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The Alberta general election is being fought against the backdrop of an affordability crisis.

An affordability crisis that we would argue is primarily being driven by federal government policy.

A whole series of federal laws, regulations, and mandates are pushing prices up and stretching household budgets in Alberta and across Canada.

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At Project Confederation, we regularly talk about the kinds of constitutional changes that Canada needs.

But we’re also aware that often a simple policy change is sufficient, and sometimes a little pressure applied in the right way at the right time is all that’s required to get a result.

Take bail reform, for example, where we made real progress this week.

The 2023 Liberal Party of Canada National Convention was held this past weekend in Ottawa.

Keynote speakers Jean Chretien and Hilary Clinton headlined the affair and the party touted the whole thing as a big success.

“Justin Trudeau and our Liberal team will continue to deliver real results to make life more affordable, grow the middle class and a strong economy, and build a better and fairer future for all Canadians,” read a post-convention press release.

With all eyes focused on the election noise in Alberta over the past few weeks, I haven’t really been able to sneak in any commentary about developments in other parts of the country.

Allow me to rectify that now.

There’s something brewing in Quebec.

The issue of affordability is dominating the Alberta election, but price hikes are affecting everyone across Canada.

Over the past few months, I’ve written extensively on these very pages about the impact of price hikes on families and specifically about the cost of rising energy prices.

The Alberta election is finally upon us.

Albertans will go to the polls on May 29th in an election that will undoubtedly cause reverberations in Alberta and across Canada. 

For the past four years, the prairies have been united by a common cause - to defend our interests in the face of a federal government driven by ever-increasing centralized control.

We have seen Ottawa reach into provincial jurisdiction over and over again, causing economic harm to our industries and weakening our position in a global marketplace that desperately needs our resources.

The future, not just of Alberta but also of Confederation itself, is very much at stake.

Will Alberta continue to stand up for the jurisdictional division of powers envisaged in the Canadian Constitution and push back when Ottawa tries to usurp them, or will Alberta decide not just to stop fighting back but instead actively help a federal government that wants to legislate our primary industry out of existence?

To answer that question, we should recap how we got here.

In 2018, the federal Liberal government took the unprecedented step of renewing the equalization formula for five years (2019-2024) without even discussing the issue with the provinces.

In fact, almost no one noticed they had done it until it was too late.

After a brief flirtation with nationalizing the West's natural resources, I'm pleased to let you know that the Liberals have now backtracked.

"As prime minister, I'm happy to stand here right now and say we will not be touching the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements," the Prime Minister told a news conference yesterday afternoon.

"Natural resources are constitutionally directed to be the purview of the provinces, and we're not putting that into question," he followed up.

We completely agree, but we certainly won't be handing out any gold stars for ruling the idea out, given it should never have been floated in the first place!

We told you it was coming. 

The Liberals are, once again, thinking about nationalizing the natural resources sector.

How do we know?

They said so themselves!

Are you worried about affordability? 

I am.

Are you worried that the federal government’s policies are going to make it worse?

I am.

As prices rise, each dollar in the household budget gets stretched, making it more difficult to make ends meet.

One might think that the federal government is also worried about how price increases impact Canadians and that they'd be taking concrete steps to give households financial breathing room.

They aren’t.