No, Jagmeet Singh isn't Rachel Notley's boss. But their 'union' remains rivals' target

There was a time, a rather long time, when the Alberta NDP was little more than the labour unions' partisan mouthpiece, and the largely inconsequential cousins of the federal New Democrats.

With a more diverse — read: less union-centric — candidate roster and political positions that shuck much of what Jagmeet Singh's party stands for, the provincial NDP has arguably never been as independent from influence of its longstanding organizational partners as it is now.

And yet never before has the Alberta NDP faced such a torrent of rival accusations it's in thrall with organized labour, and had its relationship with the federal branch depicted as not cousin-cousin, but parent-child or master-slave.

Danielle Smith declares Singh is Rachel Notley's "boss" nearly every chance she gets: "I question whether she works for Albertans or whether she works for her federal leader," the UCP leader said at one campaign event. 

Marks against them

The jabs are rooted in some long-standing truths and technicalities. The Alberta NDP constitution does declare the party a branch of the Canadian party, and membership in one equals membership in the other.

And unions and the Alberta Federation of Labour have roles specified in the party's structure. Plus, there's the inescapable reality that Notley's husband Lou Arab worked with the Alberta division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees throughout her premiership, and continues to.

But these have been structural realities of the provincial NDP for decades. Ties with unions and the federal party have always come with benefits on the organizational and support side, along with headaches when big labour or Ottawa drags down the provincial party's reputation.

What's new in 2023 is the UCP leader's public focus on it. Jason Kenney and other past  Alberta conservatives loved to pin this or that left-of-Alberta federal remark on Notley's party — but the "boss" stuff is new.

Theoretically, yes, the constitutional structure of the Alberta NDP and other provincial counterparts holds that the federal branch is supreme. But there is no modern history of Singh or past leaders wielding the club to enforce obedience on a disagreeable faction of this pan-Canadian orange network.

Orange rebellion

More than four decades ago, Saskatchewan NDP premier Allan Blakeney clashed with then-federal leader Ed Broadbent. Ottawa abided by restiveness in the colonies.

The more recent examples of a Provincial Orange freely standing up to Big Orange belong to Notley. After fighting for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, she openly slammed Singh's opposition to the project, saying that he was thumbing his nose at the working people who relied on the energy economy. 

"To forget that and to throw them under the bus as collateral damage in pursuit of some other high level policy objective is a recipe for failure and it's also very elitist," she told the Edmonton Journal in 2018.

Notley swiped at Singh again Sunday on CTV's Question Period. She said she completely disagrees with the federal leader on ending support for oil and gas companies, and "this idea that we can just simply walk away from something that contributes such a large amount to our economy, not just in Alberta, but across Canada, on a point of principle."

There aren't too many disses outside of the energy file. Dismissiveness, more so.

Earlier this month, Notley said she last spoke with Singh six to 12 months ago — a long time to go without talking to one's supposed boss — and cannot remember what they spoke about. "Whether I am talking to the leader of the federal NDP, whether I am advocating in Ottawa, whether I am talking to New Democrats in B.C., Albertans know that I have always been quite ready to do whatever is necessary to stand up for the best interests of Albertans," she told reporters.

During elections, there's a perennial air drop of activists from the federal and other provincial NDP wings to lend campaign support — including Nathan Rotman, flown in from Ontario to be Notley's campaign manager. (Similarly, federal Conservative veteran Steve Outhouse temporarily moved from Ottawa to run Smith's campaign.)

Sure, there's plenty of points of commonality, the shared crusades in Alberta and Ottawa for a higher minimum wage and lower child-care fees. But look up and down Singh's support agreement with the Liberals and Justin Trudeau, and there's not a ton that checks both sides' boxes.

The provincial NDP isn't gung-ho on many of the federal party's priorities in its agreement with Trudeau, like pharma-care and dental care or an end to fossil-fuel subsidies. And when the two party factions speak of just transition alongside climate action, they seem to make different points.

In fact, the biggest bit of federal platform borrowing by Notley wasn't from Singh. Her promise to give families a tax credit for children's sports or arts activities was a page ripped from those reliable buddies, the Stephen Harper Conservatives.

But it's little surprise that Smith's team spotted a former federal NDP candidate in the disruptive protest at a UCP event and branded him a Notleyite. Despite intra-party differences, federal candidates still run provincially and vice versa, including candidates in this race in Maskwacis, Chestermere and Calgary–North East.

It used to be more routine for the Alberta NDP's candidate roster to be filled with local union stewards or labour leaders, especially to fill slates in low-hope ridings. Many surprise 2015 election winners came from those ranks.

But with the party's hopes ascendent in 2023, they've gotten more candidate recruits from outside their labour base. Even if Gil McGowan's AFL and major unions remain active players within the party, the diversified influences mean those are less likely to be the only voices Notley and her brain trust hear.

Again, Smith has raised concerns over long-standing relationships, including Notley's husband and the AFL's former role within her rival's party. "We should be very, very concerned about the influence on the NDP, not only of the unions that are embedded in their decision making process and their delegate status and choose their leader," Smith said recently, when deflecting a question about the unclear degrees of influence the group Take Back Alberta has on her party.

The Alberta NDP had to wean itself off of its heavy reliance on union donations eight years ago when Notley banned union and corporate contributions to parties. But both types of entities retained their power to spend heavily on elections with the third-party advertiser system.

Labour pains

Controversial reforms that Kenney passed have restrained the way union groups can participate in elections, but the UCP has lately raised alarms about the extent to which big labour is assisting Notley. Smith's party wants Elections Alberta to use those Kenney reforms as a cudgel against the AFL and unions, alleging they're breaking the new rules.

McGowan and others insist they're following the law, even if he brands what United Conservatives want to do with it as unconstitutional. "They're indignant that we found a way to legally exercise our free speech rights, despite their best efforts to shut us up and shut us down," the AFL leader said in a statement this week.

There are no doubt moments when some in Notley's inner circle wish their union affiliates and federal cousins would pipe down, and not occasionally force Alberta NDP to have to distance themselves from erstwhile allies.

But as long as Notley's party resists any formal dissolving of the ties that bind them to organized labour and every other politician in Canada attached to the NDP, it will have to take the good and bad of this solidarity forever.