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Kenney wins landslide in Alberta against carbon tax: vows War Room against energy activists

Yet another big win against carbon taxes: Abbott, Trump, Ford and now Kenney

Alberta, Canada

Provinces of Canada.

The first pledge was to get rid of the carbon tax. The victory was a scorching 63 to 24 seats, or 55% to 32%.

Alberta is a conservative province of Canada with 4 million people. It’s wealthy from oil, gas and agriculture. (It’s not that different to Queensland and WA.). Jason Kenney is on a mission to get the province back from environmental zealots: fergoodnesssake, he even vowed to set up a ‘War Room’ against energy activists.

The greens were the main target and the people said “Yes”.

Conservatives win big victory in Alberta, Canada

The right-leaning United Conservative Party (UCP) has taken power in the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta, routing the left-leaning NDP.

It was a landslide victory:

Canadian Flag

…Kenney defeated center-left incumbent Rachel Notley, 55, whose New Democratic Party snapped four decades of conservative rule in 2015. His UCP won 63 seats in the provincial legislature, against 24 for Notley’s NDP,

He’s vowed to get stalled pipelines built, scrap the province’s carbon tax, and create a “war room” to hit back at anti-oil-sands campaigners. He also pledged to cut corporate taxes and balance the province’s books in his first term.

— Kevin Orland, Bloomberg

The Rachel Notley New Democratic government was a one term wonder in Alberta:

The United Conservative Party’s win will mark a sharp turn in the province’s environmental policy. The NDP introduced a number of stringent climate measures in 2015 that included the province’s first ever economy-wide carbon tax. Kenney has promised to repeal that tax as one of his first policy moves after taking power.

 

First order of business to get rid of the carbon tax

After it’s gone, Trudeau will force a federal one on Alberta, and Kenney will oppose that in court:

CTV News

Throughout his campaign, Kenney said his first order of business would be to introduce the Carbon Tax Repeal Act. The move would cancel the province’s current carbon pricing program to eventually replace it with a new system targeting large emitters of greenhouse gases.

“He’s going to cancel Alberta’s carbon tax and that obviously leaves the floor open then for the federal government’s carbon tax to apply to Alberta,” Stewart said.

If Kenney’s government doesn’t come up with a new carbon levy that is satisfactory to Ottawa, the federal government will respond by imposing its own price as it has done in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

However, Kenney has pledged to follow those other provinces’ lead and take the federal government to court to challenge the constitutionality of the climate change plan.

Lawyers 1, environment 0.

Why not just have a referendum on the carbon tax? Might be cheaper.

What do voters want? Jobs and a healthy economy.

Background: The winning party, the UCP was only formed in 2017, albeit as a quasi merger of the main Progressive Conservative party with a smaller one. Jason Kenney was a federal minister, and considered a potential candidate to take over from Stephen Harper. But he left to lead the Alberta Progressive Conservatives with the intent of forming the new UCP. The Progressive Conservatives had previously held government for an amazing 44 years in a row until 2015.

Curiously: Rachel Notley was a lawyer. Jason Kenney studied philosophy til he disagreed with his university and left without graduating.

h.t Pat, Pauly, GWPF

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