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The NDP is not socialist, and its political center of gravity — the dominant forces within it — argue for a fairer distribution of wealth, modest extension of social programs (themselves soundly attacked by the hardline, austerity-driven neoliberal government of Stephen Harper), opposition to some of the more authoritarian elements of the ruling Conservative agenda, and limits to the pipelines that would send tar sands oil to the US for refining.

They in no way oppose the entire oil and gas extractive economy, challenge the power of the financial sector, or look to end the free trade regime which facilitates much of Canadian neoliberalism. Like many such parties, the leader and those around him make most of the policies, and Tom Mulcair — the current leader — is an adept campaigner and parliamentarian, but is no socialist. He is moderate, careful, and seeks to balance different forces within the party.

There is an “old guard” that opposed Mulcair’s leadership. It had closer ties to top labor leaders and led the party for the past generation. There are few policy differences between these groups, and they settled in quite nicely behind Mulcair. Much of the NDP’s electoral support is in Quebec and urban centers in central Canada.

There is no substantial left within the party, although there is a minority of left social democrats who are increasingly nervous about the party’s unwillingness to tax the wealthy, challenge austerity, free trade, finance, or the oil and gas industry. They have little power and less voice in the party, which, although it has several policy conferences, uses them as safety valves and window dressing. In Alberta, most of the left has either worked with or supported the provincial NDP over the years, given the near-total dominance of right-wing parties and interest groups and the lack of any substantial left-wing political current.

The labor movement, through the Canadian Labour Congress, provincial federations, and individual union affiliates, remains in alliance with the party, but the unions often practice forms of strategic voting in order to keep the dreaded Conservatives out of office. Many unions remain the foot soldiers for NDP election campaigns, but the organic unity of the pre-neoliberal period is somewhat frayed, in the face of austerity and the employer onslaught in the private and public sectors.

The Alberta NDP is, like all provincial NDPs, independent of the federal party. They tend to have a more moderate platform, given the intense power and influence of the oil and gas elites and the over-five-decade dominance of conservative politics and ideology in that province (which is also home to Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives).

I’m not all that familiar with the inner workings of the Alberta party, other than its attraction of a number of young, working-class and professional candidates, and its platform. However, the team of advisers who organized the party’s electoral victory included many of the centrist-oriented political operatives who worked to elect the so-called “Orange Crush” campaign of the late Jack Layton in the 2011 federal election. They are noted for crafting “safe” electoral messages.

In the recent election, it called for a public reconsideration of the royalty levels paid to the province by oil and gas companies; raising corporate taxes by 2 percent; raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2018; increasing rates of taxation on the wealthiest Albertans; and locally refining more of the oil extracted from the province (and ending experiments with coal carbon capture). It called for using funds originally intended for carbon capture technology development to be used for public transit; Alberta currently has the lowest corporate tax rates in Canada and has no provincial sales tax.

The new premier, Rachel Notley, is the daughter of a former party leader and led a dogged and impressive campaign to win a majority, with a caucus that includes many young and inexperienced members. Though she supports the Energy East pipeline project, which would bring millions of barrels of tar sands crude oil to refineries in eastern Canada, she has thus far refused to travel around the US to sell plans for it.