All posts tagged Alberta Liberals

Negotiating with Alberta’s PC government? Better bring witnesses!

by David Climenhaga on May 11, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Labour Relations, Thomas Lukaszuk with 10 Comments

Wildcat strike scene, grabbed from AUPE’s website during the strike. Below: AUPE President Guy Smith, Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk.

Advice to anyone who tries to negotiate a deal with Alison Redford, Thomas Lukaszuk or any member or official of their government: take witnesses with you, and make sure you also bring a tape recorder.

You might want to bring a piece of paper, a pen, a Bible and a notary public as well. One-on-one meetings ending in “handshake deals” with these people? I don’t think so!

In what surely is one of the most outrageous Alberta news stories of the year to date, the Edmonton Journal reported yesterday evening that “Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith ‘misled’ union members when he claimed he had negotiated a full amnesty for striking workers, the province alleged in legal documents filed this week.”

As is to be expected, AUPE and the government are now slugging it out before the Alberta Labour Relations Board over the wildcat strike by about 2,500 provincial Correctional Peace Officers that began mid-morning on April 27 when a long-simmering dispute over occupational health and safety boiled over at the just-opened Edmonton Remand Centre.

The fight over what punishments the government can mete out to the union, including seeking compensation for the cost of the strike and a six-month dues suspension, can be expected to drag on for months or years.

As is most emphatically not to be expected, the government came right out in a statement of claim to the Alberta Labour Relations Board and called Mr. Smith a liar: “He then chose to falsely claim that he had the agreement that he desperately tried to get and never obtained,” the statement says.

The strike ended on May 1, when the jail guards went back to work, assured by Mr. Smith he had had negotiated an amnesty for them.

The deal looked like a climb-down by Deputy Premier “Stompin’ Tom” Lukaszuk, Ms. Redford’s designated tough guy and court jester, who just hours before had vowed he would never even talk to Mr. Smith or any other official of AUPE while the strike continued.

Just the same, as Journal political columnist Graham Thomson reported yesterday evening in an excellent column, Mr. Lukaszuk nevertheless met Mr. Smith on April 29 in an Edmonton restaurant where they discussed the illegal strike, and presumably how to end it.

When the meeting was over, notwithstanding the things now said in the government’s statement of claim, Mr. Smith appears to sincerely have believed he had a deal – a belief he used (at considerable political risk to himself within AUPE, it should be noted) to get the guards back to work.

Pretty quickly, though, various government spokespeople started backing away from the deal that Mr. Lukaszuk either made or didn’t make with Mr. Smith. When they began to do so, AUPE filed an unfair labour practice complaint with the Labour Relations Board.

The union complaint said in part that AUPE members “feel betrayed by the government and AUPE and take the position that they were tricked into returning to work.”

It is the government’s response to that complaint in which Mr. Smith is accused of intentionally misleading his members.

The government’s and AUPE’s filings to the ALRB were leaked to the Journal by some person or persons unknown for some reason, about which we can only speculate. But the government statement of claim, Mr. Thomson accurately reports, “reads like a political speech, using inflammatory language that would be at home on the floor of the legislative assembly.”

It is hard to say with any confidence what the principal actors on the government side of this story truly believe, or who came up with this particular strategy, but it is a fair observation that the government’s response is not a particularly astute one.

Now, to those of you who are grumbling, “Yeah, but Dave’s a union guy, and he used to work for Guy Smith,” all that is true. Full disclosure: I know Mr. Smith, I used to work for him and I hold him in high regard.

Beyond my personal confidence, however, there’s not much sense to the government’s story – which, as they say, has not been proved before the ALRB, let alone in a court of law. The most obvious flaw, of course, is that doing what the government now claims he did would amount to political suicide for Mr. Smith within AUPE. For that reason alone, it seems highly unlikely.

Then there is the matter of the documents on which the story is based. They were supposed to be held in confidence by the ALRB. It is interesting to speculate on who did the leaking and for whose benefit.

Whatever the answers to those questions are, it is said here the government’s response was foolish because there is no way the union is going to roll over on its unfair labour complaint – and now they’re bound to go before the labour board and try to prove the government did make the commitment that is now in dispute.

If they don’t succeed before the labour board – which, after all, is a tame and employer-friendly body – expect this fight to move on to the courts.

And so at every step of the way, in a public forum, the honesty and trustworthiness of a government that growing numbers of Albertans mistrust on those very grounds will be disputed in a public forum.

As good an idea as it may have seemed at the time to whoever came up with the idea of leaking the government’s statement of claim and AUPE’s documents, it’s hard to see how this will do this government much good. Some of the potential consequences include:

Other groups going into negotiations with the government – and not just unions – will now to be extremely wary and distrustful, with good reason. Can it be trusted? Likely not.

The credibility of the ALRB has also suffered another blow, even if the documents were not leaked from its offices.

Jail guards represented by AUPE will be so furious another illegal walkout must be considered a possibility.

Chances are also good this is another nail in the coffin of the 11th Hour progressive coalition Ms. Redford’s government cobbled together to save her government from the Wildrose Wave in the April 2012 election.

Next time, it is said here, many progressive voters will be prepared to take a chance on another Smith, Wildrose leader Danielle, even if they do it by voting for the Liberals or the NDP.

As for Mr. Smith, I can only say that if I were him, I’d challenge Mr. Lukaszuk or the premier to state the government’s allegations in public, instead of in a privileged document. That way he could respond in an appropriate manner to the government’s claim he lied to his own members.

It might have been momentarily less satisfying, but surely it would have paid dividends in the long term for the government to argue Mr. Smith must have merely been mistaken, and for the documents to be kept confidential until they were presented to the ALRB panel.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Are Alberta’s Tories taking the right message from Wildrose Party’s fund-raising success?

by David Climenhaga on April 5, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Civic Politics, Political Fund-Raising, Ralph Klein with 4 Comments

Counting pennies: Premier Alison Redford and MLAs Peter Sandhu and Steven Young count up donations to the Progressive Conservative Party in this photo stolen from Daveberta.ca. Actual donations, especially those brought in by Darryl Katz, may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Floating balloons and Calgary mayors, apparently nothing new about that idea either.

As Alberta prepares to bid a final farewell to Ralph Klein this afternoon, more evidence has emerged the province’s politically active right has given up on the party the market-fundamentalist avatar led for 14 years.

Mainstream media reported this week fund-raising by the farther-right Wildrose Party is outstripping that of the governing Progressive Conservatives, strongly suggesting efforts by such PC leaders as former premier Ed Stelmach and Premier Alison Redford to ease their party back toward the centre after the radicalism of the Klein Era are encountering stiff resistance.

This creates potential challenges for Redford’s party — but is not necessarily a disaster, as the horserace-addicted media seems to be working itself up to claiming.

Still, while the historically unmatched Progressive Conservative money machine is hardly faltering under Ms. Redford’s leadership, donations are pouring more quickly at the moment into a cash-collection mechanism for Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Party that is based on the federal Conservative Party’s successful fund-raising techniques, unofficial annual financial statements from Elections Alberta indicate.

But while the Wildrose Party was better at raising large amounts of money from small donors in 2012, media coverage has (intentionally?) exaggerated this portion of the party’s donations to make it sound as if it is almost exclusively supported by grassroots contributors.

The reality, of course, is that just like the PCs, the Wildrosers are also very good at raising large donations from corporations, especially companies in the oil and gas sector.

Alberta election financing laws set a large maximum donation of $15,000 and make it easy for out-of-province corporations to launder their donations through local operations – naturally tilting the fund-raising field in favour of the right-wing parties like the Redford Tories and Smith Wildrosers.

Still, the fact the Wildrose Party could raise about 40 per cent of its revenue in 2012 from small contributors – versus less than 10 per cent in the same year for the Redford Conservatives – should be cause for concern for the Tories. It reinforces recent polling trends that indicate support is strong among conservative voters for the new party’s radical platform, which resembles Mr. Klein’s harsh market purism during his four terms as premier.

In the three-month period before the last election – which must be accounted separately under Alberta election laws – the Wildrose Party raised $2.8 million compared to the PCs’ $2.3 million. Those numbers compared with $517,000 raised by the NDP in the same three-month period and $150,000 contributed to the provincial Liberals.

But the spread really begins to grow dramatically when you look at contributions outside the three-month pre-election window. In all of 2012, the Wildrose Party raised $5.9 million compared to $3.9 million raised by the Redford PCs.

The NDP raised total contributions of a respectable $1.4 million and the Liberals had total 2012 donations of about $479,000.

Much was made by media commentators that this situation leaves the PCs with a post-2012 deficit of $785,000, while the Wildrose Party has a surplus, but it is said here that in itself is probably not all that significant given the ability of both parties to raise huge amounts of cash and the likelihood well-heeled donors will hedge their bets and support both until a clear winner emerges in the run-up to the next election.

It would be a serious mistake to jump to the conclusion this spells the doom of the Progressive Conservatives.

With the party’s emphasis on corporate fund-raising, many friends in corporate boardrooms and the province’s lax financing rules, PC revenues will likely peak later than those of the Wildrose Party. As a result, it is said here they will catch up to and surpass the Opposition party’s successes as the next election nears in 2016.

But with right-wing voters and their money obviously drifting toward the Wildrose, continued PC success obviously also depends on the ability of the premier and her inner circle to maintain the centrist coalition they built in the desperate weeks before the April 23, 2012, election.

They won’t do that by competing with the Wildrose Party for right-wing voters who have already abandoned them, taking their money with them, as the party seems to be trying to do at the moment by letting Ms. Smith set the province’s economic and policy agenda.

No matter what their political lizard brains are telling them right now with Mr. Klein’s public memorial scheduled to take place at noon before misty-eyed throngs in Calgary’s Jack Singer Concert Hall, for the Redford Tories the choice is getting back to the centre or arranging their own political funeral.

Mr. Klein, who served four terms as premier from 1992 to 2006 and who was mayor of Calgary from 1980 to 1989, died in Calgary on Good Friday at 70.

+ + +

Deep-pocketed neocons prove useful target for Calgary mayor 

Speaking of fund-raising and Calgary mayors, when neoconservative Godfather Preston Manning floated his Big Idea balloon about knocking off small-l liberals at Calgary City Hall, he gave Mayor Naheed Nenshi something to shoot at.

If Conservatives with deep pockets don’t like him, Mr. Nenshi reportedly told a closed-door fund-raiser Tuesday, they should run against him, not undermine councillors who are doing a good job.

When it comes to fund-raising potential, it is said here, it’s always useful to have a potential boogieman like Mr. Manning on the other side to concentrate your supporters’ minds – and if you don’t believe me, just watch this short video and see which well-known campaign mastermind pops out the door at the end, a very big grin on his face. If you don’t know his name, the answer is in the index.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

One Province, Two Guvnors … Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives eye reuniting right

by David Climenhaga on April 1, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Alison Redford, April Fools, Danielle Smith, Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose Party with 8 Comments

Pleased to meet you… not! Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, left, shakes hands with Alberta Premier Alison Redford. Below: Alberta Premier Joan Crockatt.

The Alberta Progressive Conservative Party under Premier Alison Redford and the Wildrose Party under Opposition Leader Danielle Smith plan to schedule an initial meeting on “reuniting the right” sometime this summer.

The parties are said to have agreed the time to reunite Alberta’s right is now, before Alberta faces the prospect of an NDP takeover like those anticipated later this year in British Columbia and Ontario.

“We are all neoconservatives with an austerity agenda designed to benefit the super rich, after all,” said a senior party strategist whose identity must remain known only to your blogger for the moment.

“Plus, the Americans are getting really antsy about having to deal with Danielle or Alison every time one of them pops up in Washington lobbying for the Keystone XL Pipeline,” said the strategist, who is the sole anonymous source for this story. “They can’t tell which one is the governor.”

“Anyway, you don’t want to leave this sort of thing too long or you could end up with Rachel Notley as premier and Raj Sherman as minister of health, and we’d be cooked in canola oil forever if it turned out Raj really could fix health care in 18 months like he says he can,” said the senior neocon strategist, who is close to the leadership of both parties but who can’t be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of either leader or either party, at least for the time being, if you take my meaning.

“Look,” said the strategist, “everybody knows I had a little problem there for a while and everybody knows it’s over now because they can’t afford to live without me and the Globe and Mail likes to quote me. There are just a few details to be straightened out before I’m running the campaign again. Anyway, I told them I didn’t say anything wrong and I promised them I wouldn’t say it again.”

Once the details of the planned reunion are ironed out, the formal merger is expected to take place in 2014 before the next provincial election is scheduled to occur in 2015.

“We need a slogan, something that starts with an R and means ‘reunion’ but doesn’t have the word ‘union’ in it,” said the anonymous strategist. “If anyone thinks of anything, drop me an email. I’m in the campus directory.”

One potential hurdle standing in the way of a reunion is who will lead the party, since Ms. Redford and Ms. Smith are well known to be unable to be in the same room as the other one at the same time for more than a few seconds.

Officials of the two parties are said to be seriously considering drafting Joan Crockatt, who is currently the Member of Parliament for the federal Wildrose Party for Calgary-Centre, to lead the new amalgamated party.

Ms. Crockatt is thought to combine Ms. Redford’s diplomacy and human touch dealing with subordinates with Ms. Smith’s deep intellectual rigour and strong commitment to public services. Moreover, it’s thought to be unlikely Ms. Crockatt can be re-elected to Parliament in her riding because of all the Liberal voters there who have finally figured out the difference between red and green.

Both Wildrose and PC officials are also thought to be in agreement that whatever happens, it is essential Rob Anderson never gets to be leader of anything bigger than his Mormon Stake’s scout troop in Airdrie.

Since the talks have not yet begun, discussion has only turned informally to what to call the reunited party. Ideas are said to include the Conservative Wildrose Alliance Party (CWAP) and the Wild Rosehip Alberta Tea Party (WRATP, which is likely to be pronounced “rat pee”).

Alright, everybody, settle down! It’s April 1. This is a gag. Perfesser Dave just made it all up, including the quotes, and forced me to put it in my blog. The Alberta Conservatives and Wildrosers won’t actually be talking reunion for at least three more years. This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Alberta still needs a “city party” – a role the New Democratic Party could fill

by David Climenhaga on March 14, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta New Democrats, Alberta Politics with 8 Comments

Typical Alberta Progressive Conservative Party members. Or, wait, are those Wildrose members? Alberta’s rural elite may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel. Where’s the NDP when we need them?

Here it is 2013, the Earth is about to become an urban planet, and the Progressive Conservative Government of Alberta and the Opposition Wildrose Party are locked in a titanic battle to win the hearts and minds of conservative rural voters.

What’s wrong with this picture?

City folks? As far as both parties are concerned, we’re just effete, latte-swilling, soft-handed condo dwellers who get along by mooching off the hard work of our horny-handed rural betters.

Worse, we’re dangerously inclined to go out and vote for politicians like Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who – quelle horreur! – has squishy liberal values. The same could be said of Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, although I’ll bet he thinks of himself as a small-c conservative.

A week ago, Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths – who would be as comfortably at home in one of our two rural right-wing parties as the other – spoke for both parties when he accused the millions of Alberta city dwellers of spending all their time thinking up ways to purloin the wealth of the rural Albertans who toiled so hard to store all that currently undervalued oil and gas beneath their North 40.

“You could be asked by rural Albertans why 17 per cent of the population that lives in rural Alberta that has all the oil and gas revenue, does all the work, all the farms, all the agriculture and everything associated with it goes to support urban Albertans, who sit in high-rise condos and don’t necessarily contribute to the grassroots of this economy,” Mr. Griffiths told the Legislature.

Later, he said that wasn’t what he thought, it was just the opinion of a couple of friends of his. But you get his general drift. Even having a big-city premier never seems to make much difference.

Alberta today is dominated by low-population rural ridings whose residents are going to vote for their beloved tax-and-spend conservatives, in one guise or another, as long as sufficient loot from city taxpayers and hydrocarbons keeps flowing their direction.And it’s pretty clear that out there amid the barley fields and pump-jacks of rural Alberta, Mr. Griffiths’ remarkable slander of Alberta’s beleaguered city folks isn’t going to cost him many votes.

Meanwhile, here in the cities, we are undergoing yet another brutal course of the austerity treatment regularly prescribed by these two hayseed parties while we try to navigate our way through the potholed streets of the former Richest Places on Earth.

And what are our two supposedly progressive political parties, the NDP and the Alberta Liberals, doing about this? Oh, they’ll take a gentle poke or two at Mr. Griffiths for his mean-spirited ignorance, but neither of them seem to be able to get out of the rut of imagining they can somehow, someday win a majority in this rural-dominated, rural-favouring province.

Fat chance! 

I’ve said for years that this is a lost opportunity for the Alberta NDP in particular, which could recast itself as the party of Alberta’s cities and thereby play a genuinely influential role in shaping policy in this province in a way that can benefit all its citizens.

It’s a continuing tragedy that our four Alberta New Democrats – every one in an Edmonton area city seat – sacrifice the ability to build the party and have meaningful influence in order to play homage to the pipedream that some day, when the planets are all magically in alignment, enough old CCF voters are going to crawl out of the rural woodpile to finally swing things the way that God and Tommy Douglas intended.

So let’s say it one more time, with vigour, that the Alberta NDP should recast itself as the City Party of Alberta and speak up plainly and forcefully Alberta’s urban voters and demand that we and our tax contributions be treated with a little respect.

What kind of issues would work for the NDP in this context? Here are five, dragged back from the crypt one more hopeless time:

Public Transit and public works. Everyone knows how Alberta tax dollars flow to rural areas for irrigation projects, first-class highways, health facilities, Cadillac schools and a host of other costly benefits. Meanwhile, we need decent, efficient, safe, fast public transit in our cities, and roads we can drive on in a family car. But while transit helps the environment and saves a bundle down the line, it costs a fortune up front. The NDP should fight for it, not just half-heartedly pay it lip service. And while we’re at it, how about a little help filling those potholes?

Social Services. When Tories cut social services, as they’re doing once again, who pays? Urban taxpayers, that’s who! We pay more for policing, health care, basic services required just to keep our fellow humans from freezing to death. We pay in crime, run-down neighbourhoods, foregone business opportunities and illness, physical and mental. Plus ever-higher municipal taxes, of course. Rural-based, rural-focused parties don’t really give a hoot.

Child Care. Can we afford childcare at a time like this? We can’t afford not to have it at a time like this! This is an urban issue if ever there was one. It’s also a prosperity issue – as a method of stimulating the economy, childcare dollars are worth about five times infrastructure spending. All the other parties will say, “stimulating the economy? What’s that?”  But they’re the parties that stand for rock-bottom hydrocarbon royalties, carbon storage boondoggles, endless contributions to the upkeep of rural electoral districts, and a flat tax that favours the rich.

Public Health Care. Decent hospitals and enough health professionals are an urban issue. Mental health facilities that work, where they’re needed. Public health and emergency treatment facilities belong in every part of our urban communities. So do publicly run seniors’ residences. So what are our rural parties doing again? One of them is kicking the crap out of health care and the other is demanding that it kick harder. All in the name of winning rural votes.

Public Education. Investment in public education obviously benefits the province. It pays dividends in terms of quality of life in our communities – even the ones in the sticks. It eases the impact of unemployment, especially for young people. It helps urban working families. What a concept – create vast long-term advantages for society by helping young people now! Caps on tuition, adequate funding for institutions, and schools where we need them add up to a terrific urban issue. If we can pay billions for carbon capture and drilling “incentives,” surely we can afford to fund our schools and universities. What have we got? Bigger cuts in education than anywhere else!

The NDP could speak to these issues, and it could speak to them in a way that said specifically it supported urban areas and their citizens. The NDP could paint itself as what it is anyway, whether it likes it or not: the only political party in Alberta that looks out for, or cares about, issues and values that matter to city people, rich and poor alike.

The party wouldn’t actually need to have to badmouth rural areas. But seeing as the folks out there aren’t going to vote NDP anyway, they would hardly need to put a heck of a lot of effort into developing a platform for them either!

Alberta’s city taxpayers get screwed. Street crime, sky-high municipal taxes, potholes, poor health facilities, doctor shortages, unplowed winter streets and pathetic public transit are all glaring examples. No Alberta party likely to form a government soon – least of all the two rural parties that run this place – will sacrifice rural votes to serve the people who really provide the energy, enterprise and creativity that make this province worth living in.

The NDP can speak for those of us who live in Alberta’s cities, and improve its electoral chances too. Or it can wait for someone else to do it. Because – trust me on this – one of these days, someone will figure this out!

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Close enough for government work: Alberta Tories manage to hold their centre-right turf

by David Climenhaga on March 7, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Legislature, Alberta Politics with 2 Comments

Finance Minister Doug Horner preps Albertans for yesterday’s budget. Actual Alberta finance ministers may not appear exactly as illustrated – but that’s the trick, isn’t it? Below: The real Doug Horner.

All in all, I guess, you could make a good case this was a pretty lousy budget.

It’s deeply confusing, as without any doubt the Alberta government intended, and there are a couple of real disasters lurking in its pages – got kids in post-secondary education, anyone?

But in the aftermath of the Alberta Budget Speech read this afternoon by Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Doug Horner, who was wearing his new flip-flops at the time, you have to admit it was a pretty slick example of expectation management.

The usual suspects on the left and the right quickly attacked Mr. Horner’s budget with the usual feigned ardour, as they are expected to do, and from either perspective they probably got it right. But so what? You’ve got to know plenty of their supporters were breathing a sigh of relief and reckoning they’d just dodged another bullet.

NDP Leader Brian Mason, sounding a bit like a broken record, called it a “broken promise budget.” Undoubtedly he’s correct – the question is, will Alberta voters buy Mr. Horner’s and Premier Alison Redford’s explanation that things have really changed? The answer: Probably.

Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman called it a “bankrupt budget” – he meant, morally, presumably, because you can’t call any entity with the kind of cash flow Alberta has bankrupt, exactly, even when you’re feeling the uncomfortable pressure of a bitumen bubble passing through.

So are they morally bankrupt for running a cynical but effective campaign, then changing everything? Almost certainly! But will Alberta voters care in three years’ time? Unless something big changes, almost certainly not.

Opposition Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith called it the “back-in-debt budget,” trotting out the standard hard-right line that we’re spending beyond our means, a position that may not get a lot of support here, but that admittedly has a certain constituency in this province.

So are we back in debt? Sure. Will anybody care? Well, the Wildrose brain trust can try to make Albertans care and, who knows, maybe some of them eventually will. Or not.

Many more of the usual suspects, from a couple of well-known unions to right-wing Astroturf groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, rolled out some fairly predictable cris de coeur. The Edmonton Journal even sounded a bit like the official arm of the Wildrose Party, trotting out portentous phrases like “opaque, obscure and cynical.” Well, yeah!

But there’s no escaping the sense the Redford Tories cynically but deftly stage-managed the whole thing by rolling out a number of terrifyingly dire hints and rumours in advance – tough decisions, sharp break with the past, significant restraint, yadda-yadda – then announcing actual budget details that seem on their face considerably less drastic.

Of course, we don’t really know yet. Maybe ever.

But faced with a hard-right obsessive about debt and spending, a centre-left ready to view any cuts in health care or social programming as a major betrayal, and influential groups walk away from any exercises in coalition building, Mr. Horner managed to leave both sides’ supporters feeling as if they might have just been had, but disinclined to start rushing to the barricades.

There’s still some potential for mischief there – the government’s fight with Alberta’s physicians could still cause them some grief, but they’re sure acting like it works for them. It might not be smart to bet against them on that one!

No one’s conducted an opinion poll just yet – Janet Brown! Tony Coulson! C’mon down! – but it’s said here that in their opaque, obscure and cynical way, the strategic brains behind Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party managed to hold their centre-right ground a little longer.

And the centre right, if you haven’t happened to notice, is territory quite a lot of Albertans will vote for.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Two polls show how, and maybe why, Alberta’s Tory coalition is crumbling

by David Climenhaga on March 5, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Polling with 7 Comments

Weakened but still standing: The mighty Tory edifice. Don’t panic. This is a metaphor! Below: Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

It’s interesting to juxtapose the results of two new polls on related but different topics that were released yesterday – a Think HQ poll of Alberta voter intentions and an Environics poll of Albertans attitudes about taxes and public services.

The results of the former were published in the afternoon by CTV; the results of latter were released in the morning by the Alberta Federation of Labour, for which the survey was done.

If you believe them, the Think HQ numbers show support for Premier Alison Redford and her party alike falling through the floor.

Environics’ results show extremely strong support among Albertans for a return to a progressive income tax, higher corporate and wealth taxes, and higher petroleum royalties.

Looking at the polls in more detail, the Think HQ survey indicates support for the far-right Wildrose Party has shot up to 38 per cent, leaving the Tories of Premier Alison Redford in the dust with the support of committed voters at only 26 per cent.

That would be a drop of 18 per cent since the PCs won a 61-seat majority on April 23.

The poll indicated the NDP had the support of 16 per cent of respondents, and the Alberta Liberals that of 13 per cent. (NDP support was concentrated in Edmonton, where it sat at 26 per cent, in a statistical tie with the Wildrose at 27.) The seatless Alberta Party posted 3-per-cent support.

According to Think HQ’s analysis of the numbers, the PC election coalition that saved Ms. Redford’s bacon in April is eroding from both ends of the political spectrum.

It tells something about the state of political reporting in this province that neither CTV nor the Globe and Mail bothered to report the NDP or Alberta Liberal provincial numbers in their first runs at this story.

The poll was even harsher on Premier Redford’s personal popularity, indicating 58 per cent of respondents disapprove of her performance and 33 per cent approve.

By contrast, the spreads of other leaders’ ratings were much closer: Danielle Smith, Wildrose, 43 per cent disapprove, 46 per cent approve; Raj Sherman,  Alberta Liberals, 40 per cent disapprove, 37 per cent approve; Brian Mason, NDP, 35 per cent disapprove, 40 per cent approve.

Think HQ’s conclusions were based on a survey of 1,214 self-selected members of an “online research panel” between Feb. 12 and Feb. 16. The company says the poll has a margin or error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent.

Turning to the Environics numbers, 72 per cent of respondents said they favour returning to a progressive income tax and abandoning Alberta’s so-called flat tax, a relic of the Ralph Klein era that is not flat at all, but blatantly favours the wealthy.

Environics said 78 of the poll’s respondents favoured higher taxes on corporate taxes and taxes on high-income earners. The pollster also said 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Albertans are not getting their fair share of royalty revenue.

Respondents identified several spending priorities, including creating a provincial strategy for long-term care for seniors (70 per cent in favour) and protecting publicly funded health care against for-profit health care (57 per cent).

Environics used a telephone survey of 1,014 adult Albertans from Feb. 14-24 and says the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Now, anyone who has read this blog for long will know that I am not a fan of Think HQ’s methodology and that I have more time for the polling methods used by Environics.

Since the on-line panels like Think HQ’s tend to be drawn from the politically hyper-engaged, I don’t entirely trust this one’s conclusions. That is to say, I think it highlights an undeniable trend, but I seriously doubt Wildrose support has reached 38 per cent, or that Redford Tory support has plummeted to 26 per cent – just yet, anyway.

If I were to guess, I’d put the support for both parties in a dead heat, probably in the low 30s. Who knows, support for the NDP might be even higher – you have to be an eternal optimist to be an Alberta Knee-Dipper like me.

But whatever you think of Think HQ’s methods, the direction it has identified is clear – and real.

The high level of support for public services, public programs and the taxes needed to pay for them identified by Environics are also real – as anyone who talks to living and breathing Albertans knows.

It is said here these attitudes explain a lot about why Ms. Redford’s winning coalition from last April is crumbling, at least on the left-hand side.

Both polls strongly suggest that Albertans aren’t buying what Alison Redford is trying to sell. Both polls strongly suggest that plenty of Albertans are not happy about the fact she’s not keeping her promises.

Given the political position most often taken by Alberta Diary, some readers will find this conclusion tendentious. Fair enough, I guess. Indeed, some non-Albertans may also find these two polls’ conclusions contradictory.

Moreover, there’s still plenty of time for the Redford Tories to pull their fat out of the fire again. Even the way her government handles this week’s upcoming budget on Thursday could make a big difference.

Still, it’s said here that taken together the polls show the Wildrose Party’s departed strategic guru, Tom Flanagan, got it right. To wit: If voters on the left abandon the Progressive Conservatives and return to their traditional political homes, the Wildrose Party has a chance to grasp the brass ring.

It’s almost a shame that Dr. Flanagan, who celebrates his 69th birthday today, is not longer with his party to have his prescience acclaimed.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Are Alberta’s cannily incompetent Conservatives quietly awaiting a ‘Bitumen Gusher’?

by David Climenhaga on March 4, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Politics with 5 Comments

Everybody should be as happy about Alberta’s “Bitumen Gusher” as these two guys, your blogger and former Finance Minister Ron Liepert. Below: AUPE’s chart of the price differential between Alberta bitumen and West Texas Intermediate crude. Below that: The Alberta government’s chart showing its natural resource revenue projections to 2022, prepared for last month’s Economic Summit. Obviously there’s no cause for panic.

Have things really changed all that much for Alberta since then-energy minister Ron Liepert predicted in early 2012 that the province was on the verge of a “Bitumen Gusher” of unprecedented magnitude?

One just hates to endorse the financial predictions of any Alberta Tory cabinet minister, but it is said here they likely haven’t.

If Mr. Liepert got it basically right in February 2012, understanding that fact helpfully illuminates the re-election strategy of Premier Alison Redford and her Progressive Conservative government for 2016.

At the very least, Mr. Liepert’s one-year-old forecast is extremely helpful in analyzing the real meaning of Ms. Redford’s “Bitumen Bubble” claims that are being used to justify a range of cutbacks in government services as befits her government’s true privatization agenda, which appears to differ only in insignificant detail from the Wildrose Party’s platform.

In a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce the day after he released his spring 2012 budget, Mr. Liepert predicted bitumen royalties were about to soar and as a result Albertans could expect annual surpluses of $10 billion or more.

“I don’t think any of us realize what kind of – I’ll call it a gusher – is coming out of the oil sands,” Mr. Liepert said in his pre-retirement swan song to the Calgary Chamber.

The day before, Mr. Liepert boasted to the Edmonton Journal that one of the reasons for his optimism was that each year more oilsands projects were approaching “payout” – the point at which they have recovered their costs and are subject to a higher royalty rate.

“Nothing is factored into this plan that isn’t already producing or about to produce, because many of these have a 10-year lead time,” Mr. Liepert assured the Journal.

In the same story, a spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers agreed with Mr. Liepert’s analysis, observing, “this seems pretty consistent with our own figures.”

Readers will note the Redford Government has been very quiet lately about when it expects projects now paying royalties based on gross revenues to achieve payout and switch to the more generous rate based on net revenues. But judging from Mr. Liepert’s prediction just a year ago, his government analysts were of the view that happy day is not far away.

For a government with a neoconservative agenda of cutbacks and privatization, or which simply has some competency issues regarding budgeting, the so-called “Bitumen Bubble” was conveniently timed. It provides justification for holding the line on the salaries of public employees. It also offers and excuse for privatizing more services that belong in the public sector and finding new ways to minimize the public reaction to cuts in essential and popular public services.

As the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees – which as the representative of direct government employees, many health care workers and other public-sector employees, obviously has a dog in this fight – noted in a paper released this morning, the differential in the price fetched by Western Canada Select and West Texas Intermediate, the so called Bitumen Bubble, is almost certainly a temporary phenomenon.

Leastways, it is if past behaviour is a good way to predict future behavior – as it generally has been throughout of human history.

Back in October 2007, for example, the difference was about $30 – not seen to be a particular cause for concern at the time. Through most of 2011 it shrank to about $17. By December 2012, it was back to $30. Now it’s a crisis.

Look at the chart provided by AUPE: the price of bitumen as a percentage of WTI has been going up and down like an elevator in an office building since the start of 2005, but the trend has been steadily and happily upward.

Dubious estimates of the value of shale gas and horizontal drilling in Oklahoma have changed all that? Don’t you believe it!

In fact, energy analysts predict the price of the differential will tighten up again soon, just as it always has. Baytex Energy Corp.’s fourth quarter 2012 Heavy Oil Pricing Update and the PIRA Energy Group’s North American Midcontinent Oil Forecast, both in January 2013, for example, predicted the differential will tighten to about $22 by June and $13 by the end of the year.

A year ago this month, a report of the Canadian Energy Research Institute forecast “royalties collected from the oil sands industry are expected to exceed the $10 billion mark by 2016 and the $30 billion mark by 2024.”

In 2024, the number of projects in the post-payout phase, paying the higher rate, will exceed the number not yet paid out. And by 2040, CERI concluded, “oil sands royalties are estimated at around $52 billion. Between 2011 and 2045 a total of over $1.2 trillion are estimated to be collected by the Alberta Government from oil sands operators, a figure just below the equivalent of the current value of Canada’s economy or GDP.” (Emphasis added.)

Oh, and one more thing, with the government’s third-quarter fiscal update still predicting oil sands production 130,000 barrels a day higher than last year, the Bank of Canada is holding the line of interest rates – accounting for the recent decline in the value of the Loonie.

And remember, as the government pointed out in its 2012 budget, every one-cent decrease in the Loonie against the Greenback puts another $247 billion in Alberta’s back pocket – so if the dollar stays at about 95 cents, there’s another billion in the treasury!

This is a financial crisis?

Don’t expect to hear much about this just yet, however, because for ideological and policy reasons, the “Bitumen Bubble” narrative is equally convenient to the Redford Government, the Opposition Wildrose Party and the federal Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – all of which advocate the same policies on pipelines, privatization and public-sector penury.

It is particularly helpful to the PCs, of course. For now, they can blame their current substantial deficits on unexpected factors outside their control – the Bitumen Bubble – never mind that it’s been understood and predicted for ages.

Going into the next election, they can claim it was good management and a tough line with public employees like teachers and government workers that are behind Alberta’s good fortune.

Corporate donors will be happy, the beneficiaries of continued rightward policies that feather their corporate nests. Suddenly the place will be awash in cash again, enough at least to lull the rest of us back to sleep.

Count on it that the government is confident it can again get progressive voters  worried enough about the Wildrose agenda to once again abandon the Alberta NDP and Alberta Liberals and vote “strategically” for the government.

Obviously, Alberta shouldn’t be making long-term policy changes based on a ginned up panic over revenues that, as Ron Liepert rightly predicted, are only going to go up, way up!

But it sure sounds like that’s exactly what we’re doing.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Welcome to Wildrose Alberta! What do you mean they didn’t win?

by David Climenhaga on February 19, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Liberals, Alberta New Democrats, Alberta Party, Alberta Politics, Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose Party with 11 Comments

OK, the National Post got a little overheated with this election-day photo of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. But, really, what’s the difference? Below: Premier Ernest Manning and Premier Alison Redford, bookends in Alberta’s endless conservative governing dynasty.

In April 2012, spooked by the dangers posed by a far-right Wildrose government, progressive voters in Alberta abandoned the parties they supported by the thousands to vote for Premier Alison Redford’s Conservatives.

What they got when they walked away from the New Democrats, the Alberta Liberals and the Alberta Party, it turns out, was a Wildrose government.

By this, of course, I don’t mean a government headed by Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. No, Alberta was spared the embarrassment of having a glib Fraser Institute intern occupying the premier’s office. Rather, I mean they got a government in which the far-right, highly ideological Wildrose Party drives the locomotive.

This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Readers will recall that a lot of commentary after the election suggested Premier Redford was practically a New Democrat – indeed, I suppose we can expect Wildrose enthusiasts, understandably enough, to stick with that line as well as their corruption and broken promises memes, for which there is more justification, as the next election approaches.

Certainly Ms. Redford mostly said the right things during her leadership campaign and in the lead-up to the April 23 election. Wasn’t there even an Alberta Party supporter who speculated that this renamed version of Alberta Liberal 2.0 wasn’t really needed any more, seeing as the perfect centrist premier was now in power?

For their part, the Redford Tories dropped hints they were building a broad new coalition of the centre – in which teachers, public sector employees and defenders of progressive values could all feel welcome.

It was all pish-posh, it turns out, as the convenient arrival of the “Bitumen Bubble” clearly illustrates.

As we await next month’s budget and the ones after that, the new policy options being considered by Ms. Redford’s PC Government all seem to be along the lines of a regressive sales tax (possibly replacing Alberta’s barely progressive income tax), a wage freeze imposed on teachers, shortened school weeks from cash-strapped school boards, massive rollbacks of our promised “sustainable and predictable” health care funding, and closings and cutbacks in post-secondary education. All of this is accompanied by the tiresome yammering for “austerity” by a chorus of the usual business and academic suspects.

Meanwhile, the same old drive to privatize seniors’ care and reliance on expensive and inefficient P3s continue unabated.

Austerity is the only road still open, we are told in the hectoring tones of Margaret Thatcher, because in the face of fluctuating petroleum prices There Is No Alternative.

In other words, with the possible exception of the sales tax, the Redford Conservatives have moved to the Wildrose position on virtually every issue.

The centrist coalition, of course, is still on offer, as long as centrist voters don’t mind half-hidden Tory smirks and Wildrose Party policies.

There are two reasons, it is said here, for this policy direction:

First, there is the practical matter that the Redford Conservatives are more concerned by the threat posed by the right-wing Wildrose Party than by that from the disunited and lately ineffective parties of Alberta’s centre.

This does not reflect what Albertans tell pollsters they would like for policies, but, based on solid behavioural evidence, the PCs must be certain progressive voters are suckers who can be persuaded to vote for them with the mere nod in the direction of the Wildrose boogeyman. (Pastor Allan Hunsperger, c’mon down!)

Second, the Conservatives and the Wildrose Party are essentially the same people.

Remember where the bulk of the Wildrose MLAs came from – they were long-time Tory backers, in some cases actual Tory MLAs, dissatisfied with the centrist compromises made by Ed Stelmach, the former premier.

Likewise, both parties are backed by the same people – the same corporate donations flow into their coffers, for the same self-interested reasons. And that reason, pretty obviously, is that both parties believe in the same thing.

Finally, given the weird Alberta political habit of being members of more than one political party at the same time, in the case of both parties’ rank and file they are often literally the same people, conveniently members of two far-right political parties as they strategize on how best to maximize their right-wing influence to get the right-wing policies they favour.

So for all the naïve hopes we could have social progressivism from Alberta Progressive Conservatives, all we really got is the same old same old, stretching back in an unbroken line through 41 years of PC government and well beyond to the day in 1943 Ernest Manning assumed the helm of the Social Credit League eight days after premier William Aberhart’s unexpected death at his daughter’s home in British Columbia.

Welcome back to the future. Welcome to Wildrose Alberta!

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Despite a lot of distraction, illegal political donations still stink up Alberta

by David Climenhaga on February 17, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Politics, Election Financing with 3 Comments

Political culture in Alberta? Maybe not exactly as illustrated, but it’s still a problem for the Redford Government if Albertans see it that way. Below: O. Brian Fjeldheim.

OK, we’re all enjoying a nice quiet Family Day long weekend. This gives us an opportunity to look back at the interlocking illegal political contribution eruptions that until recently plagued the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

The past couple of weeks have been a busy time for Alberta political commentators, with daily events that might have been a scandal in some places, but somehow just didn’t make the grade here on the western edge of the Great Plains.

There were refugee-camp conditions in homeless shelters, a four-day school week to save money in Fort McMurray, a leak of budget details, rumours a valuable government-owned financial institution might be privatized, a suggestion Athabasca University is about to be shut down, the government’s senseless fight with doctors, the balloon floated about imposing a draconian contract on teachers and the ridiculous one-day “economic summit” of hand-picked delegates mostly anxious to showcase the Redford Government’s neoconservative bromides.

But now that we have a pause in this steady stream of news hits, let’s go back to the one recent situation that got lost in the shuffle, the one Albertans find genuinely scandalous – to wit, illegal political donations.

The suggestion election financing in this province has been a snake pit of illegality, probably pretty much forever, has been deeply disillusioning to many Albertans, regardless of where they place themselves on the political spectrum.

This, it is said here, is because Albertans really do perceive themselves as self-reliant, straight-talking Plainsmen, living at the pinnacle of modern Western society.

So it is natural that for Albertans who want to think they were only exercising clear-eyed common sense when they elected an unbroken succession of Tory governments for 41 years, the thought that deep down our political system might be rotten had a corrosive effect and provoked feelings of deep resentment.

How can we look down our noses at Quebec when the same level of casual corruption we’ve always imagined was the norm there turns out to be standard operating procedure here in the land of big skies and Chinook winds?

As things stand right now, the scandal has two public components:

  1. The routine funnelling of public money from colleges, universities, counties, hospitals and municipalities, laundered through staff expense accounts, into the Conservative Party’s election coffers. This one apparently extends right into the premier’s family.
  2. An enormous donation made by hockey and drugstore billionaire Daryl Katz in the final days of the last provincial election campaign, when Ms. Redford’s re-election was no sure thing, which on the face of it was made in open defiance of the rules.

Recent developments in both cases had kept the pot boiling and led to the uncomfortable conclusion that Alberta politics are endemically corrupt very hard for many voters to avoid.

Late last month it was revealed Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer – hitherto a loyal Tory retainer – was pushing the governing party to voluntarily repay a small sum of about $20,000 in illegal donations received before the last election.

This was in addition to O. Brian Fjeldheim’s not-so-voluntary order to the party to repay another $17,000 or so determined to be thoroughly over the top.

There are divisions within PC ranks about whether the party should voluntarily repay anything. But while there may be a legal argument for not making a voluntary repayment, if acted upon it is certain to be pure political poison.

The Tories might be able to plausibly claim they couldn’t know where the donations came from since they were made in dribs and drabs by citizens who then privately expensed them to their municipal councils, hospital boards or universities. All these institutions paid their employees back because, well, that’s just the way things are done in Alberta, where everybody knows how you get access to the people who make the decisions.

But it would be hard for the PCs to claim they didn’t really know what was going on, even as they plugged their ears to specific details.

Then there was the damning fact that of the 45 examples discovered by the Chief Electoral Officer of illegal donations made by municipalities, counties, school boards, and post-secondary institutions in the past three years, every one involved a contribution to a Conservative fund-raiser.

Even more embarrassing was the revelation at a recent session of the so-called queue-jumping inquiry into preferential medical treatment in Alberta’s health system that, long before the time under examination by Mr. Fjeldheim, the premier’s sister Lynn had expensed contributions to Tory fundraisers back to her public employer of the day, the Calgary Health Region.

The whole affair leaves Albertans feeling as if the known donations are just the tip of iceberg. Moreover, there’s really no one to punish. If the public bodies that approved the expenses were to be held responsible for them, of course, it is taxpayers who would have to pay, again.

Meanwhile, there was the matter of that notorious $300,000 donation – or was it $430,000 as the Globe and Mail reported? – delivered by Mr. Katz in the last days of the election campaign, when the Redford Tories appeared to be on the ropes.

Mr. Fjeldheim is said to be having that one reviewed as well, in a separate investigation.

Since the donation was written on a single cheque, and since Alberta’s election financing legislation limits a single individual’s donation to $30,000, on its face this would appear to be outright defiance of the law.

Mr. Katz and the party argue it was several donations from various Katz family members, friends and business retainers rolled into a single cheque merely for the sake of convenience.

Whatever the ruling, the odour of something not quite right unavoidably lingers like a whiff of something left too long at the back of the refrigerator.

One irony of the problem with expensed donations by public institutions, it is said here, is that the province’s election-financing law was clearly drafted to facilitate just such abuses. The only thing is, the goal was to make improper corporate donations easy to make and difficult to trace. How else but laundering donations through employees could corporations exceed their immodest donation limits?

Things only really went off the rails because standards of accountability and reporting at public institutions such as colleges, universities, hospitals and health authorities are higher. When these institutions got into the act and began behaving in a way that’s taken for granted in the private sector, the information could be searched by enterprising reporters or the political operators who feed them tips.

The other irony is that the illegal behaviour behind the uproar would never have been a problem if the complaints had come from the Alberta Liberals or the New Democrats. That’s just the way things work in Alberta: the right has a bag of tricks and the media ignores anyone to the left who complains about it.

The media’s interest was only piqued, it is said here, because the complaints came from the Wildrose Party, which was attacking the government from the right.

Given all this, it’s likely that while the PC Party will grump about it, in the end it will repay the illegal donations to minimize the political fallout, then try to make a virtue of political necessity.

As for the Katz donation, which appears to have been the result of pure arrogance, it presents a slightly different problem for the PCs.

If the investigation now under way concludes Mr. Katz broke the rules with his giant cheque, the government will appear to have pushed a generous supporter over the side. This will not have a positive effect on future contributions. If it concludes he did not, a cynical and embittered public will see it as more evidence of Tory cronyism and corruption.

Either way, this is unlikely to end well for Ms. Redford’s government.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Redford government floats risky scheme to impose contract on teachers

by David Climenhaga on February 6, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Education, Labour Relations with 11 Comments

An Alberta Teachers Association member gets ready to give an important lesson to the Redford Government. Alberta teachers may not be smiling quite as broadly as illustrated if the government imposes a contract on them by legislation. Below: Education Minister Jeff Johnson.

Trapped in a no-deficit, no-tax-increase cage of its own devising, with few ideas and a budget looming on March 7, the government of Premier Alison Redford has floated the idea of using legislation to impose a salary cap on Alberta’s teachers.

Education Minister Jeff Johnson has been shopping this brainstorm around to the province’s school boards to see who salutes and who heaves rotten tomatoes.

Needless to say, the Alberta Teachers Association was not impressed. ATA President Carol Henderson expressed shock and dismay at what Mr. Johnson’s been saying, warning that even running the idea up the flagpole puts the government’s relationship with the province’s teachers at risk.

The same kind of thing has been tried in both British Columbia and Ontario, she noted, and the results have hardly been auspicious.

In this, Ms. Henderson got it right. A certain amount of disdain for the collective bargaining process is normal nowadays among unionized professionals like teachers. But getting between them and a raise they both expect and believe they deserve is an entirely different matter.

Mr. Johnson’s press secretary, meanwhile, told media in Edmonton there’s been strong support for the scheme among at least some of the boards the minister has approached – which, by the sound of it, has been most of them.

No surprise there either, since it was back to chaotic local negotiations between school boards and teachers late last year after province-wide tripartite bargaining among the ATA, the boards and the government collapsed.

So rather than shouting at each other about market principles, the value of unions and broken promises, let’s just take a breath and think about what this really means in practical political terms.

Notwithstanding the inevitable angry rhetoric of people who hate unions and hate teachers, of whom there is no shortage in Alberta, the relationship between the Progressive Conservative government and the ATA has long been a very comfortable and productive one, if not quite cozy.

It probably overstates the case to call the ATA a branch of the PC Party, as has been muttered darkly from time to time in the pinker corners of Alberta’s labour movement, but it can certainly said that not only have many Alberta teachers voted Conservative for years, they have done so without discomfiting their leaders overmuch, with few exceptions. More than one Tory cabinet minister has ascended from the ranks of the ATA.

However, in last spring’s Alberta election, when it looked very much as if the charter-school-loving Wildrose Party was on the verge of wresting power from the PCs in the desperate final hours before April 23, teachers of all political stripes rallied to the side of the government and helped snatch its bacon from the flames.

In this – to the bitter disappointment of the opposition parties of the left and right – they were joined by unionized health care workers and government employees in large numbers.

So there can be no doubt that if the government, pleading poverty in the midst of oily plenty, now turns on the teachers and imposes a two- or three-year deal, it will be seen with some justice as a case of the government screwing the very people who saved its bacon.

Alberta teachers will likely respond with some kind of job action, as has been tried in Ontario by teachers dealt a similar hand by the Liberal government of outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty for much the same reasons.

To wit, they will do things like refuse to participate in extra curricular programs, and loudly fight with the government about it, lending an air of crisis to a government that needs to project an image of calm if it is to survive.

Moreover, other public sector unions – every one of which is likely to have negotiations with the government or a public agency in the approximate time frame of this government’s life – will conclude they can no longer trust the Redford crowd.

This will ratchet up the sense of looming crisis already being amplified by the government’s very public fight with the Alberta Medical Association, which Health Minister Fred Horne also seems to be of a mind to continue.

And for what? A vain attempt to win back voters who have already left the Tory party, most likely forever, to join the Wildrose ranks? A favourable editorial in the National Post?

Supporters of imposing contracts by legislation within the government – who are not necessarily the government’s best friends – will argue that public sector unions don’t command the support of their own members, at least when it comes to whom to vote for. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that there is more than a little truth to this.

But in the event, it is said here, this is not likely to work the way advocates of legislation expect. More likely, public employees will ignore the half-hearted tacit advice of their leaders and not support the government coalition in 2015, either by returning to the Alberta Liberals and the NDP or by throwing caution to the wind and voting Wildrose for a change.

So it is a sure bet that, no matter what they say for public consumption, all of Alberta’s opposition parties are cheering the Tories on in this desperate enterprise. New Democrats, Liberals and Wildrosers alike stand to benefit significantly from the sense of crisis and disorder that is sure to follow such a bonehead play, and the votes that will directly come their way as a consequence of it.

Once such a policy is clear, moreover, every one of them will accuse the government of breaking another promise – this one of stable and predictable funding in education. Again, they will be quite justified.

As has been said here before, the Redford Tories would be smarter to be mindful of whom their friends are, run a deficit and proudly boast they are protecting public programs – all the while praying for the timely return of higher petroleum prices soon enough to accommodate their electoral schedule.

Of course, this would require them to go against an instinct for austerity and confrontation that is bred in Alberta Tory bones.

Can they put reason ahead of passion? We’ll likely see on March 7, when the Budget Speech is read.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

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