After nearly a decade as Alberta NDP leader and four years as its first non-conservative premier, Rachel Notley has decided to hang up her political skates. The MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona will spend the next few months shepherding her party’s leadership race, finding a replacement to represent her riding and enjoying the spoils of retirement. If this is how she wants her political story to end, it’ll go down as a memorable one.
But if Notley thinks it has another chapter left, she should spend the next year or so practising her French. That’s because the federal NDP is almost certainly going to need a new leader after the next election given Jagmeet Singh’s ongoing failure to break through with voters. Notley’s demonstrated ability to win over moderates and expand the appeal and reach of the Alberta NDP might be just what a listless federal party needs to get back in the game.
Yes, yes, Notley repeatedly insisted she wasn’t interested in federal politics, which is exactly what someone in her position is supposed to say. “I am not interested in pursuing federal politics … at this time,” she told reporters at Tuesday’s news conference announcing her resignation. When pressed again, she said, “I have no intention of running federally, and I believe I’m done with elected politics for good.” In a subsequent interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, Notley had a one-word answer when asked if she saw a role for herself in federal politics: “Nope.”
But Notley would hardly be the first ex-politician to get lured back into politics after swearing to leave it behind. The late former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, after all, famously came back into federal politics 15 years after his own 1989 retirement and won the riding of Ottawa Centre in the 2004 election. Politics has a way of getting into your blood, especially if you’re a second-generation party leader like her, and no amount of time spent running (Notley’s recreational activity of choice) can truly keep its levels in check.
There’s also her fierce loyalty to the party in which she grew up. (In other words, forget about her running for the federal Liberals.) Notley is, of course, the daughter of an Alberta NDP legend. She worked for an NDP government in British Columbia in the 1990s. She led her own NDP out of the political wilderness and into government in Alberta. And there are few people in this country better suited to expanding the federal NDP’s appeal than Notley, with the possible exceptions of the premiers of British Columbia and Manitoba. But they have jobs right now — and as of Tuesday, she doesn’t.
The prospect of sticking her head back into the partisan political blender surely seems horrifying right now. But 18 months or so from now, after the next federal election is over, the landscape will look very different. We will have at least two new leaders of the three major parties, and very possibly a new government altogether. The NDP will have an opportunity to redefine itself, not just as a sidekick to the Trudeau Liberals but perhaps their replacement as Canada’s dominant progressive political party. Notley just happens to have plenty of experience rolling up the progressive vote under an NDP banner — and achieving the heretofore impossible in the process.
“Alberta is not a one-party province or a two-party province with two different shades of conservative,” she said in her resignation speech. “We are now a province where progressive, forward-looking, diverse Albertans can see and pursue their political aspirations and their public policy goals, not with a view of having other people just hear them, but with a view to winning government and seeing those policies turned into real action by their government.”
It’s a heck of a legacy. An even bigger one would be finding a way to bring that same mindset to the federal NDP. It could help them finally realize the vision Jack Layton had for them that came into view for a split second more than a decade ago. Yes, the NDP can win elections, even in places where the idea might seem hopelessly optimistic. Just ask Rachel Notley.
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Rachel Notley would not, IMO, do the federal NDP any good at all. I listened to her "respond" when Tzeporah Berman addressed the Alberta Teachers Association -- Notley was premier at the time, and said she wanted to speak after Berman to "correct any misinformation" uttered by Berman. Berman did not utter any misinformation, and Notley's follow-up rant was not even responsive to anything Berman had said -- Notley kept repeating that working people would be "kicked to the curb" but it wasn't clear why she thought that would happen. I was disgusted and would never vote for Notley.
Recall Notley's rambling, incoherent response to a question at the AB Teachers' Association meeting Oct 13, 2018:
Q) "You talked about the coal industry and how you have a plan for supporting those industry workers till 2030 when it becomes kind of obsolete I suppose. I'm just wondering is there is a plan long-range to support the oil industry as it, I mean yes it will grow in 20 years but it may start to deplete but what is the plan there?"
Notley) "With the coal plan, because we very definitively said we're phasing out coal by this day and we identified the plans and we knew what was going to change as a result of our policy we were able to identify the workers who were going to be impacted and so we put together a just transition plan, roughly $40 million dollars that's set aside. With respect to the energy industry it's a slower process, I actually believe that should [we] be successful in getting this pipeline built as well as the other two that I think the industry itself is going to be able to fund its own transition, support its workers, provide other opportunities.
We, of course, all many of us, suffered significant losses in 2015-2016 because of the price drop and the commodity drop and it wasn't just oil workers, it was the people whose jobs depended on oil workers to have, you know, money so since that time we've done a number of things to stimulate economic growth and to try to find and to try to support those workers. As you probably know since last year, last summer 2016 the Alberta economy has created 90 000 new jobs so we are making good headway there but there's no question that the other thing that's going to support workers in the oil and gas industry is the ability to support the industry as it transitions itself to a smarter way of doing business and finds new roles for the workers there. So, that's sort of my answer."
Notley neither envisions nor supports a phase-out or decline of AB oil production. She has no concrete ideas to offer on the subject. Notley's notion that the industry will manage its own decline and fund the transition to more sustainable industries is risible.
"I actually believe that should [we] be successful in getting this pipeline built as well as the other two that I think the industry itself is going to be able to fund its own transition, support its workers, provide other opportunities." -- R. Notley
Trudeau said much the same, that the profits from TMX oil revenue will fund renewables. What actually occurred was industry paid out dividends to shareholders, bought their own shares, gave management exceedingly generous bonuses and stood back as Trudeau sank the still-uncompleted TMX into the debt muck. Much of the self-paid bonuses to board members also occurred when oil prices tanked, with the added phenomenon of oil executives and their dependent children in legislatures and parliament begging for federal help while ludicrously posing the Equalization program as some kind of welfare scheme for other provinces paid for by Alberta.
Notley lost the last election because she ran away from her record and tried to market herself as the responsible pro business candidate. She also decided early on to be owned by the Oil and Gas industry, not that it helped her.
Fawcett: "Notley’s demonstrated ability to win over moderates and expand the appeal and reach of the Alberta NDP might be just what a listless federal party needs to get back in the game."
Only if you believe that the federal NDP needs to move to the right.
Make no mistake. Notley's party is not your father's NDP.
Max Fawcett: "Rachel Notley is Alberta’s real progressive conservative" (National Observer, 2023)
Alberta's Pipeline Queen tried to outconservative the conservatives. On energy and climate, Notley moved the NDP to the right. Both Notley and Fawcett support new oilsands export pipelines — plans to fail on climate.
Michael Harris: "In fact, it is hard to see how a Premier Jason Kenney could out-perform Notley at cheerleading for fossil fuels and the tar sands — or at completely obfuscating the mortal threat of climate change."
Notley took science-based climate policy off the table. Threw environmentalists and climate activists — as well as the federal NDP leader — under the bus. Leaving Alberta progressives in the lurch.
Notley defended the oil industry, fought for the TMX pipeline, and threw billions of dollars in subsidies at multi-billion dollar oil companies on the pretext of fighting for "working people." As if the only jobs worth protecting were in the oil industry. Even as climate change wreaks havoc on jobs, livelihoods, and resources in other sectors. Notley even endorsed Vivian Krause's conspiracy theories.
Petro-progressives like Trudeau, Notley, and Horgan claim to accept the climate change science, but still push pipelines, approve LNG projects, promote oilsands expansion, subsidize fossil fuels, and let fossil fuel interests dictate the agenda. Notley's dilbit pipeline will cost taxpayers at least $30.9 billion to build. Every TMX spill should have Notley's name on it.
Good old Rachel. Alberta's progressive climate champion, fighting against her grandchildren's right to a healthy planet to the bitter end:
The NDP's shift to the right was a political blunder. Notley's oil-soaked "pragmatism" foundered on delusion and denial. Most pipeline boosters would not vote NDP if Notley built a billion pipelines. Pandering to fossil fuel dinosaurs just fed the right-wing frenzy. A pipeline project became the rallying flag for Albertans, whose sense of grievance against Ottawa burns eternal. Fuelling the right-wing rage machine. Pipeline supporters will vote for the real thing. Notley's pipeline hysterics only inflamed Albertans against the NDP and alienated her own supporters.
The last election was close only because the UCP chose Danielle Smith — on the sixth ballot — as its new leader. Not only did Notley’s strategy fail, it also set back Alberta's progressive movement. Not the direction the federal party needs to go.
Goaded by jibes from Danielle Smith, Notley's flip-flopping on energy/climate issues has made the AB NDP look even weaker.
Notley's new NDP climate plan:
●Oppose the federal 'just transition' plan.
●Oppose Canada's 2030 emission reduction goals.
●Invest even more in oilsands CCS projects.
Climate change disproportionately affects women and children. The global poor are the most vulnerable. Does not matter what your policies are on farm labor, GSAs, childcare, etc. If you're not progressive on climate, you're not progressive.
How many AB NDP MLAs, party stalwarts, and supporters were pro-pipeline before Notley came along and re-wrote the NDP playbook on energy and the environment? Would they have approved Notley's pro-pipeline agenda, hyperbolic rhetoric, extortionist tactics, and childish petulance if they were still in opposition?
How far down the neoliberal, corporatist, climate denialist path would federal NDP voters follow Rachel Notley?
Power above politics. Political strategists tell us we have to compromise, discard, even betray our values so our "team" can win power. If we vote against our values, we might as well not bother voting.'
If you have to abandon your progressive principles to win elections, what have you gained? It is an admission of defeat — the failure of progressive politics. Instead of selling the electorate on progressive policies, the AB NDP took the easy way out, masquerading as the other guy.
Reakash Walters, federal NDP candidate in Edmonton Centre 2015: "As one of two people who nominated Rachel in 2015, I am truly disappointed in the direction the provincial party has taken and that they have chosen to prioritize oil extraction in the middle of a climate crisis."
Former AB Liberal leader Kevin Taft: "Through her whole career and her whole party, up until they became government, [Notley and the NDP] were very effective critics, counterbalances to the oil industry. As soon as she stepped into office, as soon as she and her party became government, they've simply became instruments of the oil industry."
"Is the Oil Industry Canada's 'Deep State'?" (The Real News Network, 2018)
Notley is not a team player.
In the Oct 2019 federal election, Notley initially refused to publicly support the federal NDP candidate Heather McPherson in Edmonton Strathcona. Notley had nothing to gain. The AB NDP had already gone down to defeat in April. Sabotaging federal NDP fortunes in Edmonton Strathcona would do nothing to help the AB NDP.
"What was Rachel Notley suggesting when she said she's not committed to voting for Jagmeet Singh's New Democrats?" (Alberta Politics, 2019)
To keep the progressive candle in Canada burning, we need a political party to champion progressive principles. The last thing we need is for the NDP to chase the Liberals and Conservatives to the right. The last thing we need is for the federal NDP to kowtow to the fossil-fuel industry. That tactic predictably failed in Alberta. No hope for it nationally either.
Notley's popularity is mystifying. Progressives seem to project their own hopes and wishes onto her.
Notley's next stop should be on Suncor board of directors.
Thanks for the link to Kevin Taft's 2018 commentary. I'll check it out. His 2015 book 'Oil's Deep State' rings true more than ever today.
Absolutely.........and expecting Rachel to turn that deep state....created during over 40 years of Conservative one party rule......during an economic down turn and her first term in power..........is absolutely gob smacking to me.
My partner and I have fought against pipelines........and voted NDP. Perhaps when a large majority of Albertans...and Canadians.....want to transition off oil and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to have it happen........a politician will appear with the courage to champion the just transition Trudeau talks about.....while funding the TMX..........but there's something schizoid about progressives mad at Notley for not doing what neither of the two old line parties will touch.
We'd still be out in the wilderness had she gone the Tzeporah route.....and I have a feeling most anti-oil activists know it. We the people have work to do...........which I don't see enough of us taking up.
Most of us remain too fear based to invest in either panels, an EV or a staycation. So until that groundswell I've been watching for happens...perhaps cut a good politician some slack. She did champion pipelines that still aren't completed; she also started our renewable industries Danielle is now working hard to shut down.
MN: "expecting Rachel to turn that deep state … during an economic down turn"
Deep irony.
If Alberta's economic overdependence on fossil fuels was the problem, building new pipelines enabling oilsands expansion for decades does not resolve the issue. Doubling down on fossil fuels during a climate crisis only sets Alberta up for steeper oil price crashes in future.
Tens of thousands of Albertans lost their jobs in recent years in the wake of oil price crashes.
Overdependence on one cyclical industry blasts holes in government budgets and forces services cuts and job losses.
The boom and bust oil economy destabilizes government funding, services, communities, and people's lives. Notley's pipeline also jeopardizes the economic security and water supplies of BC communities.
Time to get off the fossil-fuel roller-coaster and start building a sustainable diversified economy not subject to the whim of global markets -- in industries that don't cost our children their future.
Sooner or later, the world will shift away from fossil fuels. That's reality.
Failing to prepare Albertans for that eventuality is irresponsible. Doubling down on fossil fuels when the world is on the verge of turning away from them sets Albertans up for massive economic crashes and upheaval.
MN: "a politician will appear with the courage to champion the just transition Trudeau talks about"
That's what we call climate leadership. In 2015, the AB NDP campaigned on climate leadership. Not on new oilsands pipelines. Bait and switch.
This historical moment calls for climate leadership. Not for abject submission to the O&G industry and fierce promotion of its nefarious agenda. Building major fossil fuel infrastructure locks Alberta in to fossil fuels for decades. What about foresight? Responsibility to future generations?
In fact, Notley did the NDP no favors by promoting pipelines. Pipeline supporters gave her no credit. As previously noted, Notley's pipeline hysterics only inflamed Albertans against the NDP and alienated her own supporters.
Notley most certainly had a choice. Her option was to be the best one-term premier AB will ever see. Base energy and climate policy on the best available science.
Pandering to the right was never going to win Notley a second term.
MN: "She did champion pipelines that still aren't completed; she also started our renewable industries Danielle is now working hard to shut down."
Notley's climate plan — based on oilsands expansion enabled by new pipelines — will increase Alberta's emissions. Emissions drive global warming. The atmosphere offers no credit for renewables. Warming can be slowed only by reducing emissions.
Should we accept abysmal failure from our "progressive" politicians because the guys across the aisle would be even worse?
My late father would be a better goaltender than my sister — but that doesn't mean the Maple Leafs should put him in net.
Progressives should not support any party or politician who promise to take us over the climate cliff.
If progressive politicians cannot respond to the greatest crisis of our times, what use are they? May as well vote for the old guard and the status quo.
If not now, when?
Alberta's renewables, promoted by Notley herself, created somewhere between $35-50B in economic activity and 15,000-30,000 jobs (various sources). There is you answer.
@ mary N.
Notley went so far over the top with her constant condescension toward BC that she burned every bridge that could be used in some kind of reconciliation in future. I and my colleagues were there on the receiving end in municipal government that had to deal with the NEB. Her name is mud.
From a BC perspective, Rachel Notley's middle initials are TMX. Her insults about BC's reluctance to accept another province's toxic exports in great volumes left a very bad impression. Her threats to BC and enormous condescension toward another NDP government putting legal roadblocks in front of TMX exposed her and her fellow legislators (including the opposition UCP) as being highly arrogant, which stems from a deep seated insecurity about Alberta's role in confederation.
Her reactionary ban on BC wines caused sales in BC to skyrocket and fleets of prohibition-defying vehicles to form carrying cases of pinot gris and cabernet sauvignon from Okanagan vineyards to restaurant loading bays and private homes in Calgary.
Rachel Notley's name is mud in BC, but especially among the BC NDP who have far, far more experience quietly governing a bigger province than Notley could ever have done in Alberta, even after kneeling before the oil industry there.
Further, Rachel Notley, Danielle Smith and Jason Kenny are siblings, part of the same infighting oil and gas family.
The NDP delegates from BC will probably fight her attempts at federal NDP leadership.
Notley needs to retire. But please don't move or vacation in BC, especially in Okanagan wine country.
There are several viable candidates for federal NDP leadership, should it come to knocking Jagmeet Singh off the thrown. If it comes to that, it will be a highly divisive process.
There is very intelligent and capable leadership talent already in the NDP shadow cabinet and caucus. My favorite would be Charlie Angus.
I'd love to see Heather McPherson (NDP MP from Edmonton) be the Environment Minister in a Lib-Dem, coalition government. Or, for that matter, Prime Minister should the internal coalition math permit it.
An Alberta climate denier. Just what the NDP needs to really alienate their base. What a fracking stupid idea.
Whatever Rachel decides to do Max.........I hope she runs federally, takes some time to learn the ropes in that arena, before she puts herself up as a replacement to Jagmeet. Any failures he may have had connecting with voters might go back to his leadership bid coming before he'd actually been elected or served any time in parliament.
That might work for an entitled person like Justin Trudeau....although even there: I think Justin means well and has good intentions, but imagining leading a federal party in the Canadian house of commons is a slam dunk, to me shows a bit more ego than we need in a Prime Minister, and a lot more arrogance.
I don't think Rachel Notley is over endowed with either quality. She's a worker, and she knows her stuff. Watched her recently at a panel about pensions and never saw a politician more on her game than she was that night. Even so, she'd need a year or two to suss out the federal shenanigans.
I'd just like to see her take a seat away from the Federal Conservative party....in Edmonton, Alberta.
I think Notley will have a difficult time gaining any traction in the federal NDP. Notley criticized Singh et al on pipelines. Her anger toward BC, most especially the BC NDP government, still wrankles, and there are old, experienced MPs and party stalwarts there whose memories go back decades. Notley and Horgan were at each other's threats over TMX, a fight that went right up to the highest court in the land. Horgan has many old friends in the federal NDP. The divisions are deep and still fresh, even though he needlessly went into coal mining management after leaving government, thumbing his nose at the NDP's environmental wing.
On oil & gas Notley's record is on the same page as the UCP and federal Conservatives. Her recent praise of renewables seems timid and almost apologetic. If I still lived in Alberta I'd likely vote NDP for their social policies and weak support for renewables (it was used as a device to leverage pipelines). But pushing oil did nothing for them but cover their evvironmental credibility with bitumen.
Being two-faced seems to be the way with too many powerful progressives and moderates in this country. The most successful forward-looking path for Notley may be to pull a Horgan and land in a high six-figure position on the board of some carbon outfit. It would be better for her credibility to land in management of a labour union, but the pay won't be as high.
If she knocked on the federal NDP's front door, Charlie Angus or the MP from Edmonton will probably eat her lunch on the porch and slam the door. If she retired and wrote a book trying to post-justify or gloss over her subservience to Big Oil while displaying her frayed social democratic credentials, Kevin Taft -- a fellow who came from the same legislature and who wrote extensively about the heavy role oil plays there -- will eat her lunch.
Either way her weakened reputation will go unnourished. Quiet retirement on an exceedingly generous politician's pension may be the best option.
"...at each other's throats..."
I agree with various comments here--bottom line, Notley's position on pipelines and oil are not a good fit for the NDP at the federal level. It is possible that, if made leader of the federal NDP, she might run fairly successful campaigns. But I find it hard to imagine the federal NDP membership voting her in as leader; it's not like she'd run unopposed. She gonna beat Charlie Angus? Singh managed that by having a powerhouse membership operation in Toronto; I don't think Alberta as a base can muster equivalent support.
And, if she did become the leader, and did muster a fairly successful campaign, I think there's a big risk it would be one of those political "You win, but you lose" situations. The point of politics in the end is to make (or perhaps avoid) changes to policy and society. If your political party gains power by dint of changing course so you don't make the changes the purpose of the party was to make, then you didn't actually gain any power. Instead you gave it away in a more definitive way than any electoral loss.
A very churlish piling on here that also exemplifies the sainted sanctimoniousness of the "too precious by half" contingent of the NDP.
The question is asked, "why even vote unless it reflects your progressive values?" And every last one of them apparently, despite the effect of that being interchangeable with those who are wholly disengaged, and despite an election in a democracy at risk PROBABLY being about more than any one person feeling adequately "represented?"
And as far as Rachel goes, who didn't want the NDP to go for it and be "hung for sheep" but the fact that such a show of disrespect never even occurred to them any more than jumping into the fountain pool at the legislature did said A LOT, especially now.
And then there's this:
"According to statistics in 2016 from Alberta Justice, Notley is the premier with the most death threats. She was the subject of 412 harassment communiques of which 26 were investigated by law enforcement."
Which was as unprecedented as the fact that conservatives had held onto power for forty odd years in the most macho of Canadian provinces, AND that they were finally overturned by the NDP, a cadre of mainly female progressives.
And the siding with big oil was also in the context of a time when we were all talking about "transitioning" if you recall, the same reasoning behind buying the pipeline, a stage that seemed fairly bold at the time but which we've already leapfrogged over along with open acknowledgement of climate change on the news. It was a bit like what happened at COP 28 with the mention of fossil fuels for the first time, ridiculous though that is, but also reflective of the reality of the time we're all caught in, which is why politics is rightly called the "art of the possible."
It did NOT seem bold at the time. Pretty much anyone as far left as the NDP or otherwise with small "g" green beliefs but outside of Alberta opposed the pipeline from the start, the BC government opposed the pipeline from the start, many municipalities it crossed opposed the pipeline from the start, it was already widely pointed out at the time that the tar sands had to stop, it was already widely pointed out at the time that building more infrastructure for fossil fuels was perpetuating their use, NOT anything like a step towards transition. You don't transition away from something by doing more of it, and we were not idiot enough to believe otherwise just a few years ago. It was clear at the time that the stated rationale (money from the pipeline being used to aid transition) was nonsense for a host of reasons, starting with the fact that it was plain by the time the feds bought the thing that the pipeline would not make money and so there would be no money to aid anything.
I was there at the time and paying attention; I believe that trying to convince me I didn't see what I saw is what the kids call "gaslighting".
Exactly. I was there too, right at the terminus of the pipe that wound it's way through residential neighborhoods and parks and sensitive habitat, where a tank farm located on a mountainside above 3,000+ homes is being doubled to 21 massive tanks, where a fire department is against the project because it cannot put out an impossible tank farm fire, where a "small" puncture of the old TM pipe during utility construction by a negligent contractor on Inlet Drive resulted in a geyser of hot bitumen to erupt and coat an entire neighbourhood with toxic oil which flowed into the storm sewers to the ocean, where TMX fought and won the legal right to ignore municipal permits and applied the same tactic with the NEB to lower fire safety standards at the tank farm, etc. etc. etc.
And through it all was Notley's daily condescension toward BC and all citizens and leaders who opposed TMX (that would be half of BC's south coast residents, more than the population of southern Alberta). Followed by Kenny and now Smith with the exact same messaging.
We were at a transition years ago. It was then time to pick one path over the other--clean energy over oil. The case to support the transition is much, much stonger today. Walking on both diverging paths clearly has not worked.
The memories are coming back. When Notley was pushing a pipe a protest was widely advertised that drew a crowd of protestors estimated to be 10,000-12,000 people on the first day (TransLink's numbers from the faregates at three rapid transit stations below Burnaby Mountain and bus rider traffic) gathered at the pipeline terminus site on a mountainside perched above large residential communities. In the weeks that followed many arrests were made to the joy of right wing hooligans in Alberta who called Indigenous grandmothers, grandkids and soccer moms and dads "ecoterrorists" in mainstream and social media, a label that also applied to Elizabeth May, MP and leader of the Green Party.
I was downtown that day and stumbled across a protest at Jack Poole Plaza, ironically located on the downtown Vancouver waterfront that would be greatly affected by a spill from a TMX tanker ship moving a few hundred metres out in the shipping lanes. At first I thought it was a branch protest from the Mountain, but it became quickly evident that it was a pro-oil counterprotest put on by industry. And it was completely laughable by comparison. ~250 people vs. ~10,000, albeit with a good PA system. The majority of these pro pipeline people were bussed in from Alberta; there were 8-10 greyhound busses parked on the front street, every single one of them with Alberta plates (I checked). I stood at the back of the small crowd and listened to a couple of minutes of right wing sloganeering ("socialist BC government...ecoterrorists...blah blah blah"), laughed then left, wondering if that's all they've got.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/01/17/Rachel-Notley-NDP-Leader-Steps-Do…
But this is of FAR more concern in the context of Rachel stepping down, this gaming of "the system," the system being democracy.
And here's another UCP undoing of what Rachel's NDP did, a legislative undermining of unions, the perennial target of the cons at a time when they're on the upswing; also brings Gil McGowan to the fore as the perfect next leader of the NDP:
https://www.westernwheel.ca/local-news/legislation-could-mean-return-of…
Hopefully McGowan is not bending a knee to Big Oil. Hopefully there is a clear vision of where the world is heading, and thus where Alberta should be redirected. Hopefully shoving more pipelines down the throats of other jurisdictions isn't part of the Alberta NDP's future.
Max Fawcett's calculus on Rachel Notley is obviously off kilter. Moderates and progressives in Metro Vancouver and the south coast communities of BC will have a lot to say about a Notley candidacy for leadership in any federal party. That applies equally to Jason Kenny and Danielle Smith. I doubt Max Fawcett is aware of even half of the shenanigans that occurred in BC as the result of Notley pushing a pipeline to the coast from another province until the Supreme Court ruled in TMX favour based solely on the exclusive rights of federal jurisdiction.
Next time Fawcett subconsciously ventures into speaking for BC regarding Alberta politicos with deep ties to pipelines, I'd recommend he does a modicum of research into the hearings of the then NEB where municipal officials in Metro Vancouver were subjected to third degree treatment by TMX lawyers who were given carte blanche in what were genuine kangaroo court sessions. The city of Burnaby fought back and produced a 39-page affidavit that described in minute detail the tactics and failures of TMX officials to produce adequate documents relative to their own permit application. They were working hard behind the scene to have the NEB overrule all municipalities, using Burnaby as a scapegoat. It worked, but the affidavit shut down all criticism of cities, large or small, "holding up the permits." That was TMX itself working against their own interests.
Proper consultation with Indigenous communities on a federal energy project -- undecided, mixed acceptance / rejection.
Supreme Court of Canada ruling in favour of a federal energy project over provincial objections -- check.
Energy Board ruling over municipal objections -- check.
Does this not legally clear the way for another federal energy project, this time electrical transmission corridors that cross provincial boundaries and service cities, with additional First Nations partnerships in the project with potentially huge economic opportunities and benefits for Indigenous renewable power projects?
That's what I would call a big story.
PS: The affidavit mentioned above is in the public record.