Article content continued

If there are any flies on her, they’re paying rent An old comrade of Rex Murphy's

Such fantasies are an insult to people out of work and those threatened with being out of work. Kenney knows this in a way that a certain leader in Ottawa simply can’t fathom, and in a way that those who jet off to Paris and Copenhagen for the annual jawfest about saving the planet don’t even care to understand. His message was as clear as glass: jobs first, and only then whatever else has to be considered.

Thirdly, he had some generous outside help. He may well have won the majority on his own efforts, but he was glued to victory, hoisted on to an unstoppable juggernaut of a campaign, with the heavy co-operation of Justin Trudeau.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Now I wish to speak no ill of Rachel Notley. She ran a valorous campaign. In the work department she is no slouch herself. In the delightful phrase of an old comrade of mine “if there are any flies on her, they’re paying rent.” The lady has stamina, presence and fortitude. But she was hobbled from the very start. From far-away Ottawa.

Trudeau damned Notley. He was Kenney’s strongest argument against her. If the PM had worked with the same zeal he exerts on “global warming” for Alberta jobs and a pipeline she would have had more than a chance.

Nothing more has depressed the general morale of many in Alberta than every holier-than-everybody-else Green peddler's bleating to the world about Fort McMurray’s sins against the planet

Early on in her tenure she entered a “grand bargain” with Trudeau. She worked with him. She gave the illusory “social licence” deal — backed the dread carbon tax, tightened environmental oversight — on the promise of vigorous leadership on a pipeline to the coast and real attention to Alberta’s hard times in the downturn. The deal was pure vapour; call it a downstream emission. Alberta oil is still landlocked, and “social licence’ is now a phrase you have to look up in the newspaper files.