It was an April fool’s joke about Rachel Notley’s NDP but there was such a ring of truth to it that readers could be forgiven if they fell for it.

According to an Edmonton blogger, anonymous inside sources had told him the Alberta NDP was preparing to change the name of the party “to reflect the new political realities of Alberta and Canada.”

“Some of our strategists thought it would be a good idea if we could get the word ‘conservative’ or even ‘oil’ in there, or maybe just name the party after the provincial wild flower the Wild Rose,” wrote David Climenhaga, a communications adviser for the United Nurses of Alberta, who writes a political blog in his off hours .

Riffing on the NDP government’s turn to the right might not ring true with some Albertans, who spit out the word “socialists” when referring to Notley and her MLAs but it does echo the topsy turvy world of the NDP these days, not just in Alberta, but nationally.

It’s so topsy turvy that Notley sounds like arch-conservative and leader of the Alberta opposition, Jason Kenney, when she fiercely fights for the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline that will deliver tarsands oil from Alberta to tankers on the West Coast bound for Asia.

This is the NDP? Fighting on behalf of the oil industry, some of the richest corporations on the planet?

The B.C. NDP government led by John Horgan has also taken on a conservative tone. It sounds just like former Alberta conservative governments when it battles for provincial rights and keeps telling the federal government to butt out and leave it alone as it sets up obstacles to the federally approved pipeline.

Is it now Fortress B. C? Will it be a firewall next?

Whatever happened to the NDP’s plea for national unity through common understanding and negotiation?

And if you thought the NDP was somewhat anti-American, forget that.

In mid-March Horgan and Washington governor Jay Inslee got together in Vancouver and announced an alliance against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, particularly the increased tanker traffic it would bring to their shared coastlines.

Inslee, a Democrat, commended B.C. for leadership on climate protection. And then he said allowing Trans Mountain to proceed despite B.C.’s objections could be a decision that “shoots Canada in the foot” because it would reverse some of the work B.C. has done on climate protection.

Their alliance to protect their jurisdictions from oil tankers was somewhat puzzling, some would say hypocritical, given that oil tankers from Alaska already make their way down the West Coast to refineries in Washington. And in 2017, 28 per cent of Washington’s petroleum needs were filled by Alberta oil moved through the existing Trans Mountain pipeline.

The federal NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, adds even more confusion to an already murky policy platform.

He opposed the Trans Mountain pipeline when he was running for the party leadership. But after Notley told him he was “absolutely wrong” and had no influence in the matter anyway, Singh recanted. He now talks about both Notley and Horgan as great leaders and refuses to pick a side in the dispute.

Not surprisingly, neither Horgan nor Notley is calling on him for help.

At the same time Singh is being needled by his left flank, proponents of the Leap Manifesto, to take a much more radical stance. For the Leapers, which include Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, that means no new fossil fuel infrastructure projects: no new pipelines in other words.

How Singh is going to eventually resolve these differences is anyone’s guess. But for sure there will be no group portraits of these three NDP leaders anytime soon.

Which takes us back to the April fool’s joke about the Alberta NDP changing its name.

What is it exactly that the NDP stands for? It used to be crystal clear.

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But now that the party controls the reins of government in two powerful provinces it’s not so clear anymore.

Apparently power corrupts in all sorts of ways.

Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald. Her column appears every other week. gsteward@telus.net

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