Article content continued

And he is not stupid. The NDP government, always improbable, is deeply unpopular — one recent poll put the UCP ahead, 55 to 19 — and in all probability needs only a halfway presentable opposition to defeat it. Kenney offered little in the way of concrete policy proposals on the way to victory, beyond boilerplate fiscal conservatism. I suspect this will continue: he is unlikely to give any emphasis to social issues, in particular, however much the NDP will try to do so on his behalf. He does not need to — social conservatives, as much as fiscal conservatives, already know he’s their guy — and has all the latitude he needs to reach out to centrist voters.

What he will do, it seems clear, is continue the belligerent defence of Alberta’s interests — against radical environmental activists, against the federal government, and against certain other provinces — that was a feature of the leadership campaign. Kenney was not alone in striking this stance during the leadership race, and there is every reason to think he reflects the public mood in Alberta.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

It isn’t just the oil price collapse, from which the province is still recovering (unemployment is down from its peak a year ago, but still well above the national average). It’s the acute sense that, at the very moment the province is most vulnerable, the rest of the country is conspiring to hold it back. Provincial grievance politics, of the kind practiced most places in this godforsaken country, is often little more than cheap grandstanding. In Alberta, at present, it is almost entirely valid.