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Doug Ford likes pipelines.

That’s the end of the good news for Premier Rachel Notley.

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For her, Ford’s success is a five-alarm warning that a populist wave could swamp Alberta in the election next spring.

It’s been a strong possibility since Alberta’s conservative parties united. Now, the UCP has a potent role model.

Leader Jason Kenney certainly sees the future in this new Ontario premier who wasn’t the ghost of a possibility three months ago.

Ford didn’t even lead the fractured PC Party until March 10. He remains vague about details. Despite promises, the new premier never delivered a platform detailing costs.

But he won anyway — 76 seats, for an all-powerful majority over the NDP, which captured 40.

Notley has also lost a major ally, exiting premier Kathleen Wynne, on issues like carbon pricing and climate change policy. Ford doesn’t believe in any of it.

Wildly energized, Kenney’s UCP crew rushed out a long, ecstatic statement minutes after Ford was declared the victor.

The election means “we will have a huge new ally in the next government of Ontario,” said Kenney.

He adds some of the populist, anti-elite rhetoric that resonates from Europe to the U.S. and now Ontario.

The election is “a repudiation of Ontario’s liberal elites who spent months viciously attacking the Ontario PC Party and its leader Doug Ford,” Kenney said.

“The same sort of attacks that your new United Conservative Party faces every day from the increasingly angry and intolerant voices of the left.”

Then came the request “for a small donation or whatever you can afford.”

There will be much more of this. It’s working.