It has been a busy week in Alberta politics and here are a few of my thoughts on some recent developments:
Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances
Premier Jason Kenney and Finance Minister Travis Toews appointed a “Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances” with a mandate to recommend changes limited to Alberta government spending. As others have already pointed out, the narrow mandate is a missed opportunity to actually address the fiscal challenges facing Alberta, which includes issues with revenue ranging from low taxation and over-dependence on oil and gas royalty revenues.
That Kenney, who started his political career as spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, would want to focus purely on spending is not a shock. But it is only part of the challenge facing Alberta.
Appointing an arms-length panel to make these recommendations is politically smart and will give cover to a United Conservative Party government that is already inclined to make significant cuts to funding of public services. The NDP made similar political moves when they appointed arms-length panels to recommend changes to the natural resource royalty structure and to recommend action on climate change, which included the creation of the carbon tax, which Kenney has pledged to repeal.
Kenney’s appointment of history professor and former Saskatchewan New Democratic Party cabinet minister Janice MacKinnon and former Alberta Liberal MLA Mike Percy was a clever move that on the surface mildly disarms its critics. But despite their past political affiliations, both MacKinnon and Percy have in the decades since they left elected office been welcomed in conservative circles because of their fiscally conservative views. MacKinnon was even prominently quoted in the UCP election platform.
Albertans need leaders who will look at the big picture, not just a slice of the problem. Judging by its narrow mandate, it is hard to imagine the blue ribboned panelists recommending anything but cuts, cuts, and more cuts.
NDP critics to be named next week
The 24 Alberta NDP MLAs who will make up the Official Opposition will be sworn-in on May 13 at the Legislative Assembly. Unlike their UCP colleagues, who will be sworn-in before the Speech from the Throne on May 21, the two dozen NDP MLAs will have an 8-day jump start with access to their Legislative offices and time to prepare for their first week of Question Period. And with a caucus mostly hailing from Edmonton, NDP MLAs will have a hometown advantage of not having to regularly travel long-distances to work in the capital city.
The NDP critic line-up is expected to be announced shortly after NDP MLAs are sworn-in. With 9 cabinet minister in its ranks, the NDP opposition will be well-equipped to question the cabinet of mostly rookie UCP MLAs. There could be a natural temptation to appoint the former cabinet ministers as critics for the ministerial offices they previously held, but it could also compromise the credibility of those critics who in some cases would be watching much of their 4-years of work be dismantled by the UCP.
Look for Official Opposition leader Rachel Notley to place Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman, Lethbridge-East MLA Shannon Phillips, Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview MLA Deron Bilous, Edmonton-North West MLA David Eggen, and Calgary-Buffalo MLA Joe Ceci in key critic roles.
The NDP will be tempted to continue their relentless campaign against the UCP on social issues, but treating the post-election period as just an extension of the 2019 election could be a strategic mistake. The NDP need to prepare themselves for how to respond effectively to the aggressive legislative agenda Kenney is expected to implement in the “Summer of Repeal” and to a fall provincial budget that could include deep and short-sighted budget cuts.
auf Wiedersehen, Derek.
Former Wildrose Party and UCP MLA Derek Fildebrandt resigned as leader of the Freedom Conservative Party last week after his party’s electoral poor showing and his failure to win re-election in Chestermere-Strathmore in the April 2019 election. Fildebrandt, also a former spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, is succeeded by interim leader David White, a former paramedic who ran for the party in Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin.
Say what you want about his political views and personal behavior, but Fildebrandt has been one of the most consistently colourful characters in Alberta politics since he burst on to the provincial scene in 2012.
The Freedom Conservative Party is the latest name of a tiny right-wing populist and sometimes separatist party that has existed since 1999. It took its latest form in June 2018 when the Western Freedom Party was renamed the Freedom Conservative Party. The party was originally formed as the Alberta First Party in 1999, renamed the Separation Party of Alberta in 2004 and again renamed the Alberta First Party in 2013 before it became the Western Freedom Party in April 2018.
7 replies on “Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances, NDP critics, and auf Wiedersehen, Derek”
The blue ribbon panel is great! Because we need cuts cuts cuts. deep cuts!
You should be careful what you wish for. I assume you believe you will not be at all affected by such cuts. What we need is tax reform and to stop relying on cutting to solve our problems. I saw firsthand the disastrous mess that Ralph Klein created with his cuts to health care back in the 1990s. I am quite sure those cuts were in part responsible for the death of my father, who received substandard care while in hospital at the time because there was no one left to staff the place. Half the wards were closed. Alberta has never recovered from that bright Conservative idea, and yet there was no shortage of Albertans congratulating him for his policies at the time. I thought those people were idiots, and I hated Klein forever after that, and Kenney is going down the same path.
David White ran in Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin.
Thanks! Fixed.
Janet McKinnon is no New Democrat. She’s a right-wing turncoat to whom no self-respecting New Democrat would give the time of day.
As for Derek Fildepockets and his Freedom Conservative Party, we all know it was nothing but a vehicle for his colossal ego, and now that he is gone it is just going to fade back into political obscurity.
Thanks for your great blog, Dave.
I am wondering if we will see the Blue Ribbon Panel’s report in its entirety. Did Mr. Kenney promise to make it public, or is there a long standing tradition of releasing these things?
Where I am going with this is wondering what will happen if the panel recommends something that could be uncomfortable for the government. According to David Climenhaga, one of the things that Janice MacKinnon is most famous for, and one of the ways she balanced Saskatchewan’s budget when she was finance minister, was by closing some 50 rural hospitals. If that recommendation is in the report, will we see it?
The term blue ribbon makes me think of the prize for the best pig at the county fair. I suppose in this case the more accurate term is expert or advisory panel, but the populist side of the UCP is suspicious of experts and every since his “grassroots guarantee” days, it is fairly obvious Mr. Kenney has his own strong ideas about what he wants to do and he is not so much looking for advise.
Given this I think there are three useful aspects to this blue ribbon panel for Kenney and the UCP government. First, it will provide a nice diversion while Kenney decides for himself what he wants to do. Second he will probably use some of what the panel comes up with to justify or support what he wants to do anyways. They are all carefully hand picked, so can be expected to come to certain conclusions. Third they could provide some political cover for controversial or unpopular decisions. For instance, one of the panel members has a history of closing rural hospitals to save money in another province, that would sure be controversial or unpopular in Alberta.
Of course, if some of the panels proposals are too controversial or unpopular, the government can quickly distance itself from them, forget about them and quickly say they were never really official government policy anyways. The pig that gets the blue ribbon usually does not have a good fate. I have a feeling this blue ribbon panel will not either.