilors put in $1 into their pensions for every $5 that taxpayers do. Pretty sweet. Taxpayers in Calgary paid out $6.1 million in city council pension benefits over 10 years for 15 council members. Bear in mind that Mayor Nenshi likes to constantly remind us that there is utterly no room for spending cuts in city hall.

In making well over $200,000 per year plus many many benefits and a massive city councilor pension plan, lets never forget that Mayor Nenshi is getting a second pension on top of all that which is 100% funded by the taxpayers.

It takes some kind of gall to take such a gross compensation from taxpayers while commoners remain mired in a recession and then to dismiss concerns about it as showboating.

Parasites rarely concern themselves with the welfare of their hosts however.

Nenshi and some other councilors try to dodge on this issue by claiming that they are bound to follow the recommendations of the volunteer committee who puts forth recommendations on council compensation.

That dodge is nothing less than a big steaming pile of bullshit and it is rather easy to prove it wrong.

There is indeed a volunteer committee that makes recommendations on compensation. City council is under no obligation to follow those recommendations however and they can and will reject them at will.

This op-ed by Peter Bowal is well worth the read. He was enraged at 2017 when after putting in countless hours as a committee volunteer, city council essentially dismissed the recommendations of the committee to reduce compensation for city council. The committee is essentially a sham and is used to mask a self-serving and overpaid council and he felt rightly rather used.

The committee that Mr. Bowal chaired did some great research and this graphic from them shows excellently how council and mayoral compensation in Calgary measures up against other cities.

Rather stark graphic for Calgarians to see while they languish with record unemployment and constant city tax increases. No wonder His Worship gets his panties in a knot so quickly when somebody dares illustrate just how badly he and city council are milking taxpayers.

The buck stops with the mayor and city council. Despite their attempts to pretend that the responsibility lies with others, it is clear that they have full authority over their personal compensation both in salary and pensions and they are taking full advantage of that.

The bloat is repugnant when common people are tightening their belts. It has to stop.

Calling this out is not “showboating” by any means. It is being responsible and principled. Two words concepts utterly lost on Calgary’s Mayor and many council members.

They are laughing their way to the bank.

Confidence is everything in the business world. A stable business environment is critical for investment in any industry. Energy projects measure their plans in years and decades rather than months. Careful long term planning and engineering is required if investment is to be committed to any major project and this sort of planning is nearly impossible when the government in power is erratic and not generally supportive of the industry. Alberta has not held investor confidence in four years now.

The collapse of energy prices certainly impacted energy development in Alberta. This is far from the first downturn however and energy companies tend to plan for the ups and downs of commodity pricing. This is why other energy jurisdictions such as Texas or even Kazakhstan are enjoying energy booms today while Alberta still languishes in a recession. Investors felt confident in those other jurisdictions while they shied away from Alberta’s sudden lurch into socialism. Who would invest developing energy in a province that just elected a governing party which traditionally opposes energy development?

I remember well when I began surveying in the oil exploration field how we would literally model projects right up to the BC border in the Chinchaga field in Northern Alberta in the 1990s. Work camps were jammed on the Alberta side and traffic was high. Meanwhile meager development happened on the West side of the border cutline as expenses were simply too high in the NDP managed British Columbia and they were mired in a union push for pipeline contractors.

Meanwhile to the East, Lloydminster excellently demonstrated the damage that NDP management can do to an energy economy. While the main street of Lloydminster is literally the border with Saskatchewan, the majority of new housing and industrial development was on the West side of town. On the eastern half were some government buildings, a few old motels and some houses that predated the NDP. Otherwise development (particularly commercial) stuck to the Alberta side where a more favorable business regime existed.

As can be seen in the picture below, the lopsided development of Lloydminster still exists today as 3/4 of the city resides West of the main street. The impact of local government on development is real and visible.

Rachel Notley had a tough task ahead of her when she formed government four years ago. She had a cabinet to fill and had a caucus with utterly no experience in the energy field. Economically the energy file is far and away the most important file in Alberta and Notley handed the ministry to Margaret McCuaig-Boyd. McCuaig-Boyd held an education degree and had utterly no energy experience. Notley chose her as energy minister simply because she was from Northern Alberta and had a better chance of being able to tell a pump jack from a radio tower than any other member of her caucus. No wonder the industry confidence was so shaken.

With the election of Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, the energy industry finally can have some optimism. No longer is there a government dominated by anti-energy activists and we can look forward to a mandate of economic development again rather than ideological moves towards a new economy that simply doesn’t exist yet.

It will take action rather than intent to turn Alberta’s ailing energy around. It looks very much like Kenney is ready to do so.

The passive approach to dealing with the pipeline embargo against Alberta is over. Kenney has openly stated that it is time to go to battle on this file through the courts and whatever other means he has at his disposal. While some are pooh-poohing the adversarial approach to the issue, one has to ask what the hell the appeasement approach got us? Did appointing anti-energy activists to positions within government help? Did playing footsie with Trudeau and Horgan get us :”social license”? It is time for a new approach.

It will be interesting to see Kenney’s “war room” as it develops. We desperately need to get to work in countering the misinformation about our key industry which has been spread by foreign funded activist groups which in turn supported the Notley government. It will take a lot of work to undo that damage. Striking back with legal challenges will show that we aren’t laying down any longer as well. The best defense is a good offense.

When it comes to developing investor confidence in our energy sector, the most important move will be to bring competence and experience back to the energy ministry. This is where the nuts and bolts of our industry will truly be managed and where government can make or break future development.

Kenney has a deep pool to draw from for ministers but Prasad Panda clearly stands out as the best candidate for the energy portfolio.

With nearly 30 years of direct experience as an engineer in the oilfield, Panda is more than familiar with the ins and outs of the industry. He will be able to sit down with energy leaders and talk to them one on one. Margaret McCuaig-Boyd pretty much needed a translator when speaking on energy issues. Energy leaders will find it refreshing to say the least to be able to speak to a minister in technical terms without having to try and break down what it all means to them.

Notley’s time in office has also fostered an ugly sub-industry of crony capitalism. This pretty much happens under every socialist regime. While some companies remain true to principles of free enterprise, others eagerly latch on to the party in power and become subsidy whores. They will utter whatever weasel words the Premier likes as long as they can get some state mandated protection or subsidies. It is rather sad to watch and we saw a number of companies playing in that role in the last few years.

While Panda spent decades working for Suncor, it became quite crystal clear that he is not beholden to them when he publicly called Steve Williams (CEO of Suncor) when Williams began shamelessly spewing out Rachel Notley’s talking points on the carbon tax. Prasad’s loyalty clearly lands in Alberta’s interests rather than those of his former employers and this is important. He will stand up to the special interests who are doubtless already hammering the door down on Kenney in hopes of special treatment from the state.

As with any industry, the energy industry has its share of con artists and bullshitters. Those sorts will be lobbying the ministry for all they are worth as the new government finds its legs. It will be important to have a level headed and experienced energy minister in office during this critical period in order to ensure that no bad deals get cut in the rush of setting up. It will be tough to fool Panda on energy issues and with his resume in the industry he will be immune to being baffled by bullshit.

I have some first hand experience on how Prasad doesn’t take crap. I helped out in past campaigns for him and while we got along for the vast majority of the campaigns, we inevitably butted heads on some issues. In those cases Prasad quite diplomatically but sternly took me aside and made it clear who the boss was. While I certainly didn’t enjoy the dressing downs, I can’t help but respect it. I have no use for pushovers and pushovers have no place in cabinet.

Kenney only gets one shot at building his maiden cabinet and he has many tough choices. In some senses it is almost an embarrassment of riches in that he has so much caucus talent to draw from that it is tough to choose. In energy the choice is pretty clear though. With a lifetime of direct energy experience along with legislative experience as the energy critic, Prasad Panda is the ideal choice for the energy ministry. For four years cabinet picks have been based on notions such as gender balance or political favors rather than ability. Right now and with the critical portfolio of energy, ability and experience must be the only criteria and Prasad has both in spades. I look forward to seeing him guiding the recovery of our energy industry.

On Tuesday Alberta formally turned into a two party state, at least as far as elected seats go. There were 13 parties in the election and all but the NDP and UCP were decimated by the voters.

I have been involved in alternative parties for well over 20 years from when I joined the Alberta Party in the mid 90s, to forming and leading the Alberta Independence Party in 2000, to the Alberta Alliance, to Wildrose and finally ending in the UCP where for the first time in decades I find myself supporting the party in power. The seeds of the Alberta Alliance party did eventually grow into being a large part of today’s UCP but it took over a decade with many ups and downs. Alternative parties can be important and can eventually get into power but it is a tough road.

There are many reasons why people choose to join alternative parties. For some it is single issue matters as with the Marijuana Party or Green Party. For some it is formed around an individual leader. For some it is a preference of being a big fish in a small pond when it comes to management and leadership. For others it simply is a disenchantment with all of the major parties and seeking to build an entirely new alternative.

Alternative parties are important. They propose ideas and concepts that mainstream parties may not have the courage to approach. They can pressure mainstream parties by threatening to split votes in key constituencies thus will impact the actions of mainstream parties at times. Alternative parties can act as a pressure relief valve for mainstream parties as activists who insist on pushing to the extremes can be invited to leave and join a fringe party that better suits their goals. Finally, alternative parties can potentially eventually go on to form effective opposition parties or governments.

The electoral doldrums are now approaching for alternative parties. There is no time worse to try to grow your membership and raise funds than right after an election. People are tired of politics and are ready to sit back and watch the new government in action for better or for worse. With a federal election looming, it will be even that much tougher for alternative parties to manage to stay relevant.

I am going to break down all of the alternative parties with my thoughts on where they may go starting from largest to smallest.

There is no doubt that the Alberta Party is the biggest loser coming out of this election. Not only did they lose every one of the seats that they had gained from floor crossings, they lost the one and only elected seat that they had. Greg Clark had far and away been the most popular asset for the party and he was solidly turfed from his Calgary Elbow seat which he had worked so had to win and had done a very good job of representing. Their leader Stephen Mandel didn’t even come close in Edmonton McClung and the rest of their candidates landed in the low single digit levels of support. This was nothing less than a catastrophe for the party.

Since being taken over by disenchanted Green Party folks nearly 10 years ago, the Alberta Party has become the sad sack of the Alberta electoral scene with a large social media presence and a microscopic electoral one. They have spent nearly a decade pursuing a mythical middle. They felt that if they shouted “centrist” loudly enough that they would pull people from both the left and the right and win elections. So far all they have done is alienate folks from both sides and the polls show it. Like it or not, people tend to land on one side of the spectrum or another to a degree and they have little use for the mushy middle.

The Alberta Party has been plagued by bizarre strategic moves as well. In constantly refusing to run in by-elections they missed chances to build their electoral base and train themselves in campaigning. Worst of all, they let embittered refugees from the defunct Progressive Conservative Party take them over. That new element insanely pushed Greg Clark out of the leadership. This led to months of a leadership race where nobody wanted the job. Stephen Mandel was finally pulled in an placed as the new leader.

Under Mandel’s leadership the party lurched from one mess to another. The worst was when Mandel among others nearly found themselves banned from running in the election due to his not having found time to file a nomination expense report. A task that takes about 20 minutes. This hardly instilled confidence in people that the Alberta Party was ready to govern the province.

They tweeted and shouted from the sidelines and they ran many candidates. Despite this, the Alberta Party simply could not break that elusive double digit barrier and finished at 9% support.

All that said, over 150,000 Albertans voted for the Alberta Party and this can’t be dismissed. There definitely is a degree of demand for what they are proposing out there but they need to get their shit together if they are to have a hope in properly capturing it.

The Alberta Party is going to need to do some deep introspection. They will need a new leader and they need to turf the pack of Redford era weasels that they inherited from the Progressive Conservative Party. They need to quit putting out the fluffy feelgood policy statements that try to appeal to everybody. This party needs to find its ideological niche and to own it. Create a solid base and then draw people to it. More “big listens” or limp “party for everyone” statements will keep them languishing on the fringes.

The Alberta Party is the best placed party to turn itself into a contender in the next general election. Their choices in the next two years will determine if this is to happen.

It took over a century but the Liberal Party of Alberta finally went from being the first governing party in Alberta to a loss of every seat with a dismal 1% support level throughout the province.

Aside from a short resurgence in the 1990s under Lawrence Decore, the Liberal brand in Alberta has struggled since the government of Pierre Trudeau. The National Energy Program of the 1980s essentially turned the Liberal name toxic in Alberta and Trudeau’s witless son Justin is certainly not doing them any favors. Lackluster leadership and a general lack of electoral support has led to a constant decline for the party within Alberta.

David Khan is bright and personable enough, but he wasn’t capable of breathing life into the dying party in the last election. Calgary Mountainview was the last Liberal bastion in Alberta and Khan finished a distant fourth place with 5.6% support.

Hell, even I managed to pull 6.5% when I ran in Mountainview in 2008 and I was working in the Arctic for all but three days of the campaign.

I think we have finally seen the end of the Liberal Party within Alberta. Only the most masochistic of delusional optimists will be ready to take on this clunker and try to turn it viable again.

The demise of the Alberta Liberals will aid the Alberta Party though as they try to create a left of center alternative that Albertans can get behind. The anchor of the pernicious Liberal name will not hamper their efforts.

Coming in next with 0.7% support is the latest incarnation of the Alberta Independence Party.

The party under previously unknown David Bjorkman managed to become registered by running candidates in over 50% of the constituencies in Alberta. While that path to registration has existed for some time, this is the first time that a party has actually taken it successfully in order to become registered. I tried that method in 2001 and failed.

It says a great deal about the motivation behind the folks that they could pull this off. It is no small task to find 63 people willing and able to get run for the party along with paying the deposits to run and getting the requisite signatures. There is some strong organizational power lurking within that organization.

The candidate diversity was striking as well with a large contingent of aboriginal candidates and the only transgendered candidate to run in this election.

That being said, the party didn’t really set the world on fire with their results. Most of their candidates didn’t break 1% support and I think their best showing was just shy of 2%.

In leading a secessionist party into an election before I learned one simple fact that still stands today. While people will talk big about secession and will respond to polls favorably for secession, when push comes to shove at the ballot box Albertans do not want to take that leap. This is not to say that it will never happen but at this time it is clear that we are nowhere close to having a large segment of the population ready to call it quits on confederation.

I think the Alberta Independence Party is here to stay. If they put the same energy and organizational talent into the next couple years that they did in the months leading up to this election, I expect that they will start pulling some better numbers in some choice constituencies. They won’t be in contention for winning the province but they could very well play a spoiler in some seats.

If Justin Trudeau gets re-elected we can expect to see growth in the AIP as well. As we saw in the 1980s a secessionist can even win a seat in a by-election if the anger is strong enough. The anger cools quickly however.

I expect that Kenney will take a stronger stance in steps towards independence if we get such an adversarial relationship with Ottawa in the future which will defuse the efforts of the AIP.

Another hindrance for a secessionist party is that they are bound to be single issue no matter how hard they may work to develop policy. People want to vote for a government rather than an issue. Secession belongs in the land of advocacy and referendums rather than parties. The AIP can and likely will fill that advocacy role now that they are registered and can raise funds.

Next we have Derek Fildebrandt’s Freedom Conservative Party at 0.5%,

I say “Derek Fildebrandt’s” party because in reality the party simply was all about him.

I like Derek. He is bright, ambitious and has a talent for bringing issues to the forefront. That made it all the more disappointing when he managed to crater his political career with so many errors of his own making.

The Alberta First Party was languishing as an unknown registered entity with a soft-separatist stance. Getting a sitting MLA if even for a short time was a coup for the small organization and it is easy to manage something of that size. This was a big fish in a small pond scenario.

Despite Fildebrandt’s initial claims that they would not run candidates in constituencies where there was a risk of vote splitting in favor of the NDP, FCP candidates began springing up in some very vulnerable constituencies. This cut deeply into the credibility of this nascent party and took away one of the major defenses for having another right of center party in the electoral list.

It became clear that the party was dominated by members who found themselves disenchanted with the UCP for any number of reasons. While spite can certainly motivate some folks, it doesn’t draw electoral support.

The strongest showing the FCP got was 7.7% in Chestemere Strathmore where Derek was handily beaten by Leela Aheer.

I just don’t see this party going anywhere aside from being a rump on the right wing sidelines. If the UCP drifts too far left as the PCs had 10 years ago, the FCP may be revived by a personable leader and pressure the UCP from the right as the Wildrose Party had. For now I expect they will flounder.

As for Derek, I really hope he finds his path. Perhaps with a few years of time out from electoral politics he can come back with some credibility. He certainly has the potential and he is young enough.

Next is the Green Party of Alberta. To put it simply, they are left leaning and single issue despite their constant claims to be centrist and deeper.

They will always be on the scene and will always pull a small number of votes from their core supporters. If they have any impact at all, it will be to be a spoiler in some constituencies by pulling votes from the NDP.

They finished with 0.4% which is about as good as they can expect in Alberta.

Next at 0.3% is the Alberta Advantage Party under Marilyn Burns.

Burns suffers from a chronic oppositional disorder and simply likes leaving parties in order to attack them. Burns started with the Alberta Alliance, stomped away to the Wildrose group, stomped off to the wilderness and then formed her own little party.

Spite doesn’t sell and while the party remains as a registered entity, it won’t go anywhere as it stands now. Like the FCP it may morph into a viable right of center opposition party but it will need some major changes before that happens. Until then they are a non-factor being led by somebody incapable of working with others.

Communism is a vile ideology responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths around the world.

Despite that, we still have a small group of extremists openly supporting communism and they have been led by Naomi Rankin in Alberta for some years.

The communists have a registered party and managed to pull 277 votes from either ignorant extremist assholes or folks who accidentally put an X in the wrong box.

They will always be around and they will thankfully go nowhere.

Perhaps now that Anne McGrath is unemployed she will go back to her overt communist roots and take the leadership of the party. In that case these scumbags may find 400 votes throughout the province.

The Reform Party of Alberta is registered and hanging in the wings.

This rump was built by Randy Thorsteinson. Randy is like Marilyn Burns only he has the fiscal means and organizational skills to keep going. Randy went from Social Credit to Alberta Alliance to forming this party. His pattern is consistent. If he can’t lead the parade, he will stomp away and form his own. This party isn’t going anywhere.

The Pro-life Alberta Political association is what the remnants of the Social Credit Party turned itself into.

Not much needs to be said about these guys. As can be seen, they are single issue and going nowhere though they will act as a partisan filter in drawing the hysteric pro-lifers to them and getting them out of serious parties.

The Wildrose and PC parties are still registered but are essentially dead in the water.

A lot can happen in four years. Some of these parties may blossom and some may die. New parties may appear on the scene.

While they hang in the fringes, these parties play a role and can’t be fully dismissed. It is too bad that they didn’t at least get a few seats to add some diversity of voices in the legislature. Time will tell if this two party system will last or not.

Vivian Krause has brilliantly laid out how Rachel Notley is beholden to anti-Alberta energy groups in this article. It is a must read. The piece really lays out why despite Notley’s claims of being pro-pipeline, that nothing actually gets done.

Notley and the NDP do not have the interests of Albertans in mind as they govern. The NDP are dominated by extreme anti-energy ideologues and they exist to serve the needs of organized labour.

The depth of big union dominance within the NDP really needs to be laid out and understood by voters as it is sometimes forgotten. How on earth can we expect the NDP to negotiate union contracts in good faith on behalf of Albertans?

We can’t.

Let’s just begin with looking at the number of NDP candidates and MLAs who are in leading roles within unions.

Aside from leadership roles within unions, many other candidates are union members and mostly within the public sector. .

There is of course utterly nothing wrong with belonging to a union. Union leaders and members have every right to run for public office. The problem is in having a governing party that is dominated and overwhelmed with union influence.

There is no way that Notley’s NDP government will be able to bring spending under control when they are so beholden to public sector unions. They will cave to every union demand when “negotiating” contracts and the expenditures will continue to grow. The conflict of interest is just too much.

The NDP constitution forces a massive labor presence in the makeup of the provincial council. The party will always be controlled by big labor and will serve the interests of big labor above all other needs. The Alberta Federation of Labor and it’s 67 affiliates all have reserved places on the board of the NDP.

Excerpt from the Alberta NDP Constitution

Article VII – Provincial Council

7.01 The Provincial Council shall consist of:  

(a) the Provincial Executive;  

(b) two (2) members to be elected from the Party Caucus in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta;

(c) one (1) member elected by those members of the Party caucus in the House of Commons representing Alberta Electoral Districts. 

(d) three (3) members elected from each provincial Constituency Association, who shall not be a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta;

(e) one (1) member elected from each Federal Electoral District Association within the Province of Alberta.   

(f) the members of the Federal Council residing in Alberta;  

(g) five (5) members from each caucus of the Party;   

(h) two (2) members of the Alberta Federation of Labour; and  

(i) one (1) member from each of the affiliates in Alberta.

The ties to big labor and associated PACs and third party advertisers are far too pervasive for the NDP to ever govern independently of the demands from unions.

Notley’s NDP simply can’t serve the interests of Albertans while in government. Union needs and demands from foreign groups such as the Rockefeller Foundation will always guide the path of the Alberta New Democratic party.

We have a chance to turn the tide this Tuesday. Let’s hope Albertans remove the NDP from power so we may begin on the path to balancing the budget and opening Alberta for business again.

If Notley’s NDP gets another four years in power, our great grandchildren will be paying the debt accumulated due to the oilfield shutdown and money being funneled into big labor.

The advertising during this election campaign has been overwhelming. TV, Radio, social media, billboards, newspapers… It doesn’t matter where we look we see political advertising. While this is hardly shocking during an election, it is surprising seeing the volume of advertising when it is considered that all of the parties are bound by a maximum of $2 million in expenditures during this election. While that sounds like a lot at a glance, it really doesn’t go far when a party is reaching out to an entire province. There are countless other non advertising expenses There are only two parties that have that kind of funding as well.

So where are all these ads coming from?

Third party advertisers. When you put a cap on the spending bottle, people simply find other ways to spend. Again this is not surprising. These advertisers are listed here.

Third parties should indeed have the right to promote their interests during elections. Due to the cap on party spending however, some heavy regulation is required. Are these third parties actual interest groups or are they simply acting as direct arms of parties in order to bypass the spending maximums? It is pretty difficult to distinguish, particularly with the NDP and their intertwined relationship with organized labor.

I was shocked to find that the Alberta New Democratic Party actually is bound within their own constitution to have two members of the Alberta Federation of Labor on their provincial board along with one of each of the Alberta affiliates (there are 67 affiliates). That leaves the NDP provincial board utterly dominated by labor affiliates many of whom are registered as third party advertisers. The Treasurer of the NDP serves in senior positions within several registered third party advertisers. How on earth are these acting as separate entities within this election without collusion?

Other relationships are evident as well. Unfortunately the Alberta NDP is very secretive and they hide who is actually serving on their provincial board. In light of all this intertwining with third party advertisers however, one can see why they are keeping the list to themselves.

This has led me to feel that we need the Electoral Commissioner to look into this. They have the means and authority to take a closer look at just who is controlling the party and what their relationships with third party advertisers are. Collusion to bypass spending limits could be a very serious offense.

The complaint I sent is below. I do hope they find time to investigate soon.

I will be posting more on the relationships of the Alberta NDP with outside parties in the next couple days.

Continue reading →

The New Democratic Party is not like any other party in Canada and that is worth noting when people are considering a vote in a provincial election. While many federal and provincial parties share a name and general principles, those parties are completely separate entities in reality. This is a critical distinction when it comes to provincial/federal negotiations on issues. The federal Liberal Party of Canada is not formally associated with the Liberal Party of Alberta for example. Provincial NDP parties however are all simply branches of the central federal party.

While the NDP constitution refers to provincial wings as being autonomous parties, this is simply not true when it is considered that membership in the federal party is mandatory if one wants to be a member in a provincial party.

If a person likes the policies, leadership and platform of their provincial Liberal party but does not want to support the federal party they simply can choose not to buy a membership in the federal party. That applies with every party in Canada aside from the NDP. Centralized leadership is a tenet of socialism and they will never truly support any forms of regional autonomy.

This does help to explain a lot of Rachel Notley’s rather lackluster support for Alberta’s energy sector. Oh sure, Notley has talked a fantastic game but when push comes to shove she has accomplished utterly nothing in the protection of Alberta’s key industry aside from increasing direct government involvement in the production of energy products and the financing of these ventures. Increased government control of the energy sector is important as it would help facilitate the shutdown of the industry as per NDP goals outlined in the LEAP Manifesto.

The LEAP Manifesto is an extreme socialist document that essentially calls for the shutdown of Alberta’s energy industries within the next decade. The manifesto was created by key NDP players in Canada and has been embraced by the federal NDP at a general meeting. Despite the loud denials on Notley’s part, that manifesto is part of what forms the basis of her party’s goals. This is because when push comes to shove with principles and policies, the provincial wings of the federal NDP are constitutionally forced to be subservient to their federal masters.

As can be seen in the constitutional statement below, while provincial parties are called “autonomous” this is chained down by the very hard reality that they have to match the principles of their federal superiors. “Principles” is a pretty broad term. In having embraced the LEAP Manifesto though, the federal party has made their principle in working to shut down Alberta’s energy industry crystal clear.

The second statement makes it clear that the federal party has the authority and ability to remove party status from any of their provincial wings should they choose to. While this has yet to have happened in Canada, the constitutional clause makes it pretty clear who is the boss when it comes to provincial and federal wings of the NDP.

Notley can talk a good game when speaking of protecting Alberta’s energy sector but she can’t really act. This is why Notley drafted legislation to cut off the flow of oil to BC but never actually used it. All she can do is bluff. If Notley acted overtly against her BC comrade Horgan, the federal boss would be forced to intervene in the fight. As Horgan is the Premier acting in closest faith to the LEAP Manifesto it is pretty easy to see what side he would take in such a dispute.

The NDP has many many flaws. One of their greatest ones is their forced adherence to central leadership while trying to operate in a country with diverse regional needs.

This should be remembered when choosing who to vote for this spring. While you may indeed trust and like Rachel Notley to lead Alberta, a vote for her will actually be a vote for Singh. Can we trust him to look out for Alberta’s interest or Notley to stand up to him when she needs to?