The first week of the Alberta election campaign reminded me of the title of Phyllis Schlafly’s 1964 best seller, 'A Choice not an Echo.' Not that Albertans have taken part in many “echo” elections in our history, but this one is clearly about choosing the kind of future we want. The two leaders, Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith know it, too. That is why they have criticized one another so strongly and so personally..A couple of themes have been present from the start. The NDP have portrayed the UCP as “chaotic” and Smith as “unpredictable” and “reckless.” The reason seems to be that the UCP has already introduced measures that promise to lead the province away from the well-known conventions of the recent past. But is that not what the NDP did when they last won?.In response, the UCP has linked the NDP to the federal coalition between the senior socialists and the Trudeau Liberals. Notley, the UCP said, is today quite predictable because of her previous disastrous policies. But for that reason, she is also quite reckless because she has never disowned or repudiated them..In the recklessness department, the Conservatives’ accusations make a better case..The lifeblood of any government is tax revenue. Last time around, the NDP raised taxes. Not once, not twice, but according to the UCP 97 times. That included a carbon tax, a supertax on everything that harmonized beautifully with the Trudeau Liberals’ carbon tax. One of the consequences was a previously unheard-of out-migration from the province..On healthcare the NDP has given extensive but contextless coverage to a remark by Smith, when she was an entertaining radio talk-show host, about the need to do some rethinking regarding the fundamentals of the existing healthcare delivery system..The reason to reconsider healthcare fundamentals is obvious: Canada’s healthcare system sucks. The reason why is also well known. There are only two ways of dealing with the supply of a limited service such as healthcare, for which the demand is inherently unlimited. The first is to raise the cost to the consumer thereby indirectly reducing demand. The second is to ration demand directly by ensuring lengthy wait times..Canada has chosen the second option. That is why it takes forever to get diagnostic and treatment services. When the cost to taxpayers has increased and service delivery has crashed, the obvious question is: where did the money go? Not to family docs; nor to specialists. Not, in other words, to increase the supply of services. That leaves only unions and administrators, bureaucracies both, as the only beneficiaries of the current system..Worse, it is fundamentally dishonest to conflate thinking about changing healthcare with destroying a beautiful, efficient, effective, popular, fair, and well-run system: That is not what we have. To repeat: the system sucks and everybody knows it. That’s why we have to think about changing it..That Smith raised this issue before she became premier is to her credit. In the meantime, she announced a “Public Health Guarantee,” one element of which is that no Albertan “will ever have to pay out of pocket for access to their family doctor or to get the medical treatment they need.” So when NDP advertisements indicated the opposite, they were, in Smith’s delicate phrase, “lying.”.And what is the NDP alternative? Rahim Mohamed, writing in the May 4 National Post, analyzed their proposal for “Family Health Teams,” modelled after a similar scheme imposed on Ontario by Dalton McGuinty nearly two decades ago. It proved to be both an administrative nightmare and exorbitantly costly compared to the standard fee-for-service system. McGuinty’s successor Kathleen Wynne ended the experiment in 2015. Notley and the NDP have remained silent on how to pay for her proposed new system..Under pressure from the moral panic over climate change, both parties have spoken in favour of “net-zero” carbon emission for electricity generation. The difference is that the UCP chose the target date of 2050, but Notley agreed with Jagmeet and Justin: 2035. The problem with a date for achieving net-zero 12 years out is that there is simply not enough time to replace 60% of Alberta’s electrical generation from natural gas by expanding the 5% we get from hydro or by introducing nuclear, which the NDP oppose anyhow..The fact is, imposing net zero by 2035 is an essential part of the strategy of Justin and his fanatic environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, to destroy the economy of Alberta (and of Saskatchewan) by making the costs prohibitive..How prohibitive? Based on some plausible but debatable assumptions, UCP candidates Rebecca Shaw and Brian Jean came up with a grand total of $87 billion, which starts to look like real money given that the entire Alberta budget is just over $60 billion. One can doubt their numbers but still say with certainty that the 2035 date will cost a lot more than 2050. Notley has said nothing about costs, only that there would be lots of new jobs..Remember last time? She was silent about the comparatively paltry $2 billion carbon tax. Notice a pattern? Perhaps we might call it reckless consistency..The most reckless, not to say the dumbest, thing Notley has done so far is to try to silence her critics and maintain silence about why. Even before the campaign started, she refused to answer questions from the Western Standard..Clearly, she has learned from Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek who walked away from a question from Keean Bexte that she didn’t like. Bexte was also removed from an NDP event and Rebel News, with whom he used to work, was refused entry. The NDP also removed David Staples of the Edmonton Journal from the list of persons favoured to receive NDP media releases along with denying him phone access so he can’t ask questions that way either..Such is the progressive, equal opportunity cancel culture in operation: freedom of speech is a great thing, but only when you are clever enough to agree with the left..Then, on May 2, Rachel had the audacity to say that Danielle was “hiding from the media.” Two days later, adding insult to injury, and with the acquiescence of the legacy media — this time QR77 in Calgary — she opined that “it really is important that during an election campaign a politician does make themselves available to the media to answer questions.” Except when it isn’t..As a final example of how not to cover an election, consider the woke puff piece by Christine Frangou in Chatelaine. Starting with an air-brushed picture, Notley was again praised for her consistency: “people know what they’re getting.”.Indeed they do. But in Notley’s own mind they are getting someone “more pragmatic” than Smith because she can get along with Jagmeet and Justin. But that also means that Smith has a more principled understanding of Alberta’s interests. Notley thinks all she needs to do is show the Laurentians that Alberta has responsible environmental policies. That has already been done, Rachel. And they still want to shut down the oil sands, natural gas production, and agriculture..Neither Frangou nor Notley get it: the Laurentians are not our friends..Let me end on a couple of ironic notes. It turns out that, in her youth, Notley went on a couple of double dates with Jordan Peterson, of all people. Frangou sadly reported that Notley’s office “did not respond to a request for comment on Peterson.” Even friendly reporters get stonewalled..A final irony. Frangou reported “the longer she’s been out of power, the more favourably people remember her.” In a couple of weeks Albertans can keep it that way.
