'There is another reason for the NDP to introduce legislation and have a spring sitting before calling an election: to buy time. Not time for the economy to recover and/or a pipeline to get built (that might take years) but for Alberta’s Election Commissioner to dig further into the UCP’s 2017 leadership race.'

Jeff Callaway, former president of the Wildrose Party, entered the UCP leadership race in August 2017. A complaint filed with Alberta’s election commissioner alleges his bid was a stalking horse campaign to attack Brian Jean as a way to help the eventual winner, Jason Kenney. (JENNIFER FRIESEN / FOR STARMETRO)

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley will absolutely call a provincial election next week — unless, of course, she doesn’t.

And at this point it’s looking increasingly like she will wait. Or will she?

Welcome to the intense and exhausting world that is the on-again-off-again pre-election speculation in Alberta.

Trying to figure out exactly when Notley will call the election isn’t merely an existential debate over political angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Whether Notley calls the election next week or waits, and has a spring sitting of the legislature, will tell us much about the NDP election strategy.

Notley has already announced the spring legislative sitting will start Monday afternoon with a Speech from the Throne. The conventional wisdom has been that after the speech — which will be so warm and fuzzy you could wear it to bed — Notley would call the election.

Perhaps Monday afternoon. Or maybe Tuesday morning.

But now the government is talking about actually holding a spring sitting and introducing new legislation. It’s working on a Bill 1: the Protection of Public Health Care Act.

The act would, among other things, get tough on extra billing by doctors and stop queue-jumping of diagnostic imaging services such as MRIs.

As Bill 1s go, it sounds pretty anemic, especially compared to previous examples of NDP primary bills that, among other things, ended political contributions from corporations and unions and targeted job creation while diversifying the economy.

But with the province possibly sliding into another recession, the NDP would love to make health care an issue rather than a campaign that seems set to focus on pipelines, pipelines, pipelines with a side helping of deficit, debt and a high unemployment.

That was why New Democratic hearts must have skipped a beat when they saw to their delight Kenney make health care something of an issue last month as he signed a giant cardboard “guarantee” to maintain a universal, publicly funded health care system.

And then Kenney, in NDP eyes at least, undermined that promise by announcing this month that a UCP government would scrap plans for a publicly run $590-million medical “superlab” in Edmonton. The UCP would instead contract out the lab testing work to the private sector.

“(New Democrats) are just ideologically hostile to the idea of the private sector delivering services more efficiently on behalf of the government,” said Kenney.

And the gloves, latex and otherwise, were off.

The NDP began working on Bill 1 as a way to reinforce the government’s commitment to health care (and the public sector union workers who deliver that care) as well as setting something of a trap for Kenney. The NDP is hoping Kenney will fight the bill, thus making himself into an enemy of public health care.

If only it was that easy.

Kenney might very well vote in favour of the bill.

But there is another reason for the NDP to introduce legislation and have a spring sitting before calling an election: to buy time.

Not time for the economy to recover and/or a pipeline to get built (that might take years) but for Alberta’s Election Commissioner to dig further into the UCP’s 2017 leadership race.

That’s the race that Kenney won, of course, to become leader of the party that he helped build from the ashes of the old Progressive Conservative party and the Wildrose.

There have been complaints that one of the candidates in the race, Jeff Callaway, was little more than a paper “kamikaze” candidate whose job was to attack candidate Brian Jean and thus allow Kenney to float above the campaign fray.

In recent weeks, the Election Commissioner has issued fines against several people with the Callaway campaign for obstructing the investigation and/or breaking financing rules.

Last week, Randy Kerr, who had been an official with the Callaway campaign, was suddenly dropped as the UCP candidate in Calgary Beddington after the party said he hadn’t been “forthright” regarding his financial contributions to the Callaway campaign.

As well, independent MLA Prab Gill (formerly a UCP caucus member) has written the RCMP alleging voter fraud in the leadership race.

Lawyers for Kenney and the UCP sent Gill a cease-and-desist letter last month calling his statements “outrageous and plainly false” — and pointing out Gill was booted from the UCP last year after an internal party investigation concluded he had stuffed ballots in a local party vote.

Both Kenney and Callaway have denied any wrongdoing in the leadership race. But questions remain and the NDP is interested in exploiting the issue.

The NDP now appears to be contemplating introduction of a Bill 1 and holding a legislative session to buy time, hoping the Election Commissioner finds more answers, before calling the election.

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