EDMONTON—A political scientist is warning that Premier Jason Kenney’s talk of “normal Albertans” versus “special interests” is setting the stage for budget cuts, dividing groups between those he’ll listen to and those he won’t.

Kenney announced Monday that his United Conservative government’s first budget will be tabled Oct. 24, two weeks after the legislature is set to reconvene and three days after the federal election.

“The people that Ralph Klein used to call ‘severely normal Albertans’ — the folks who just try to get by and take care of their families with an ever-rising cost of living — those folks, they understand that you can’t spend money you don’t have,” Kenney told a reporter in Calgary at a press conference Monday.

“They understand you can’t endlessly go into debt. They get it. But those are not the folks who go to protests in front of the legislature.”

Lori Williams, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University, said that when Kenney talks about “ordinary” or “normal” Albertans versus special interests, he’s using rhetoric to assert “who the legitimate Albertans who need to be listened to are.”

“Ordinary people don’t align on a lot of these issues,” Williams said, “and so it’s a little bit misleading because it looks like you’re being democratic, but you’re basically defining those who you’re listening to as severely normal or ordinary Albertans.”

Kenney is trying to pre-emptively disparage the groups that could protest outside the legislature before they even start, she said.

“Nothing Jason Kenney does is not calculated; he’s a strategist to his core,” said Williams.

Public-sector unions have been protesting in recent months since the Kenney government passed Bill 9, which delays public-sector wage negotiations until after October.

Historically, health-care workers, teachers, farmers and oil-and-gas workers have also protested outside the legislature building in Edmonton. However, it’s unclear which groups Kenney has in mind when he speaks about special interests protesting at the legislature.

“There are countless special-interest groups from across the political spectrum, all lobbying for something,” said Kenney’s press secretary Christine Myatt in an email, responding to questions about who these groups are.

“We recognize that some of these groups will be disappointed with decisions this government makes in fulfilment of the resounding mandate we received from Albertans, securing an outright majority with over 1 million votes. Regardless, we will move forward in fulfilling the promises we made to Albertans this spring.”

During his budget announcement, Kenney thanked the government-appointed MacKinnon panel for its “sobering advice” on Alberta’s fiscal situation. The panel’s report, released earlier this month, recommended cuts to government spending in health care and education, among other things.

The MacKinnon panel, chaired by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice MacKinnon, recommended an overall $600-million cut in the budget to deal with Alberta’s fiscal woes.

Traditionally, the province has depended on taxes and extraction royalties for oil, natural gas and coal to fill its coffers. Those commodities are subject to the whims of global markets, and when prices drop, Alberta is left with sizable budget deficits.

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Kenney tampered some fears during his announcement when he said there would be no cuts to health care or education, something he’d promised during his election campaign.

“This is not a replay of 1993 when there were 18 per cent cuts,” said Kenney. “As the MacKinnon panel said, if we make some difficult decisions now, we can avoid much, much more challenging decisions down the road.”

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