The federal Conservative party’s majority victory is good news for Alberta, several local provincial politicians say.
Barrhead-Westlock-Morinville MLA Ken Kowalski said Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s majority mandate will now enable him to proceed with the business of governing without having to worry about an election around the corner.
“I think that was an outstanding result. He’s got a truly national mandate; good for him,” Kowalski said.
A political opponent of Kowalski’s, the riding’s Wildrose Alliance candidate Link Byfield, disagrees with Kowalski on some key issues but echoed his enthusiasm for the federal Conservatives. “I can’t imagine a better result even if we could design it. You’ve got a very strong conservative government with a genuine margin of majority against a very fractured and divided opposition,” he said.
The May 2 election saw the Conservatives get 167 seats and the NDP net 102. The Liberals won 34, while the Bloc Quebecois earned just four and the Green Party claimed one.
Harper, a former Reform Party candidate and the representative for Calgary, is widely perceived as a staunch defender of Alberta, and this province is one of his strongholds.
An immediate example of a benefit to Albertans, Kowalski said, is that prior to the election there was a private members’ bill before the House of Commons that would have banned oil tanker traffic on Canada’s Pacific coast.
That proposal would have hurt Alberta, he said, because of the province’s long-term plan to pipe oil to the coast where it can be shipped to Asian markets, such as Japan, China and India.
“In a minority government, you literally could have a private member’s bill pass. With a majority government, you don’t have to worry about that, because it was an opposition bill,” he said.
Kowalski also noted that with a firm majority over the NDP opposition, Albertans would no longer have to worry about what obstacles would be put in front of Alberta’s oil-based economy.
“Mr. Layton talked about the Alberta ‘tar sands,’ first of all, to put it in a negative orientation. Secondly, they want the cap and trade stuff that would have completely overtaxed the energy resource not only of Alberta, but of B.C. and Saskatchewan as well,” he said.
Those measures, which Kowalski said would stifle Alberta’s economic development, are not likely to be implemented with a Conservative majority.
“They understand we have to have sustainable economic development,” he said. “I think we’ve got a greater opportunity for economic revival than we’ve had in a long time, and that’s important because Alberta is the engine that drives the Canadian economy.”
Kowalski also said the balance of power in Canada had shifted dramatically with the decimation of both the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, which is another big benefit for Albertans as it will put a whole new light on Canadian politics.
Byfield said he was also happy about the results for the Bloc, but said he thought it would likely provoke another round of independence talks, since such a large portion of the NDP’s seats are in Quebec.
“Layton’s in trouble, and I think he knows it,” he said. “He’s got this incredible caucus of neophytes who know nothing, most of whom come from Quebec and are de facto sovereigntists as they always are. It’s a matter of degree, but they’re all sovereigntists to some degree and they act accordingly.”
Although a Conservative majority means they won’t have to “pander” to the rest of the country so much, Byfield said, Albertans ought to be cautious to avoid two distinct errors.
“We could make two mistakes,” he said. “One is that we get everything we’ve ever wanted and the other one will be to assume it makes no real difference.”
For his own political aspirations, Byfield said the Conservative majority could bode well for him. When the federal Conservatives’ fate was uncertain, it was a “knee-jerk reaction” to vote Conservative provincially, as well. “People often assume they work quite closely together; they assume quite wrongly,” he said.
With a strong federal Conservative government, Byfield said he expects Albertans will be more willing to vote for change at the provincial level. That election, however, is not expected to take place until the spring of 2013.
