The year 2015 seems a long time ago now, and us voters tend to have short memories. I’ll propose a little trip back in time then, for those of us who maybe can’t quite call to mind the finer details of Alberta’s previous government..What did it say? What did it do? Most people familiar with the exhortation “walk the walk,” will infer that one usually follows up on what was said with actions which reflect what was said. However, in the case of the New Democratic Party, what was said before we elected the party and what was done once candidates were in power are two very different things indeed..Let’s compare and contrast..The NDP said it would “preserve” our education system. Instead the province tried to tear it down and rebuild it according to David Eggen’s personal convictions. His ministry rejected chartered school application after chartered school application, and referred to Catholic school employment contracts — which asked teachers to conform to a lifestyle consistent with the teachings of the Catholic church — as “unsettling.”.The NDP said it would balance the budget by 2018. Instead it added billions of dollars to the provincial debt. Somehow the fiscal train wreck the NDP were intent on creating prompted Rachel Notley to tweet Joe Ceci was “the best finance minister this province has ever had.”.I wonder how that figures? Perhaps figures just weren't the strong suit of anyone on the NDP front bench. By the time it was done, it’d run up the largest deficit in Alberta’s history..The NDP said it would create more jobs. Instead the unemployment rate shot up. When it took office in 2015, it was just 5.9%, but rose to 7.4% in 2016, and by 2018 it had ballooned to 7.8%..Oh, and don’t forget the NDP raised the minimum wage, too, which in addition to suddenly making your restaurant bill significantly more expensive, heaped undue financial pressure on small businesses that were already struggling to pay their workers in an economic downturn..And did this minimum wage increase actually give employees across the province the ability to earn a “living wage”? Sure, for about two minutes, but the result of increased wages is increased prices on the goods and services that these workers are themselves producing in every sector they’re employed. When wages go up across the board, so do prices. All of a sudden that living wage isn’t so livable anymore..Also not present in the 2015 New Democrat platform was any mention of two of the party’s most unpopular legacies: a provincial carbon tax and the introduction of “safe” injection sites. That was just part of the bonus policy prize pack Albertans didn’t vote for, and didn’t want..It’s ironic the federal NDP’s platform slogan for 2015 was “Building the country of our dreams.” It seems to me, looking back at the legacy the NDP left us in Alberta, the “country of our dreams” in a New Democrat’s mind manifests itself as something more akin to a nightmare for most ordinary citizens..I recount this comedy of errors that was Rachel Notley’s premiership to raise a particular set of questions; questions every Albertan must answer in the coming months: If this is what we got last time, what sort of policies might be waiting in the wings with a second NDP government? What promises are they making to Albertans it has absolutely no intention of keeping?.Because the last time we gave them the keys to the kingdom, the New Democratic Party didn’t do what it said it would do — it did whatever it wanted to instead..Does anyone think they won’t do it again?
