Well here it goes, in approximately half a year, Jim Prentice has gone from private citizen, to Premier of Alberta. In and of itself, a significant accomplishment. He then proceeded to lead the PCAA to a sweep in September by-elections. Again, no small feet for a flailing party that had been leaderless for almost a year. But to turn those by-election victories into the events seen in Alberta this week is beyond shocking. The following series of tweets illustrate the remarkable change in fortunes for Prentice.
I teach my students to look at who benefits when analyzing historical, international, and current events. It's not a perfect science, financial gain is not always the prime motivator of human behaviour, but it often is. Further to this basic lens to politics, I've had two personal conversations with people who don't normally talk politics that caused me to think there might not be much more to this than the price of a barrel of oil.
Currently also flailing around $50 a barrel and likely to hit $40 before it returns to $70. The price of a barrel of crude oil is and has been for a long time the prime motivator for everything Alberta. Be it pathological hatred for all things Liberal Party (thank you very much Narional Energy Program), or where and when a new school is built, the price of a barrel of crude is king. That the price of oil is now invading our democratic legislative process is a serious concern.
Others have better laid out the exact timeline, but essentially the original financial backers of the Wild Rose Party, oil companies now longer have the funds to support an opposition party now that the PC's have gotten rid of those Red leaning Stelmach and Redford. Now that Jim Prentice has demonstrated and stated that he will incorporate most of Wild Rose Policy, why continue to fund the opposition. Given that in the words of NDP leader Rachel Notley, Alberta has its' first Wild Rose Party Premier, it was time to take the oil money out of the wild rose party. Danielle Smith and the other defectors to the pcaa are merely being the worst kind of ideologue. One that only cares about reelection.
