Blueprint for NDP Surge in Alberta: Premier's Council Report

Well.

NDP supporters are pretty happy.

They have succeeded in obliterating the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, and suddenly enjoy a new federal legitimacy as the official opposition in Ottawa.

However, flying under the radar is the real story.

The NDP have slowly, but surely, captured control of the economic engine of Canada..  Alberta.

Oh, sure, the "official" name of the Government is the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, but, when you look a little deeper, you will see that there has been a slow, but sure, move from a Conservative government under Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein, to the current incarnation, which is NDP in all respects but in name only.

Which, perhaps, was the plan all along.

The NDP "brand" would be a tough sell in Alberta.. we like to think of ourselves as independent and hard-working, eschewing the ideology of government control and intervention in our lives.

But, apparently, we like the REALITY of NDP ideology.  Huge, burgeoning civil service, massive government spending and intervention into all aspects of our lives.

And if the recently released report of the Premier's Counsel on Economic Strategy is any indicator, we will be taking steps in this Province that would make Olivia Chow blush.

Go ahead and have a read.

Sure - on the surface it appears to be a sort of "business plan" for the future, but the problem is that it's a plan premised upon the government controlling business.  And everything else.

Remember government effort in expanding our economy through investing in NovAtel cell phones, or Gainers?

Well, get ready for much, much more of that.

Oh.

And if you think Universal Daycare is just for Ken Dryden's federal Liberals, well, get ready for that as well..  the strategy doesn't exactly propose that - but reading between the lines, it's a pretty good warm-up for the subtle sales job coming soon.

Don't you know that:

"A dollar invested in early childhood yields three times as much as a dollar invested in school-aged children, and eight times as much as a dollar for adult education." 

This comment with a slick little graph appears in the Executive Summary, without any explanation as to why it's even there.
 
Of course it's a little more apparent in the full report - although, again, it talks in generalities about the importance of addressing the needs of our "children" - the word child or children appearing 56 times in the report.
 
Be wary of a government who calls itself "conservative" but lays out plans that look like they were taken from Hillary Clinton's "It Takes A Village".
 
But maybe it's just me.
 
Maybe my disappointment in the metamorphosis of the PC Party into what I see as the de facto NDP Party of Alberta has colored my judgment.
 
Maybe I should ask what other's think about the plan - people outside of Alberta.. like, say, Terence Corcoran.  He was born in Montreal, went to Carleton University, and is the Editor of the Financial Post in Toronto. What's Terry's take on the Premier's Council Report?
 
Well, this:

Ah, Alberta. Home of rugged conservative free-market-loving individualists, low taxes and a right-to-do-business credo that likes to keep big government at bay. On the other hand, we've just received a report from the Alberta Premier's Council on Economic Strategy, a 100-page lexicon of babbling agit-policy and jargon that aims to wipe out most of what has come to be known as "the Alberta advantage."


The council headed by former politician and corporate executive David Emerson, last week delivered a series of recommendations that call for, among other things, tax increases of up to 30%, more government intervention, a new sovereign slush fund, bureaucratic control over core investment decisions, carbon pricing, more regulation, central planning — all the stuff a good market-oriented province doesn’t need and shouldn’t want.

Really?
 
So.
 
I'm not alone.
 
The conservative ideals that helped mark this Province as a leader of not only Canada, but of North America, are at serious risk under our current government.

The Alberta Government keeps coming up with ever newer ideas of how to wipe the noses of Albertans, and all it takes is a few more civil servants manning a desk in Edmonton to put together the plan and monitor the so-called "progress". 
 
Until recently I sat on a legislative review committee and reviewed new legislation by the bushel - this is a government that is addicted to control of it's people and their property - and there is no end in site.  And this new report is a clear indicator of things to come.
 
More government spending.. massive government spending.
 
And higher taxes.
 
And when you ask "why", you get the liberal.. err.. NDP response that "it's for the children".
 
Terence Corcoran summed it up perfectly:

"Say goodbye to the Alberta advantage."

P.S.:  If you think the graphic at the top of my blog is an exaggeration, and that the NDP surge will never take hold in Alberta, take a stroll over to Premier-in-waiting Gar Mar's new website - http://garymar.ca/

Can you say Jack Layton Orange?