At the polls last week, a majority of Albertans made crystal clear how eager they were to run back into the arms of a conservative government.
The same kind of government that for almost half a century failed time and again to prepare this great province for a predictable crash in a historically volatile boom and bust cycle of the oilpatch.
Many people place all of the blame at the feet of Notley’s NDP for all the jobs lost in 2015 and the subsequent recession and hardships so many people endured.
But make no mistake.
Her government had nothing to do with the price of oil that tanked due to international factors far beyond the ability of our government — UCP or NDP or anything in between — to control.
It was profitable multi-billion-dollar companies, not the NDP, that laid off workers and ramped down extraction and production, by extension causing further convulsions as smaller businesses were hit.
It was the same multi-billion-dollar multi-nationals that decided with such a low cost per barrel, that investing in our costly to extract and refine crude bitumen simply was no longer as appealing as before.
Lowering the corporate tax rate will not change those facts.
Since the days of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, trickle down economics have been a demonstrable failure that benefit no one but the wealthiest, as we have observed by a swelling income gap.
Economics 101: tax breaks will not suddenly inspire huge businesses to hire more people. Time and again, corporations that are showered with giveaways waste little time buying back their own stock or redistributing the wealth to stakeholders and CEOs.
The only thing that really compels a business to hire more people is an increase in the demand for that company’s services or products, which only happens when consumers have money to spare.
Those who anticipate some kind of restored prosperity in Alberta’s oilpatch under Kenney should brace themselves for bitter disappointment.
That being said, if in four years there are new pipelines, $120-plus per barrel, and all the jobs lost during the 2014-15 crash caused by the drop in price of oil have been restored, then I will gladly concede I was wrong — and hope that I am — and promptly praise the UCP’s surprise success.
But while I hope the UCP manages to reignite our economy, I sure won’t be holding my breath.
Meanwhile, I cannot help wonder whether Notley will still be blamed by the masses when four years from now, none of the aforementioned hopes and dreams materialize, leaving Alberta no better off — perhaps even worse — than today.
