What if the UCP wins? What if the NDP wins? Tariq Elnaga and Adam Soos discuss
Rebel News’ Adam Soos was once again joined by Tariq Elnaga for the final entry in a trilogy of in-depth election-focused conversations that set out to prepare Alberta’s voters for the fast-approaching May 29 decision day.
In their first conversation, they laid out three key voting blocks: the overwhelmingly UCP rural areas, the decidedly NDP City of Edmonton, and finally the central battle ground of this election, the very much up-for-grabs Calgary constituencies. You can watch that conversation by clicking here.
Once the election battlegrounds had been set out, Tariq and Adam’s next discussion set out to breakdown the key issues likely to sway undecided voters, in addition analyzing the NDP's efforts to make the campaign about personality rather than track records or policies. That report can be found here.
Next, it was time for a bit of prognostication; a look forward to what Alberta might look like under each party should they win.
Tariq and Adam discussed the problematic record of the UCP under Jason Kenney, particularly his government's response to Covid-19, which saw him step-down as leader of the party. Setting all the Covid-19 calamity aside for a moment, they also acknowledged the fact that under Kenney, Alberta was seeing economic recovery and surpluses, and even with a ‘pandemic’, Alberta was doing better economically under the UCP than it had been under Rachel Notley just a few years prior.
They also looked at Premier Danielle Smith’s track record to date, which despite efforts by the NDP and MSM to make her out as an extremist, was in practice a relatively conservative effort to tackle some of the more glaring problems in Alberta like ambulance response times, surgery waitlists, rampant crime in cities and addiction, in addition to continuing the progress achieved by Kenney’s UCP to get Alberta back in the black, just without the charter violations and pastor arrests.
While radical reform or systemic overhauls under a re-elected Smith UCP wouldn’t be likely post-election, seeing more of the same gradual improvements shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
In considering the prospects of an NDP victory, Adam raised the problematic trend of critical media outlets being ejected from events. Politician’s, particularly those who form government, who are unwilling to face media don’t exactly make for models of accountability, as Trudeau frequently illustrates, and that could pose a seriously problem for transparency should the NDP form government.
Tariq also dissected the 2015-2019 track record of the NDP and surmised that Alberta would likely be in for more of the same should they for government and agreed that the NDP could potentially be even more emboldened to enact their at times radical agendas this time around as they unlikely to be surprised by a win, as they were in 2015. In case you’ve forgotten what the NDP’s last term forming government looked, just think empty downtown cores, skyrocketing debt, credit downgrades and a marked drop in the provinces population growth rate within just one term.
In summary, if track records can be trusted a UCP victory would likely result in continued efforts to make things better bit by bit, which is hardly as exciting as the NDP's pie in the sky policies, but unlike impossible NDP campaign promises these small improvements are driving measurable change in the real world.
Unlike Danielle Smith who has only been on the job since October of last year, Rachel Notley had a full term as premier, so there is ample evidence to suggest the type of government she would form if re-elected, and the evidence isn’t flattering.
Considering the troubling reality that Notley hasn’t softened her ideological positions or admitted her party's serious spending problems even after how disastrously things were under her leadership last time around, the prospect of Alberta going orange again should be concerning to anyone who is paying attention.
To catch all of Rebel News’ Alberta Election coverage, or to chip in to support truly independent coverage of the battle for Alberta, be sure to check in regularly at AlbertaDecides.com.
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