Between retirements and election losses Premier Smith has a lot of room for new faces in her post-election cabinet, due to be announced Friday..She has two big issues to contend with, one in Ottawa and another in Edmonton. She had best choose people who know how to be warriors..First, it’s showtime with Ottawa. Nothing is inevitable, but reasonable people in Alberta should expect conflict with the Justin Trudeau government in Ottawa during the next two years..To begin with, in the politics of division that defines the prime minister’s style, the Alberta-Saskatchewan axis of principled conservatism is a gift. Trudeau has every reason to go into the next election with a message intended to frighten milquetoast central Canadian voters into falling into line behind him. It would be entirely in character for the Liberals to paint a lurid (and of course, utterly mendacious) picture of western climate neanderthals rejecting wise and benevolent Liberal governance, to the peril of the entire country..We had a predictive glimpse of that mentality just today, as Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told a news program the Trudeau government could be much more ambitious in its “fight against climate change if I didn’t have to fight certain jurisdictions all the time on doing the bare minimum to fight climate change.”. Nate HornerNate Horner .That would be us, I guess. But we knew it was coming. Trudeau already signalled his intention to exert federal control over everything related to the environment — carbon emissions, pipelines and power generation — and ultimately the industry that makes Albertans wealthy, and not incidentally, makes up 10% of Canada’s GDP and pays for equalization..All of it is a provincial mandate under the Constitution..Yet from the federal yardarm, all the signals of aggression have been hoisted — Bill C-69 (the no-pipelines bill,) escalating carbon taxes, the ‘Just Transition’ from a wealthy energy province to a community of janitors and truck drivers and now a federal interpretation of Bill C-69 that gives Ottawa the power to regulate pipelines and transmission lines that are entirely within the borders of Alberta.. Demetrios NikolaidesDemetrios Nikolaides .Meanwhile in Edmonton, the Smith government has to get a grip on the education system. Right now, it’s effectively in the hands of the powerful teachers’ union. The ATA was a powerful third-party campaigner against her during the last election. Nothing illegal about that, but that’s a clue this is not a group that politely awaits for instructions on future directions from whomever gets elected. .Not to put too fine a point on it, the ‘blob,’ as our education correspondent calls it, influences everything, to the point of endorsing candidates for school boards. (Think about that for a minute: The school board is supposed to be administering schools that employ teachers, but the teachers want to take over the board that pays their salaries?) Again, it’s not illegal but maybe it should be?.Alberta’s education system is woke and is in the business of turning out woke graduates. If Smith’s government doesn’t get back to basics and depoliticize education, there won’t be many more UCP governments..So while skill, knowledge, competence and dedication to the common good remain as ever the core characteristics of a prospective recruit to cabinet, Smith now needs to assure herself that when things get ugly, the people closest to her recognize what’s going on and have the intestinal fortitude to stand with the premier.. Rebecca SchultzRebecca Schultz .Let’s say what we really mean: She needs people with balls..And she is, if not starting from scratch, working from a reduced playlist. Altogether of the 24 cabinet members Smith introduced after she was elected leader in October, eight are no longer available. Even if she chooses to run a tighter ship, something proposed elsewhere on this site by my friend and colleague Linda Slobodian, she still has to appoint new ministers at key ministries — Finance, Health and Justice for example. (Former Finance minister Travis Toews retired from the game for now, at least. Former ministers Tyler Shandro and Jason Copping, Justice and Health respectively, both narrowly lost their Calgary seats on May 29.).And, having committed herself to a model in which the province has two deputy premiers, one serving the north, the other the south, Smith also needs to replace Kaycee Madu who lost his Edmonton seat. Other key appointments are Energy, presently led by Minister Pete Guthrie who retained his Airdrie seat and Education where Minister Adriana LaGrange held on to her Red Deer North constituency.. Peter GuthrieUCP Airdrie-Cochrane candidate Peter Guthrie. .And, then there’s environment, which is ground zero..This is an entirely arbitrary selection but send rancher and Agriculture Minister Nate Horner to Finance, Brian Jean to Justice. Adriana LaGrange should leave education and take on Health. Keep Pete Guthrie in Energy..And for Education and Environment?.Demetrios Nikolaides did well in advanced education; let him take over the much bigger K-12 file as Education minister..And to Environment, Rebecca Schultz. I do believe she has the right stuff.
