The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
Back in 1990, in a fit of pique, I cast my vote in Ontario for Bob Rae and the NDP. I never expected him to win. I was just mad at the other guys. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning and discovered he was premier. The entire province was aghast. I thought it would be a train wreck, and it was.
Will Rachel Notley be a train wreck? I don’t think so. Unlike Mr. Rae, she doesn’t feel like the leader of a left-wing horde of crazies who got in by mistake. She feels like a gust of fresh air blowing the cobwebs out of all those stale backrooms where old boys lurked.
When Albertans woke up the day after the election, a lot of them were smiling. Ms. Notley is by all accounts level-headed, smart and down-to-earth, like her dad. Even though most of them didn’t vote for her, she’s riding an upswell of goodwill.
Mr. Rae’s crew were red-diaper socialists who really did think that capitalism and big business were the root of all evil. They despised the private sector so much that the poor saps who happened to work on Bay Street couldn’t even get an audience with the government. Ms. Notley has set a different tone. She has been courteous to the oil and gas people, some of whom have practically gone into cardiac arrest.