Thoughts on Premier Redford's Global TV Interview

So I had a chance to watch Global TV interview with Alberta's Premier Alison Redford and I thought I'd jot down some of my observations and reflections on what I saw:

I think one of the greatest accomplishments of the Progressive Conservative Party here in Alberta over the course of the last decade has been in marketing themselves as moderates following the path of inevitability. Personified in their new leader's response of preferring incremental change over the other approach, “pitted political dogfights”, I can't help but reflect on how their tactics give the impression that the dominant political party, processes, and culture is really the only option there is. By conveying the message that the best thing to do is 'keep doing what is being done, just a little better', she (they) dissolve themselves of the possibility that fundamental flaws exist. They are able to avoid serious discussions on the underlying logic of their stated visions and goals by functionally dismissing the potentiality that they could be wrong; by telling you there is no closet, they don't have to look inside to see if there is a monster.

The other notion that struck me whilst watching the interviewer and Redford giggle and chat was that all subject matter contained in the discussion - the Northern Gateway Pipeline, Health Care funding, foreign influence on domestic policy – was simply the news of the day as dictated by the Overlord of Economic Growth. In other words, what I saw in the interview was that, all the priorities of governing officials, all mandates pertaining to political institutions, are in service of the uncontested, unquestioned pursuit of economic growth. The narrative of progress that resides at the centre of our society's hopes, dreams, and fears primarily depends on the continuance of a type of business-as-usual where production, consumption, and monetization increases, continually. Hence, when Redford states the patently untrue – that the growth of non-conventional bituminous sands exploitation can be “managed” and that it “benefits the quality of life of all Canadians” - she does so with the most honest of intentions: propping up the imperative of economic growth.

As our world continues to slip down the slope of peak oil and is more frequently faced with the hard limits (and responding blow-back) of a finite planet pushed past the point of its carrying capacity, I shudder to think of the exponential rise in contradictory rhetoric that will emerge to draw our minds away from the realities we are faced with. This interview further convinced me of how politically unprepared we really are here in Alberta for the future that awaits us and how much hard work we have ahead.

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-KSE