Rachel Notley and the NDP: fresh faces or ruin of Alberta?

In the spring of 2015, four work colleagues met for dinner at the Chateau Lacombe restaurant in downtown Edmonton.

It was a week before the May 5 provincial election and NDP Leader Rachel Notley had serious news to deliver about what the polls were suggesting.

"It looks really good," Education Minister David Eggen recalls Notley saying. "Just to let you know."

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In other words, the four incumbent NDP MLAs were being put on notice that the party might fare much better than conventional wisdom that suggested only five or six MLAs could be added to their caucus. They had to get used to the idea that, despite 44 consecutive years of Progressive Conservative rule, the NDP stood a chance of forming government.

Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Brian Mason smiles when reminded about the meeting.

"It was sort of the last time the old gang gets together and, you know, it's going to be different after that," he remembered.

Indeed it was. On election day, the NDP won 54 of 87 seats to form a majority government. The PCs were out of power for the first time in more than four decades..

Change comes fast 

Notley and her cabinet were sworn in before thousands of people on a hot, sunny day outside the legislative assembly.

Once they were sworn in, Notley and her cabinet immediately embarked on implementing some of the biggest changes Alberta had seen in decades.

The flat personal income tax that was a hallmark of former PC premier Ralph Klein's tenure? Gone. Corporate political donations, the fuel that fired the Tory machine for decades? Ended.

Notley and Wildrose official Opposition Leader Brian Jean announced an all-party committee would review the province's outdated conflict of interest and whistleblower laws.

The new government kept rolling out changes throughout 2015. There was the plan to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. A climate change policy would bring a carbon tax and funding for green infrastructure.

Notley apologized to indigenous people for Alberta's lack of action on residential schools. The government made it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on their gender identity and gender expression.

Notley herself has undergone a transformation. Now the only NDP premier in Canada, she has become one of the most outspoken proponents for a national oil pipeline.

Notley has focused her efforts on the Energy East and Trans Mountain pipeline extension. But recently she indicated she was open to taking a second look to the Northern Gateway pipeline to the west coast, a project she vehemently opposed just a year ago.

Exactly one year after taking office, Notley is facing her gravest challenge yet as premier: managing the aftermath of the massive fire in Fort McMurray that forced the evacuation of the entire city and levelled entire neighbourhoods.

'Kudatah'

But the breakneck pace of change has grated on some Albertans, unaccustomed to such a dramatic shift in government

Although NDP MLAs in the government were elected outside Edmonton and Calgary, people in rural areas, the traditional power base of the PCs, viewed Notley with suspicion.

The anger came to a head with the introduction of Bill 6, a law proposing to provide farm workers with Workers' Compensation coverage, while subjecting farms and ranches with paid workers to occupational health and safety rules.

The bill was widely interpreted in Alberta as a threat to traditional rural life and an infringement on family farms. Thousands of farmers and ranchers held protests across the province. Notley and some of her ministers received threats of death and violence on social media. In the end, the bill was amended to exempt family farms from the rules, as long as they don't have paid workers. 

The backlash also reared its head among supporters of George Clark, leader of a group called Albertans First, who first came to fame by asserting he would show up at the legislature and somehow compel Notley to step down. When someone on Facebook asked if this would be like a "kudatah," social media exploded.

That misspelling of the phrase coup d'etat has since become shorthand for anyone wanting to mock anti-NDP protesters who suggest unconventional ways to bring down the government.

Still, people on the right are still figuring out how to respond to the change in Alberta politics.. The vote split on the right that enabled some NDP candidates to win their seats has given rise to several groups who want to unite the Wildrose and PC parties or create a brand new conservative alternative.

For his part, Mason isn't surprised by the criticism. He says Alberta has been traditionally conservative but demographic changes mean Albertans tend to be younger and many are used to NDP governments from living in other provinces.

"Yes, there is a significant minority of people who have the traditional, very conservative views, but they are the minority now and it's hard for them to accept," Mason said. "We're not a party divorced from the demographic and social changes that are occurring in the province. We're the voice of those changes."

Oil price drop

The government has made its share of mistakes, and has had to postpone some campaign promises, including a pledge to eliminate some mandatory school fees.

Bill 6 is seen by many as a huge misstep. Mason concedes more consultation should have been done before rolling out the bill.

The dropping price of oil in resource-dependent Alberta has been the constant backdrop for the new government's first year in government.

Thousands of Albertans have lost their jobs. The NDP has faced criticism that policies like the new carbon tax have made a bad situation worse.

The government's ambitious infrastructure building plan is also alarming fiscal conservatives. David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada, was recruited to write a report that supported the NDP's aim to build roads, schools and bridges during a time of economic downturn.

But that construction, combined with an alarming 90-per-cent drop in resource revenues, means the government is borrowing billions.

The 2016 budget forecasts a debt of $57.6 billion by 2019, an eye-popping amount for a province that famously eliminated all its debt when Klein was premier.

Alberta's long-prized triple-A credit rating has been sacrificed in this effort to spark and diversify the economy.

Former PC deputy premier and finance minister Doug Horner says the amount of borrowing is a concern. While he understands why the government is going into debt, he hopes to see a plan soon for paying it back. 

He declined to comment on the credit downgrade, citing his vow not to comment on the performance of finance ministers that came after him.

"There are a lot of former finance ministers out there that are talking about things that they would do that they didn't do when they were in there," Horner said. "If they didn't do it when they were in there, why are they talking about it now?

"My criticism would be somebody from an armchair trying to do it today."

'Fitting into a blue coat'

The Notley government has also faced criticism for setting up the same partisan system as their PC predecessors. 

NDP partisans have been appointed to a variety of government positions. Many of the staff in the premier's office are from other provinces and have NDP connections. 

Former Edmonton Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman says she is shocked to see how her former opposition colleagues have "fit into a blue coat so comfortably."

Blakeman says the NDP used to complain when the Tories used parliamentary rules to their advantage, like limiting debate on bills. Now they are doing the same thing, Blakeman says.

"They know how hard that makes it for opposition to do a good job and to walk right in, keeping all exactly the same programs and rules and difficulties in place, and just adopt them as their own," Blakeman said, adding that "really shocked me. I expected better out of them."

Mason, the government house leader, says it was "gut-wrenching" when he had to invoke closure on Bill 6 last December. He explained that the legislature had already extended the fall sitting to accommodate the debate.

He remembers what he was once told by former PC premier Dave Hancock, his friend from university days and the Tory house leader for many years.

"It's also the government's responsibility to get its program through the house, and at some point you have to do that," Mason said.