Will Avi Lewis, the new national NDP leader elected on the weekend, do for the Alberta NDP what Justin Trudeau did for the Alberta Liberals?
From 1993 until 2012, the Liberals were the official opposition in the Alberta legislature. Then anti-Alberta, anti-oil Trudeau became federal Liberal leader and the provincial party’s fortunes plummeted.
By the 2023 election (the most recent one), the provincial Liberals could recruit candidates in just 13 of Alberta’s 87 constituencies and earn just 0.2 per cent of the poplar vote. Not only did they finish behind the UCP and NDP, they were also behind the Greens, the Alberta party, the Independence party and even the ultra-fringy Solidarity Movement – the party of anti-vaxxers.
The unpopularity of Trudeau, the federal leader, damaged the provincial party among provincial voters.
So will the new NDP leader, Lewis, who has proposed a nearly immediate shutdown of all oil and gas operations, plus “free and fast public transit, public high-speed rail, and inter-community electric bus service,” plus a return of the Liberals’ EV mandate, be as much of an albatross around the neck of Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi as Trudeau was to the Alberta Liberal leader, whatever his name was?
Lewis is, after all, much more anti-Alberta and anti-oil than even Trudeau was.
My favourite Lewis-ism is his plan to place grocery stores under government ownership and management.
courtasy of Co-pilot yahoo news
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