Rachel Notley is the Alberta NDP’s greatest asset

Notley’s NDP are probably better prepared than they’ve ever been this close to an election but are they connecting with Albertans?

I’m Dave Cournoyer and this is the Daveberta Substack.

Thank you to everyone who listened and shared feedback about the relaunched Daveberta Podcast. I’m getting back into podcasting and writing regular columns ahead of the upcoming election and am also launching a new subscription plan for access to the extra Daveberta content I’m creating.

I have been writing about Alberta politics for 18 years now, and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve been hesitant to monetize my writing and podcasting, but Daveberta has become more than just a labour of love, and it’s something I want to put more focus on, which means more time and additional costs.

Before we go any further – that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly putting up a paywall. Most regular columns on my Substack will still be free and so will the candidate nomination updates (which feels like a good public service) at daveberta.ca – basically, if you’ve been a Daveberta reader for a while, your experience won’t change much with the free content.

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• Monthly ($5/month) and annual subscriptions ($4.17/month) will give you access to the monthly Daveberta Podcast and twice-monthly regular Alberta politics columns (at least). I expect to be writing multiple times a week as we get closer to the election and during the election period (so you’ll be getting a great deal!). I’m also working on some extra features for the podcast and the Substack that you’ll have access to.

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Dave

TL;DR

If you don’t have time to read today’s column right away, here are some of my main points:

• With just over 100 days until election day, Rachel Notley’s NDP are probably better prepared than they’ve ever been this close to an election.

• The NDP have a lot of money, an almost full-slate of candidates, MLA’s with cabinet experience, and a leader who used to be the premier. This is unusual in Alberta. We are used to decades long government dynasties.

• The NDP have gone out of their way to recruit a slate of candidates that come from the centre in Notley’s centre-leftish coalition (especially in Calgary). This is not your grandfather’s NDP.

• The NDP shouldn’t react to a shrinking lead in recent polls with panic but should reflect on whether their messaging is resonating with voters (especially in Calgary).

• Notley is focusing on health care, a strong issue for the NDP, but the party feels like it’s lacking an overall coherent message.

• The UCP know Notley is her party’s greatest asset, so they are trying to undermine her credibility by tying her to Justin Trudeau and convincing Albertans that Danielle Smith is better fit to stand up for oil and gas workers.

Today’s column

NDP leader Rachel Notley at her party’s 2022 convention in Calgary (source: Rachel Notley / Twitter)

Rachel Notley is the Alberta NDP’s greatest asset

Ten years ago the Alberta NDP were a fourth place party that had hovered around 10 per cent support for most of the previous two decades. They were a central Edmonton-based party that could reliably depend on electing two MLAs but could sometimes double their caucus to four.

The NDP were a scrappy opposition party that frequently ran circles around the Official Opposition Liberals (as a former Liberal staffer from that era, I can attest to how frustrating they could be). But despite punching above their weight they were still a party going nowhere.

At least until something big changed in October 2014.

Rachel Notley became leader of the Alberta NDP. 

218 days later she was Premier of Alberta.

Through a series of wild events, the two biggest being Notley’s fantastic performance on the campaign trail and the total collapse of the long-in-the-tooth governing Progressive Conservatives, the NDP formed a majority government in 2015. It was the perfect storm.

I wrote on election night in 2015 that it would be a mistake to believe the NDP win signalled Albertans had shifted to the political left. The election was not about ideology. The defining narrative of the campaign was trust and accountability, and on this issue Albertans turned away from the PCs and embraced Notley. 

The “time for a change” narrative was too strong for the PCs to stop.

The NDP lasted four years in government until Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party spectacularly knocked Notley out of the Premier’s Office in 2019. But when the NDP were defeated, the mold of one-party rule in Alberta wasn’t just broken, it was smashed.

The next 100ish days

Now with just more than 100 days until the next election day, Notley’s NDP are probably better prepared than they’ve ever been this close to an election. 

The NDP have money, and lots of it. The party raised $7.1 million in 2022.

They have 8 MLAs running for re-election who have been cabinet ministers before and could easily become cabinet ministers again. They also have a leader who used to be the premier. In a province where the PCs governed for 43 uninterrupted years, this is a big change.

The NDP have gone out of their way to recruit a slate of candidates that mostly come from the centre in Notley’s centre-leftish coalition. This is most obvious in Calgary, where Notley’s team includes lawyers, energy experts and a former economic development vice-president. This is not your grandfather’s NDP.

Still, winning enough ridings to form a majority government is a big challenge for Notley’s party.

The NDP already hold almost all the seats in Edmonton, so their narrow path to victory goes through the suburban ridings surrounding the capital city and seats in Calgary.

It’s in Alberta’s largest city where the uphill battle is expected to be most fierce. 

Calgarians aren’t natural NDP voters. Notley’s party won three Calgary seats in 2019 and they need to win another dozen or so to form a majority. 

There are some seats that should be easy pickups if Notley’s party maintains their high level of support in the polls. I’m thinking Calgary-Currie, Calgary-Falconridge, Calgary-Klein and Calgary-Varsity, but the other ridings needed to win could take much more effort.

Notley and her crew of Edmonton MLAs have been spending a lot of time in Calgary and can regularly be seen on social media attending events and canvassing door-to-door with local candidates.

Is Notley’s message resonating?

Starting with Kenney’s resignation announcement last March, the NDP’s big lead in support has shrunk and most public polls show a closer province wide-race between Notley’s party and the UCP led by Premier Danielle Smith (who was also not too long ago an unlikely candidate for premier). But while the UCP has been able to regain its strength in rural Alberta, all the public polls suggest a close race in Calgary.

The NDP shouldn’t react to the polls with panic but Notley and her advisors should reflect on whether their messaging is resonating with Albertans - and specifically the voters they need to win on May 29.

The NDP’s instinct will probably be to play it safe, but it’s a question that should be asked if the party doesn’t want to unintentionally snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this year.

While it might be close to an irresistible urge, the NDP should also try to avoid getting bogged down responding to every controversial thing Smith has said and will continue to say for the next 100 days. It’s a game of whack-a-mole the NDP can’t win and it distracts from their own message.

Notley’s NDP have been trying to focus on issues that play to their strengths, with health care being the big one they talk about a lot.

Notley was quick to point out this week that Smith failed to deliver on a promise to fix the public health care system in 90-days. The NDP leader also recently gathered with her party’s south Edmonton candidates to commit to building the much-needed hospital the party promised when it was in government but slowed down when the UCP won in 2019. And Notley is expected to make an announcement this morning about ‘reimagining family health care in Alberta.’

Focusing on health care is probably key to the NDP winning in 2023, but it’s also true that it feels like the party is lacking an overall coherent message.

Facing an unpopular premier like Kenney allowed the NDP to coast a bit, but Smith is a different political beast. She may say outrageous things and then claim she was just using “imprecise language,” but she’s a smart communicator and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Their strongest messenger

The Alberta NDP knows Notley is their strongest messenger.

And so does Smith’s UCP.

That’s why the UCP launched a series of online ads attacking Notley this week. And it’s why Smith has been hammering her “Trudeau-Notley-Singh alliance” talking point with all the delicateness of a sledgehammer. Smith is doing everything she can to tie Notley to the unpopular prime minister and weaken the NDP leader’s argument that she will stand up for Alberta (and oil and gas workers).

Notley’s call for the federal Liberals to halt any proposed “Just Transition” laws may have annoyed environmentalists in Vancouver and bureaucrats in Ottawa but her response was aimed directly at those voters she needs in Calgary and the area surrounding Edmonton.

I think it’s fair to say that you can’t be premier of this province if Albertans don’t believe you’re going to stand up for oil and gas workers (but more on that in another column). That’s something Notley understands and is one of the reasons why she’s the NDP’s greatest asset going into the 2023 election.

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Alberta politics reading list

February is here and what better way to spend it than sitting on a comfy chair, sipping a hot drink and flipping open a new book about Alberta politics?

Lucky for us, some new Alberta politics books will soon hit the shelves of your local book store.

Blue Storm: The Rise and Fall of Jason Kenney is billed as the first scholarly analysis of the 2019 Alberta Election. Edited by Duane Bratt, Richard Sutherland, and David Taras, the book includes chapters written by respected political observers including Roger Epp, Jean-Sébastien Rioux, Gillian Steward, Melanee Thomas, Graham Thomson, Trevor Tombe, Jared Wesley, Lori Williams, and Lisa Young.

Anger and Angst: Jason Kenney’s Legacy and Alberta’s Right is described as an account of how the UCP has governed; the ideas, personalities, and social forces that have driven its agenda. The book’s editors argue that an entrenched elite, based largely in the oil and gas sector, is increasingly fearful of losing its power; fearful, more broadly, of the province that Alberta is struggling to become.

The book is edited by Trevor W. Harrison and Ricardo Acuña and includes chapters written by Laurie Adkin, Bob Barnetson, Janet Brown, Susan Cake, Irfan Chaudhry, David Climenhaga, Brooks DeCillia, Lise Gotell, Kevin Taft, and others.

Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta from the 1960s and 1970s has been on the shelves since 2021 and is worth picking up. Editors Leon Crane Bear, Larry Hannant, and Karissa Robyn Patton buck the conventional narratives of Alberta's political history by highlighting some of the lesser known Alberta mavericks. Author Valerie Korienek describes the book as "a must read for everyone interested in peering behind the stereotypes of Alberta conservatism, for a look at the grassroots rebels, radicals, queers, feminists, hippies, Indigenous activists, socialists, and environmentalists who tweaked the noses of the political elites and their business interests."