Jeff Burgar

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Environment crusaders were hot to trot over the oilsands. Newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was taking selfies and doing much mumbling about the Paris climate accord. An also reasonably fresh Rachel Notley wanted to get ahead of the crowd. She hoped to demonstrate she could be a good steward of Alberta resources and at the same time, make everybody happy.

So, Notley brought in Alberta’s carbon tax. It was, after all, a step ahead of Trudeau, who was telling the provinces, “If you don’t do it, I will.”

The idea was kill three birds with one stone. Alberta’s carbon tax would keep money in Alberta. The tax would guarantee that so-called “social licence” and fend off the oilsands haters. This, of course, would push forward the agenda of getting Alberta oil to Gulf of Mexico refineries and most importantly, tidewater.

What could go wrong?

As it turned out, everything. Trudeau wants desperately to keep everybody happy. He wants his carbon tax ideas to go forward. He wants to be known on the world stage as a big boy. He wants his environment voters across Canada, and especially in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, to stay with him. He wants a growing economy and to prove Canada is open for business. In trying to please everybody, so far he is doing a good job of pleasing nobody.

The NDP can scrap the carbon tax anytime. Not so easy is rolling back the huge deficit. But if some Albertans honestly think belt-tightening, as other political parties say is the thing to do, reality is much different. Too many people are still floundering in what is supposed to be an Alberta recovery. Cutting government spending in the near term will make life worse, not better.

Moving on, Notley is fighting and arguing in the same manner as any other politician would do for pipelines. The really sad thing here is, for Notley’s New Democrats, it just might not be enough. Many Alberta voters are itching for an election, hoping to return to the “good old days” of Conservative rule. That would be Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party, the UCP.

Good old days? You mean the pork barreling of buddies and friends? The lip service to rural Alberta, while the real money was plowed into Edmonton and Calgary? How about rolling back minimum wages to the starvation levels of a few years ago? And there was the standing around chuckling, ignoring real diversification, while resources were sucked out of the ground and profits and investment happening everywhere else.

Ah yes, the good old days!

The old Conservatives were turfed out. Voters had mountains of good reasons to be rid of them. Now, the UCP expects voters to just sort of naturally put them back in office. Really, for no reason at all except the good old days.

Which will mean surprise, surprise, turfing out what so far is a pretty decent government in the NDP.

Well voters, what could go wrong?