Right-wing alliance will undermine Alberta carbon tax

Significance

The Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose party voted to merge with each other and contest the next provincial election in 2019 united as the UCP. The new bloc poses a significant threat to the province’s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) government and to climate policy in Alberta and across the country.

Impacts

• An Alberta-British Columbia spat over pipeline development seems inevitable whichever party wins in 2019, forcing Ottawa to intervene.
• The NDP government will increase borrowing as the election draws close to finance popular social programmes.
• Cheaper alternatives will undercut the Alberta oil sands even if a UCP government brings in deregulation.