This might not be the end of the Alberta NDP government — but you can see it from here.

Rachel Notley says she is angry.

That’s an understatement.

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When it comes to Thursday’s court decision revoking approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, she is furious.

“Alberta has done everything right and we have been let down,” she said during a special live-TV news conference Thursday aimed at the supper-hour newscasts. Like many in Alberta, Notley was caught completely by surprise and was pointing a finger of blame in many directions.

“The combined result of the actions taken by the Harper government, the current federal government, the National Energy Board, and the Federal Court of Appeal means that the current state of affairs in Canada is such that building a pipeline to tidewater is practically impossible.”

Notley doesn’t get easily rattled. But she was Thursday.

She was so rattled she used a teleprompter during her news conference. That might not seem strange but it is exceptional for someone as polished as Notley. (She has never, to my knowledge, used a teleprompter for something as workaday as a legislature news conference.)

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In a phone call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier in the day, Notley demanded he recall Parliament to deal with what has become an economic crisis for Alberta and a political disaster for her own government.

She also wants Trudeau to appeal Thursday’s decision to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, she is withdrawing Alberta from the federal climate plan (and federal carbon tax), a move that’s largely symbolic since Alberta already has a carbon tax.

But Notley wants Ottawa to know just how fed up she has become.

And she wants Albertans to know she is willing to fight everybody to get the pipeline built.

The fate of her government is at stake.

Notley had pinned the credibility of her government’s carbon tax and its climate leadership plan on getting the pipeline project under construction before the Alberta election expected in May.

It was to be the one of the biggest planks in her election platform.

Now the United Conservative Party would be happy to add the plank to its post-election victory bonfire.

“I think Albertans have a right to be angry and frustrated,” said UCP Leader Jason Kenney. “They were promised that if we just respected the rule of law and did everything by the book, and if we paid the punitive carbon tax, we would get a pipeline built and start getting a fair price for our oil. That has not happened.”

Kenney ’ s statement sounded strangely similar to Notley’s except for the “punitive carbon tax” bit.

The difference is that while Kenney wants the pipeline project to proceed, he doesn’t want it to happen while the NDP is in power.

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The court ruling is bad for the Notley government, the provincial treasury and the Alberta economy, not to mention investor confidence. It is very good news for the UCP as it prepares for a provincial election.

Without a pipeline project, you might as well bury the NDP’s chances in one of the trenches that was supposed to house Trans Mountain’s steel pipe.

Not that there are any trenches being dug, come to think of it.

The project had become so tied up by delays in British Columbia, both by protesters and by the B.C. government, that steel pipe wasn’t scheduled to be in the ground until early next year.

Now the construction schedule has become confetti again.

The court decision was such a shock because the project had cleared 17 previous legal challenges. This time, the court ruled the federal government did not fulfil its obligations to consult with Indigenous communities involved in the case.

The court also described as an “unjustifiable failure” the fact the National Energy Board did not consider the effects increased tanker traffic would have on the water and animals along the West Coast. Feel free to give your head a slap here. Save one for the NEB.

The sliver of good news for the pipeline is that the court said corrective measures to deal with the issues could be “brief and efficient” and result in a “brief delay in the project.”

But one person’s “brief delay” is another person’s election defeat.

A stunned, nay, devastated Alberta government stayed silent for much of Thursday, perhaps wondering how its candidates could fight the 2019 election campaign while curled in the fetal position.

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And the court’s timing managed to add insult to injury.

In a surreal coincidence, just minutes after the court ruling was released, Kinder Morgan shareholders held a meeting to vote on whether to sell the Trans Mountain project to the Canadian government for $4.5 billion.

It was a bit like asking a homeowner if he’d agree to accept market value for his house as it disappeared into a sinkhole.

The pipeline currently makes money and the expansion will arguably make more money but politically speaking the project is running out of capital.

Notley needs pipe in the ground by the spring of next year to coincide with the provincial election. Even a “brief delay” could prove fatal to her election chances.

Without the pipeline project, the only thing being buried next year just might be the NDP government.