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Wildrose calls it radical. The NDP says it’s wonderful. Nothing shows Alberta’s power upheaval more vividly than the debate over raising the minimum wage.

On Monday, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean asked Premier Rachel Notley if the NDP “is committed to radical policy actions that will simply cost Albertans their jobs.”

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Notley replied, “I absolutely believe that increasing the minimum wage will lead to more jobs … When you put more money into the pockets of low-income people they spend it, and they spend it in their local economy faster than anybody else does.

“In fact, study after study show that this actually grows jobs and it grows economic activity.”

All the old truisms of Alberta political debate — business good, unions bad; spending evil, cost-cutting great — are reversed. The Ralph Klein era is no longer a memory; it’s history. The Parkland Institute stomps the Fraser Institute.

The NDP simply doesn’t buy business arguments that any extra costs will destroy jobs and hurt the economy. To this, the right splutters with outraged disbelief. Wildrose MLAs cannot fathom how the government could actually believe its own stuff.