I’ve been thinking on the new Alberta. A few thoughts keep coming up.
— The population that continually elected the 40ish years of PC rule is old now and they have a sense of how they will be treated by that “dynasty” in their twilight years- discarded. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if a ton of them voted anti-PC because of it.
— The influx of newly minted voters and other Canadian neighbours who moved here because of the high guaranteed social net or higher wages would welcome an NDP government and sure helped at the polling stations.
— The PC regime was rotted and beyond short- or long-term repair.
— How could Albertans not expect that the rest of the world would continue in real time even while our pre-1990 values continued to prevail.
— Corporate profits. Companies, massive or not, the expectation to make profits in Alberta and not throw what to them is a pittance into the tax pot, while at the same time have no plan for the people who make (made) said profits when business (read: profits) slow down — again — for the 20somethingish time in 75 or so years?
— What if anything has Alberta got for all of this? No long-term, proactive infrastructure investment (much), short-sighted Heritage Fund abandonment, resources stripped and shipped instead of mandating complimentary refining industries, reactive decisions. Add your own agenda that didn’t happen under record revenue years; anything that never resulted in furthering of Albertans brick and mortar future.
So we received what we were told we needed — communism or fascism as PCs felt appropriate.
These all happened out east and led to unions, higher taxation and the big government to oversee it.
Makes me wonder who is really to blame; the governors who took advantage or the people who didn’t take advantage by thoughtfully choosing a government.
Any PC party that rises from the rubble is going to play the middle real hard, which will lead extreme fundamentalist parties emerging to rail against what will have become the norm.
These things are obvious to me now. Do I agree with them? Irrelevant. I’m forced to think beyond myself and focus on how to best prepare our kids so they aren’t “hard wired” by the new/next Alberta attitudes and cause them to fail themselves and their neighbours.
The history I recall is the blink of an eye, even to myself; but the PC drama is pretty easy to boil down now that we start over.
As a matter of record I chose to officially decline my 2015 vote in protest to the lack of choice and as a practical decision — no party was ready to govern in Alberta. With the PCs so far beyond reprieve and the rest no hard ground to stand on or experience to draw on.
But here we are. I have previously voted PC and Wildrose. I’m personally sick to death of people my age (40) and worse — younger — claiming the birthright of what are now past Alberta values; some of us lived out the end of them; those younger have had them passed down orally and internalized them.
Those of us who enjoyed those “birthrights” need move ahead and build our own.
Steve Beierle
Red Deer