BATTLE FOR ALBERTA’S FUTURE

Two opposing visions of Alberta will be on the ballot when voters pick their next provincial government in the May 29, 2023, General Election.

For the first time, two women – former NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and current UCP Premier Danielle Smith – are dominating the race to take over as the 20th head of government since Alberta was created in 1905.

“Albertans are facing a choice like never before, a decision that will forever change the future of our province,” the NDP leader said in a message to voters.

Notley would veer the province to the left by focusing on matters she says matter the most to Albertans – health care, affordability, diversifying the economy — if she’s re-elected Premier, a job she lost to former UCP leader Jason Kenney in the 2019 provincial election.

An NDP government would bring back stable leadership, in contrast to the chaos and instability created by the UCP, she promised.

Born in Edmonton, Notley, a lawyer, is regarded as one of Canada’s most successful left-of-centre politicians. While on the opposition benches, she successfully capitalized on UCP mistakes to restore her party’s popularity. During her four years as Premier, Notley took transformative steps to improve Alberta’s environmental policy, while defending the oil and gas sector from external attacks, even when they came from NDP counterparts in other jurisdictions.

She famously imposed restrictions on imports of British Columbian wine after the NDP-led British Columbia government threatened to obstruct the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, and slammed federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s opposition to the Trans Mountain project as “premised on a lack of understanding of the economic stakes”

Smith took over the Premier’s job after winning the UCP’s leadership contest in October to replace Kenney, and the Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection in November.

She would shift Alberta to the right by pushing back against Ottawa’s growing control over the provincial economy, protecting its energy sector, providing relief to vulnerable Albertans from high inflation, and reforming health care, such as by restoring decision-making authority to the local level.

“The government in Ottawa is intentionally and systematically attempting to control and regulate all aspects of our province’s economy, resources and social programs,” Smith said in a televised address to the province. “Through equalization and transfers, they funnel billions of your tax dollars away from you and into a black hole of federal bureaucracy and vote buying arrangements in other parts of the country. These continual federal attacks on our economy and provincial rights cannot be allowed to continue.

“Albertans, not Ottawa, are in charge of developing and exporting our resources, growing our economy and delivering health care, education, childcare and other programs in the manner that we, Albertans, choose.”

A former broadcaster, Wildrose leader and MLA, Smith is a fiscally conservative libertarian who wants to limit both government spending and involvement in the lives of its citizens. Her appeal has increased since ascending to the Premier’s job, particularly after her government introduced inflation relief measures and led the charge against Ottawa’s soon-to-come “Just Transition” initiative, which would transition the Canadian economy away from oil and gas.

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