Today, I extend yesterday’s befuddlement about the polls to anxious confusion about Alberta politics writ large.
Here we are, two weeks out from voting day. The ostensibly socialist party has decided to hang its hat on a eliminating tax for small business. The party that stands for freedom has promised to enact legislation allowing for mandatory treatment orders for people suffering from addiction. And, as thick smoke from spring wildfires blankets the province, both parties are silent on climate change and enthusiastic in their support of the Alberta oil industry.
What’s going on here?
Alberta’s favorite pollster, Janet Brown, likes to quip that Albertans aren’t so much fiscally conservative as they are tax averse. The Alberta NDP has decided, probably correctly, that there’s no point in trying to fight this. Their opponents paint them as tax-loving communists determined to stamp out the Alberta Advantage, so the only way to respond is to offer up a substantial tax cut of some sort. And in a province where populism is baked into the political culture, a tax cut for the ‘little guy’ has electoral appeal. How will they pay for it? Raise corporate taxes for the ‘big guys.’ Economists like to point out that small business tax relief creates an incentive for small businesses to remain small. But as a way to soften the blow of the announcement that corporate taxes will go back up, it’s not terrible.
The UCP’s announcement of mandatory treatment orders is a bit more difficult to parse. On one hand, it seems that public disorder in the cities and the terrible toll of the opioid crisis has emerged as an issue where the party can win some support. They have already made various announcements of funding for policing — it seems there’s no problem that can’t be addressed with MORE SHERIFFS, thank you very much. And these various announcements create a lovely back door approach to a pet issue: Hey! Look! Turns out we already have a provincial police force - isn’t that handy??
The UCP’s approach to the opioid crisis is distinct, and grounded in deep belief about the efficacy of an abstinence/recovery-based approach. And it gains credibility because of the lived experience of UCP senior advisor Marshall Smith. But it is in conflict with the expert consensus that the best way to deal with a poisonous drug supply is to offer a safe alternative. As reasonable as this may sound, the experiences of communities adjacent to safe injection sites have been difficult. And for suburbanites who rarely venture downtown and know little about the crisis, the idea that the state is procuring drugs is deeply distasteful. So the UCP’s approach has considerable appeal among those suburban voters.
Even the idea of mandatory treatment orders can be seductive. I mean, if it was your adult child suffering from addiction, wouldn’t you want to get them help, even if they couldn’t see that they needed it? Of course you would. And wouldn’t it be nice if the police could round up these people who are suffering so terribly and bring them back to a decent life (and get rid of their distasteful presence in our parks and streets)? It would.
But here’s the thing: to take someone experiencing addiction and incarcerate them as they detox is essentially forcing on them a medical treatment. If they do not choose to enter rehab, then they are being subjected to medical treatment without consent. This should trouble all of us, but most especially those who felt that wearing a mask or getting a vaccination was too great an infringement on their freedoms.
Alberta has a bit of a history with forced medical treatments: there was the whole Sexual Sterilization Act that set up a Eugenics Board to approve forced sterilizations. In 1999, the Alberta government had to apologize and pay compensation to victims. It might be worth reflecting on that for a while before the province plunges ahead with the latest proposal.
And then there’s the silence on climate change. Not hard to explain: voters don’t want to hear about it. Voters don’t want to imagine a future for Alberta without the source of our remarkable prosperity. If we wait a few days, the smoke will clear and we can go on with our comfortable lives.
One of the great tensions in electoral politics is between the idea that politicians and parties should follow the electorate, meet them where they are, versus the idea that they should try to lead the electorate, to help them understand their interests. In this very close election, it appears to be more the former than the latter. Hence the topsy turvy policy announcements we heard yesterday.
The other problem with mandatory treatment is; who gets treated? Yes, there are people who are destroying their lives and others with opioids (the impact on neighborhoods devastated by opioid use with this treatment will be marginal, unless they're going to force a lot more people into treatment than they're implying now). There also people doing the same with alcohol, probably more people. Are alcoholics who repeatedly drink and drive or otherwise put people at risk going to get mandatory treatment?
The bottom line is using the justice system to enact health care policy does not work. This is just another sign that we've turned the justice and incarnation systems into the backstop for failed mental health care.
It is really fascinating to follow these announcements. I'd argue that if the roles were reversed in who announced what, nobody would bat an eye, really.
The UCP has wisely shelved their more libertarian tendencies, and the NDP did the same with their tax&spend or environmental ideas. Everybody is trying to crowd the centre, it seems.