02) CHALLENGES FACE NEW NDP MAJORITY IN ALBERTA
By Naomi Rankin
Despite journalistic cartoons of pigs flying and hell freezing over, the May 5 election of a new majority NDP government in Alberta is after all a political and not a magical event. As in Ontario under Bob Rae and BC under Dave Barrett, the NDP has been elected by voters more than thoroughly disenchanted with the economic devastation that comes from right wing governments' incapacity to respond to economic downturns.
And, as in Ontario and BC, the corporate sector and right wing shills are already ramping up the attempt to blame the NDP for the economic mess they have inherited. The mess is significant: an economy lop-sidedly dependent on volatile resource pricing, the potential nest egg of royalties completely frittered away, a $7 billion deficit proposed by the last Tory budget, even with severe cuts in education and health care.
The NDP began this campaign not expecting to form the government. A fair number of their successful candidates are the kind of people who run for a party that's not going to win. Several new MLAs are not just young, but obviously somewhat inconvenienced by finding themselves in a new job. The Tories tried and failed to spook the voters with the prospect of an inexperienced and bumbling new administration, but starting from scratch is not the biggest of the NDP's challenges.
The NDP's victory is not a sign of a sudden leap to the left by Alberta voters. It reflects the eventual tipping point of a gradual demographic change in the cities - younger, more cosmopolitan with immigrants from the rest of Canada and elsewhere - and the switch to the Wildrose Party by rightwing, mostly rural voters angry at the arrogance and entitled attitude of the reigning Tories.
NDP leader Rachel Notley ran a relentlessly centrist campaign, emphasizing her intention to cooperate with the corporate sector, reiterating the conventional wisdom that oil and gas are the foundations of the Alberta economy, and claiming the mantle of Peter Lougheed. She said it again in her victory speech and again the next morning. Informed political commentary, however, is pointing out that, as in Ontario and BC, the corporate sector is likely to gear up for ruthless obstruction, up to and including sabotaging economic development for the sake of expelling the NDP from office, no matter how moderate and limited their reforms: raising corporate taxes from 10 to 12%, raising the minimum wage, safeguarding health and education.
Can the NDP carry out this platform? That depends on another unknown. Will the working class and its potential allies have the class consciousness to recognize and repudiate the self-interested corporate propaganda, and the militancy to demand that the reforms be carried out in spite of economic sabotage?
There are a lot of happy people in Alberta right now, including some who had dropped out of the NDP from discouragement and are now eager to get back into the political life of the province. The organized labour movement, although weakened over decades by splits and loss of jobs, currently has progressive and activist leadership in the AFL and AUPE, the main provincial employees' union. Over the past two years in particular, they contributed to running the Tories out of office by their vigorous resistance to pension cuts and anti-labour legislation. They have a big job ahead of them too.
(Rankin is the leader of the Communist Party-Alberta, and was the party’s candidate in Edmonton Mill Woods; also on the ballot for the CP-A was Bonnie Devine, in Calgary East.)
(The above article is from the May 16-31, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)