The anger was to be expected; the hurt, less so.
A new study of public opinion in Alberta by communications firm Navigator, based on eight post-election focus groups, suggests Albertans want premier-designate Jason Kenney to get very aggressive very quickly when it comes to taking on the federal government, environmentalists, intransigent provinces and anyone else who gets in the way of their quest to build an oil pipeline to new markets.
Just as protesting pipelines has become a proxy for climate action in environmental circles, so building them is viewed as an antidote to the economic anxiety felt by Albertans. The focus groups vented their frustration at the damage done to the Albertan economy by the lack of support from other Canadian jurisdictions.
They projected a sense that the downturn is structural, rather than cyclical, with participants portraying Calgary as a ghost town. “It felt like an Old West town and there’s tumbleweeds,” said one young woman.
When the federal Liberal government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were discussed, frustration turned to rage and bewilderment. “I don’t understand why he hates us,” said one female millennial primary school teacher.
It’s this sense of grievance that is likely to persuade Kenney to take a hard line.
While many voters want the premier-designate to attempt diplomacy before turning off the taps that supply British Columbia, the study suggests voters are prepared to “take meaningful action to bring the B.C. government to heel.” There is substantially less patience and more anger with the federal and Quebec governments.
It’s this sense of grievance that is likely to persuade Kenney to take a hard line.
The depth of anger expressed by focus group participants should prompt a rethink among those who believe Kenney’s track record as an arbiter of competing interests during his time in federal politics will see less combative relations with Ottawa than the campaign might have suggested.
There was a feeling (which I shared) that his “us-versus-them” platform included a lot of grandstanding — that he knew some of his campaign pledges were hollow. Now I’m not so sure. The the focus groups suggest he will find it hard not to prosecute even his most contentious promises with vigour.
Take equalization, for example. Kenney’s United Conservative Party promised to hold a referendum on equalization in 2021, if there is no progress on a coastal pipeline.
But Jason Hatcher, Navigator’s managing principal in Calgary, said nobody in the focus groups he attended was talking about 2021. “People would welcome a referendum on equalization now.”
The only good news in the study for the rest of Canada is that frustrated Albertans see hope in the alliance that has been struck in opposition to the federal carbon tax with Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick, rather than in an Alberta First agenda. There was little appetite, even among the most conservative UCP supporters, for greater independence in the form of a provincial police service, pension plan or immigration policy. “Voters did not see the value of isolating themselves from the rest of Canada,” the study found.
The result of the April 16 election was conclusive — the highest turnout since 1935 saw the UCP garner more votes than any party in Alberta’s history, on the way to winning 63 seats to the NDP’s 24. Voters made a clear choice to elect an experienced politician who has promised to copy Quebec’s tactic of using grievance politics to get what it wants, and rejected an NDP premier whose bet on Trudeau backfired.
The study noted there was very little animus directed toward Rachel Notley, whose policies were seen as misguided. “On the one hand, she wanted to build a pipeline but on the other, she wanted to please the environmentalists. You can’t do everything,” said one participant in the focus groups.
Kenney was viewed as more pro-business and more likely to bring back jobs and investment.
Voters said they were ready for a more confrontational approach under their new premier and expected immediate and decisive action.
Two key elements to this will be challenging the federal government’s imposition of a carbon tax and reducing the corporate tax rate. Hatcher said focus group participants did not quibble with the concept of climate change but felt Alberta’s best route to reducing overall emissions would be to supply markets in Asia heavily dependent on coal. “Albertans feel we can play a role by providing energy that is cleaner and more ethical than other places … that it could be part of the transition,” he said. Kenney’s Bill 1 will repeal Notley’s carbon tax and introduce the UCP’s replacement Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) Fund.
Environmentalists would take issue with the idea that the oilsands are cleaner or more ethical — thanks to improved technology, per-barrel emissions have fallen 30 per cent since 2000 but remain higher than most conventional crude.
Yet there was no support in the focus groups for a carbon tax. In common with many other Canadians, there is widespread opposition to a tax that is seen as “making everything more expensive.”
Despite being on opposite sides of the carbon tax debate, there could yet be an alignment of interests between Kenney and Trudeau, if the federal government endorses the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline in June. It would, said the Navigator study, be a “clear win-win scenario” that would allow Kenney to arrive at the Calgary Stampede “a conquering hero.”
Yet Hatcher warned even that would not pacify Albertans because the expectation is it won’t happen. “They remain sceptical, so an announcement would not cut it. They want to see shovels in the ground,” he said.
As the study makes clear, Alberta’s disenchantment with Confederation is the distemper of our time.
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Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
