SAINTS PRESERVE US

Big Running Shoes to Fill: Rachel Notley Stepping Back from Alberta Politics

When Brian Mulroney won the leadership of the federal Tories in 1983, my Nana (1893-1997) told me, “There are no statesmen anymore.” Her points of reference would’ve included Churchill, F.D.R., J.F.K. (despite being Catholic), Lester B. Pearson and possibly Pierre Trudeau (“Just watch me”), but Robert Stanfield (leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada 1967-1976) for sure. The death last week of former federal New Democratic Party leader (1975-1989) Ed Broadbent reminded me of my Nana’s lament. There was a time when the pursuit of power wasn’t motivated by its trappings so much as the candidate’s willingness to serve the public and advocate for the greater good.

When my Nana objected to any particular platform or policy, she did not rail, she respectfully disagreed. Perhaps a bit prim, but always civil. And Nana, unlike the majority of today’s voters and an alarming number of career political hacks, understood civics; she knew how the various levels of government were supposed to function, tend their jurisdictions. Times have changed. Long before my brother moved to Edmonton from Montreal in the early seventies (I followed in 1990, a bit late to the party), the Moores had rural relatives farming near Penhold, just a bumpy and lengthy Model T drive from Red Deer. My father spent his Depression summers in Alberta. Had Nana had Alberta roots instead of Brighton’s Pier and had she lived way beyond 105 (maybe kale smoothies over the odd tipple of sherry), I believe Nana would’ve described Rachel Notley as a “statesman.”

I am a cynic. When it comes to the body politic, there’s no better view than the backside of a spent politician (Hello, Justin). There are a couple of exceptions for a couple of reasons. As a somewhat engaged voter, I didn’t have time to get a handle on the two federal Conservative leaders who predeceased (pardon the pun) Pierre Poilievre because they couldn’t get a handle on their party. One election and done – note the dates for perennial losers Broadbent and Stanfield in the first paragraph. And then there’s someone like Rachel and I type that proper noun with the same affection Lou Reed says it at the fade of “Coney Island Baby” even though Alberta’s Rachel is not a drug addicted trans woman in need of a shave although our Rachel would look out for Lou’s Rachel.

Edmontonians grew accustomed to seeing their premier, Rachel, because that’s who she is, the most powerful politician in the province and maybe Western Canada, running through the city’s river valley and ravines or sitting on her tarp at a summer outdoor music festival. “Authentic” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2023; since Rachel was first elected to Alberta’s legislature in 2008 as the New Democratic Party member for Edmonton-Strathcona, she’s neither strived nor contrived to be anyone but herself. Rachel has that trifecta magic that keeps the public eye glued to its subject: intellect, integrity and charisma.

Rachel succeeded Brian Mason as NDP leader in 2014. On her watch the party transformed from outlier to mainstream. Its growth and popularity reflected Alberta’s shifting demographics, younger, educated, urban. A pragmatist, she nudged the party’s ideology toward the centre of the political divide. I’m a centrist but not a fence sitter. My general inference is that no proper party leader, left or right, and sensibly enough, wants the lunatic fringe aboard (there are exceptions). My sense of Rachel has always been that if a decision was to be made with the fortunes of the party or the people’s hanging conflicted in the balance, she would opt for the latter.

Speaking of outliers… Since Alberta joined the Canadian federation in 1905 its internal politics have pretty much been defined by nationally anomalous serial autocracies. Believe it or not, the province’s first government was Liberal (1905-1921). That regime was followed in painfully slow succession by the United Farmers of Alberta (1921-1935), Social Credit (1935-1971) and then the Progressive Conservatives (1971-2015). All of the aforementioned parties either withered into insignificance or ceased to exist after losing power. No other Canadian province shares this history. The NDP under Rachel broke the mould in Alberta.

The party’s majority victory in 2015 was seismic, shocking. Forty-four years of Tory autocracy swept away by prairie socialists. Were they discussing policy at the Co-op? The only contemporary analogy I can think of is how good the new Stones album is. The aftermath on the other side of the political divide was for the schismatic right, righter and the rightest to grudgingly Christian mingle underneath the newly erected United Conservative Party big top circus tent. United we stand, but not too, too close together.

I am a realist. I am flawed. Other people are flawed. Our institutions are flawed. As a Canadian I expect “peace, order and good government.” It’s not a big ask. Still, sometimes I feel like a cat because “good government” seems as ignorantly idealistic as believing there must be more clement weather out the back door. Maybe out the front again. If the NDP’s lone term overseeing the fortunes Alberta wasn’t the Platonic ideal of “good government,” it was, an obvious breath of fresh air aside, decent enough.

Trans Mountain got done. According to previous administrations that stagnation of this project, an oil pipeline (pipelines are a federal jurisdiction) to tidewater threatened Alberta’s very existence. The NDP’s solution came with climate caveats and a carbon tax. This was the first indication to me that the party had the courage to plan beyond the next election cycle. The other was increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The argument against has merit, higher wages can drive inflation and strain small businesses. Essentially the NDP government worked to address the issues of the day and potential future ones. It did not grandstand; it did not create issues in order to distract and deceive the electorate.

Rachel lost the two subsequent provincial elections. I’m no political insider, but what struck me was there was nary a whisper of razor strops and whet stones, blade sharpening in the NDP’s backroom. There are just two parties in the legislature today. The UCP holds a ten-seat majority. The NDP is a formidable opposition and, crucially, experienced. As Dylan sings, “Things have changed.” Rachel transformed Alberta politics.

The animus many Albertans direct at politicians from Central Canada is almost genetic, like Huntington’s disease. There is talk of rebranding Alberta’s NDP in the hopes of eliminating the misconception that it’s merely the hayseed cousin of the federal NDP which is perceived here as a party of champagne socialists, hipsters in Toronto incapable of understanding Western Canada. Now’s the time to do it because with Rachel stepping back, the NDP immediately erases its cult of personality label. (That will be a fraught business. The Elections Alberta website teems with registered and unregistered political parties and all the good names are taken although Alberta Democratic Party might do the trick.) The other difficulty with the cult of personality model is that beyond Rachel the rest of the caucus is low profile and faceless. There’s no obvious dauphin waiting in the wings. She has said she won’t endorse any leadership candidate. I can see the party’s brains trust searching outside its ranks, looking to repeat the Rachel formula. Reestablish an identity in an instant. A couple of former big city mayors, Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi and Edmonton’s Don Iveson don’t seem to have much on the go at the moment. 

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com is awake and alive. Watch and listen to some of the songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project or buy 5 KG, the complete EP. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did in your preferred format from your preferred e-retailer.