It is traditional at this time for year for prophets, prognosticators and political pundits to make predictions about what dramatic events the coming year will hold.
This is a relatively safe activity. After all, there are new stories every day in what we used to innocently call “the news business,” that quaint notion that you could make a living writing about what had happened the day before.
After all, by the time it’s late December again, almost everyone will have forgotten what you predicted, and those who don’t are just negative nellies who are of no account anyway – so unless I got something right, there’s no need to remind me about it!
And while it may no longer be possible to make a decent living reporting the news, the tradition of oracular New Year’s journalism, charmingly, lives on – augmented by the entertaining idea of the Top Ten list, pioneered by late-night talk show hosts.
Call me a nihilist, but I thought I’d turn that tradition on its head this year and predict the Top Ten things that are not going to happen in Alberta politics next year:
No. 10: Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government will not change human rights legislation to protect the unvaccinated. Actually, we already knew this. Premier Smith admitted in November it’s easier just to bully organizations with vaccine mandates into dropping them. Still, it’s always good to start a list like this with something you’re confident can’t be proved wrong.
No. 9: United Conservative Party unity. Premier Smith says her UCP legislative caucus is working like a well-oiled machine with nothing but the 2023 provincial election in mind. While it’s undoubtedly true caucus members are doing little but trying to figure out how to win an election with Smith in command, the prospect of an election is about the only thing holding them together at this point. Most likely, that will not last.
No. 8: There will not be any train from Calgary to Banff, except for regular Canadian Pacific freights passing through on their way to Vancouver. This hardy perennial springs up almost every year, foolish investors part with their dollars, and in the autumn, the leaves fall and winter comes again. Chances are, there will never again be a passenger train from Calgary to Banff.
No. 7: An Alberta Provincial Police Force will not replace the RCMP as Alberta’s provincial police force in 2023. It’s too complicated, too expensive, and too unpopular. Yes, Smith and the Take Back Alberta fools who run the UCP nowadays would love to have a tame police force, but actually moving ahead with this before the government is re-elected would cause a rebellion in caucus (see No. 9).
No. 6: The UCP government will not drop out of the Canada Pension Plan and set up an Alberta Pension Plan. Nor will it hand all the dough over to the Alberta Investment Management Corp. to sink into cryptocurrency. Nope! If you thought dumping the RCMP would piss off elderly voters, wait till you see what fooling with their pensions would do. So this scheme has to wait for an election too.
No. 5: The Smith government will not implement yearly health spending accounts, no matter how parsimonious, at least until after the election. First, it would cost a billion dollars or more. Second, because the whole point of the exercise is to introduce co-pays, user fees and delisting to public health care. That just might get Alberta cut off from federal health care funds – all very well when you’re a group of half a dozen right-wing college wankers spit-balling Big Ideas, but a whole different matter when you have to get reelected from time to time.
No. 4: The Smith government’s relationship with Treaty 6 First Nations will not be renewed, in 2023, or in all probability, for the life of this government. Smith burned that bridge to the ground when she introduced her Sovereignty Act without First Nations being consulted. Both the previous NDP Government and former UCP premier Jason Kenney worked hard to build trust with Treaty Nations. Smith destroyed that in two months. Cute stories and fake bonhomie will not repair that damage.
No. 3: There will not be any kind of meaningful review of Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith’s promises to her Q-adjacent anti-vaccine supporters notwithstanding. A “task force,” maybe. But everybody understands a “task force” is just a fig leaf for the introduction of policies a government already plans. An inquiry under the Inquiries Act? Forget it. It couldn’t be done without breaking that law, and an inevitable defeat in the courts.
No. 2: The Sovereignty Act will not be used in 2023. After all, unused, it’s a talking point to keep the UCP base on their side and be safely ignored by everyone else. Using it would split the caucus, already uncomfortable with the idea (for good reason), as this year’s leadership campaign showed, drive voters in Calgary to the NDP, and spell an early defeat for the government in court.
And the No. 1 reason none of these things won’t happen in 2023, even the ones that could plausibly be done after an election, especially if more radical Take Back Alberta MLAs get in and fewer real Conservatives with connections to urban voters do?
The No. 1 reason these things will not happen next year is …
There will not be an Alberta election in 2023!
There! It’s an official prediction. There won’t be an Alberta election, at least, if the polls don’t say the UCP can win it. And I’m pretty sure that the longer Premier Smith is in power, the less likely a UCP victory is going to be.
Of course, I will be delighted to be proved wrong about this and see the election called as promised. But don’t bet the farm, or even a modest Edmonton condo, on an election being held on May 29, 2023.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
