As baseball legend Yogi Berra famously declared: ‘it felt like déjà vu all over again.’
The occasion for this strange, recurrent blast from the past was the recent provincial NDP convention in Edmonton, where an innocent bystander wandering into the conference hall could be forgiven for thinking this was an opposition party determined to hold the feet of those heartless ruling Tories to some proverbial political fire.
It could have been 1982, 1994, 2002 or even 2015. The message delivered by leader Rachel Notley was much the same as delivered by her forebears down the decades, with only the names of various guilty Tory premiers being changed, easily transposing from Peter Lougheed to Ralph Klein, to Jim Prentice before concluding with the current head honcho, Jason Kenney.
Oops. But that’s where things get a tad confusing. Because the last time anyone bothered to check it is actually Notley herself who has her feet under the big boss table at the legislature and it is Kenney who remains on the outside looking in.
You wouldn’t have thought it from her speech, however. Maybe, in the end, the Dippers are secretly longing for a return to the opposition benches, a place where moral grandstanding and pie-in-the-sky pledges are a heck of a lot easier than trying to get pipelines built and budgets balanced.
Oh well, in politics as in life invariably you dance with the one who brought you. Therefore the faithful were treated to a giddy rehash of past fire-breathing promises that would warm the cockles of any true socialist heart.
We had resolutions opposing private school vouchers, others enforcing gay-straight alliances in schools, and yet more to expand affordable childcare province-wide. There were calls to increase disability payments along with hikes to seniors’ benefits, amid others promising financial support in fighting racism and yet more to ensure that the transition to cleaner energy is a priority come the next election.
And finally, in case you had any doubt nothing actually does change, an emergency resolution was passed to support the striking postal workers. Yogi Berra will be smiling in his grave, though the old codger might not have heard of email, Amazon Prime or electronic fund transfers. Oh well, posties haven’t either, it would seem. That truth will eventually dawn as those defined benefit pensions sink beyond the horizon as Canadians stop bothering with the postal service altogether.
In summation, with her keynote speech, there was Notley herself, gamely clambering once again aboard that old standby nag of incipient class division by declaring that under her watch: “classrooms are no longer being sacrificed to pay for another CEO pay raise.”
Good for a hearty cheer from the faithful, no doubt. But come on, what a bunch of hogwash from the serving premier of Alberta.
If we still had more CEOs of companies such as Statoil, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Marathon Oil and Royal Dutch Shell investing in Alberta’s oilsands then the provincial treasury would be better stocked to provide such well-meaning programs that this convention-going crew were drooling over. Hey, and maybe then we’d happily just spend what we bring in instead of loading up on debt faster than McDonalds serves french fries.
But those CEOs and their companies have departed to places new. Maybe the NDP crowd imagines it’s because these heartless souls were promised a bigger paycheque elsewhere. But maybe it is because dealing with this amateur-hour silliness simply isn’t worth the bother. There are greener fields than these is the ultimate answer.
Next year’s conference will be likely the same. But those attending will be happier. The real world will not be their responsibility any longer.
Chris Nelson is a long-time journalist. His columns on Alberta politics run monthly in the St. Albert Gazette.
