Article content

CALGARY — Wave them goodbye, Rachel, and don’t look back.

It’s time for Premier Notley and her Alberta New Democrats to formally split with the federal party over pipelines and environment.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Don Braid: Wave them goodbye Rachel — Why Notley should ditch the federal NDP as soon as possible Back to video

Tom Mulcair lost the national NDP leadership Sunday after pleading for party unity. That pitch got him 48 per cent support. The end was brutal, even in the sudden-death world of Canadian leadership politics.

Now he’s the lame-duck head of a party that will spend more than a year, and as long as two, to find a new permanent leader, and consider a Leap Manifesto ban on all new pipelines and tanker traffic.

Mulcair had urged delegates to “stand with me,” sounding a bit like a country singer, while barely mentioning the green elephant in the Edmonton room.

He was trying to play down the deep east-west (and left-right) splits over pipelines, as if silence could somehow heal those divisions.

Silence can’t. Probably nothing can.