Socialist Progressives

http://www.thenation.com/blog/206609/social-democracy-prairie-canadians-teach-us-how-beat-austerity

Local factors—corruption scandals associated with the outgoing conservative government, turbulence in the energy industry and growing concern about damage done to the environment by pipeline projects—all shaped a historic result. But nothing did more to steer the province leftward than frustration with what the NDP condemned as “deeper austerity measures and budget cuts.”

The same penchant for balancing budgets by attacking public employees and public services that has been seen in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin and Sam Brownback’s Kansas has been on display in Alberta. And as the election approached, the governing Progressive Conservative party proposed more cuts.

Ripping the conservatives for targeting education and healthcare, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley positioned herself the NDP as the alternative to austerity cuts. The Alberta NDP’s manifesto called for investments in public services paid for by hiking corporate tax rates, for a review of the royalties oil companies pay to the province with an eye toward assuring that the people get their fair share, and for a ban on corporate contributions to political parties. That willingness to challenge corporate hegemony even extended to criticizing particular pipeline projects.

Notley said during the campaign that she would no longer lobby—as previous premiers of Alberta have—for US approval of the controversial KeystoneXL pipeline. She also said she would withdraw provincial support for the equally controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project because “there’s genuine concerns by the indigenous communities” and because “I think from an environmental point of view, it’s a problem.”