Re: “Kenney, UCP romp to majority,” April 17.
Alberta premier-designate Jason Kenney masterfully and without scruple exploited the frustration of Albertans with their economy and their feeling that it must be someone else’s fault, most particularly the straw man Justin Trudeau.
But on almost all of his promises, he will be unable to deliver because the price of oil will be set by global forces and particularly the U.S. in our case, even if the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion were built; the building of the pipelines is outside Alberta’s jurisdiction and will be determined by the courts and the market; the inter-provincial equalization payments formula is set by the federal government, most recently by the gung-ho-on-oil Harper government while Kenney was in the cabinet; cutting off oil to B.C. is probably unconstitutional and would hurt Alberta producers while being a pinprick to B.C. because of U.S. substitution; and for similar reasons, he is likely to lose the battle with the federal government over the carbon tax in court.
He wants to water down environmental assessments — we’ve seen where that got us in the past.
Kenney and his supporters are living in the past of everlasting giddy oil prices, no global warming and not taking responsibility for the future. Kenney has set Alberta up to squander crucial time and fading oil resources. He will put it in a yet-deeper economic hole and damage the country as a whole with regressive, divisive and futile policies.
Rob Garrard
Victoria
