While announcing its full election platform on Sunday, the Alberta NDP sold itself as a for-all-Albertans party and coloured the UCP platform as divisive and beneficial to only the province’s wealthiest.
"The platform that I am releasing today builds on the work of the last four years," NDP Leader Rachel Notley said Sunday while speaking at the Belgravia Community League in Edmonton.
Her platform focuses on the economy and families first, she would tell the crowd, while also criticizing UCP Leader Jason Kenney’s platform as a “plan for failure” and “a mistake.”
Strengthening the economy
Notley said a reelected NDP government would prioritize making the economy stronger by bringing in $75 billion in private investment and 70,000 new jobs by 2030. According to the party, investments would allow for the expansion of Alberta’s refining, upgrading and petrochemical production facilities, as well as the technology and film industries.
Pipeline capacity wasn’t forgotten in the 44-page party platform. Notley said she would continue pressuring the federal government for approval and construction of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. While doing so, the party plans to fully launch the One-Stop application, a web portal by the Alberta Energy Regulator where applications for pipelines, reclamation certificates and performance and leak reports can be submitted.
The NDP platform, just like the UCP’s, relies heavily on an oil and gas resurgence.
However, the NDP's $750-million committment to rail cars is a very different approach than the UCP's, which focuses on cutting costs.
"Mr. Kenney is stranding our oil, producers, and our jobs," Notley said on Sunday.
"It's a compilation of failed, old ideas that got Alberta into a whole heap of trouble in the first place. It is a race to the bottom."
The NDP would also establish the Alberta Regulatory Competitive Task Force, made of industry members and led by the department of energy, to streamline the regulatory process for energy projects.
In the form of another online portal, the party promised to set up a system for agriculture producers to access government programs and services.
Improvements to public services
Among many health care commitments, Notley said her party would reduce surgery and emergency wait times, revamp emergency room procedure so responders spent less time in hospital, and add 2,000 long-term care and dementia beds for seniors.
The party outlined plans to address mental health and addiction care, including pilot mental health clinics in Edmonton and Calgary and a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers to recoup the costs of the opioid crisis.
As for the education system, the NDP said there would be funding for enrollment growth and that it would make the Classroom Improvement Fund permanent.
Previously, the party had promised an expansion of the $25-a-day child care pilot program. On Sunday, the NDP reiterated its commitment to accessible and affordable child care.
It also made promises to increase consumer rights for mobile park home owners, at auto repair shops and in door-to-door sales, and worker protections for sub-contractors and professional artists.
Community commitments
The NDP said it would continue work it started to make Alberta more welcoming and safe for cultural groups. That includes more language programs in schools, a new Ministry of Multiculturalism, and a push for Canada to allow more newcomers who wish to reunite with their family.
The platform also took a firm stance in supporting LGBTQ2S+ Albertans, saying it would ban conversion therapy and form a provincial unit to investigate LGBTQ2S+ hate crimes.
Rural Albertans were told they could expect high-speed internet within 10 years and the creation of a program called Hometown Alberta, through which they could renovate aging recreation centres.
The party also said, if elected, it would negotiate a new fiscal relationship with Indigenous peoples. While the platform promised drinking water infrastructure would reach waiting reserves faster, the NDP did not provide details on a new schedule.
Funding support was also outlined for police and rural Crime Watch initiatives.
Finally, the party reaffirmed goals to phase out coal generation while growing electricity generation to 30 per cent by 2030.
Budget balanced by 2023
The NDP’s promises were made alongside a commitment to maintain fiscal targets Notley first outlined as premier.
“We are proud that our plan and our priorities keep Alberta on track to balance. And we are proud that we will get to balance while making life more affordable,” the NDP platform reads.
Last month, the government projected the provincial deficit for 2018-2019 would be $6.9 billion.
The February fiscal report said the province was still on track to have a balanced budget by 2023-2024.
However, the United Conservatives has expressed doubt the NDP can make so many promises while balancing the budget.
"We can't continue to spend at this rate," UCP House Leader Jason Nixon said.
"The UCP has put forward clear plans on how we can be able to hold the line and protect our services, but then also start to get control of our fiscal situation."
On Saturday, the UCP announced its full policy platform, promising to move Alberta into a $714-million surplus by 2023.
Notley called the projection a “fiscal fairytale.”
