Jim Warren is a recovering academic as retired adjunct professor and lecturer in environmental sociology at the University of Regina.
Peter Lougheed C.C., P.C., Q.C.. Government of Alberta website
By Jim Warren
Danielle Smith and her UCP government currently lack the same high level of political capital available to Peter Lougheed when his government fought Ottawa over control of natural resources. After his party’s second election victory in 1975, Lougheed wasn’t hampered by significant opposition in the Legislature and had become one of the most popular premiers in Canada. He had greater freedom of action when doing battle with Ottawa than is currently available to Smith.
Voter support for Lougheed’s “get tough with Ottawa” approach was enhanced by the recession which accompanied Ottawa’s imposition of the National Energy Program (NEP). An Alberta-based bank and a trust company went broke in the crash which followed and many laid off oil industry employees back then had to deal with mortgage interest rates in excess of 19 per cent.
Things were also ugly for Albertans during the Justin Trudeau years but not quite that ugly. Mortgage rates were only 4 per cent or less. The provincial economy was more diversified by 2015 and while 100,000 people were thrown out of work in the patch due to the collapse in oil prices they tended to find new jobs sooner than was the case back in the days of the NEP.
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Saskatchewan Premier Alan Blakeney and his NDP government similarly enjoyed strong support in the Saskatchewan legislature when potash companies fought his government in the courts over paying higher royalties and taxes in the mid-1970s.
The Blakeney NDP felt secure enough to nationalize half of Saskatchewan’s potash industry in 1976. Similarly, Peter Lougheed clearly had the backing of the people of his province in 1981 when he cut the flow of oil to Eastern Canada by 10 per cent in response to the Pierre Trudeau government’s imposition of the NEP.
The popularity of conservatives in Alberta and social democrats in Saskatchewan is clearly not what it was—back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Both parties have discovered “natural governing party” status didn’t immunize them from election losses. The lesson has fallen much harder on Saskatchewan’s NDP, than Alberta’s conservatives. Since 1971 Alberta’s Conservatives have spent only one four-year term out of office. The conservative Saskatchewan Party has been in office since November 2007, a total of 18 years.
Over the past several decades, conservative parties in both provinces have been challenged by the notable growth of population in their largest cities and a declining population in the rural areas, towns and villages. In the 1970s and 80s urbanites had closer family, business and employment ties to the rural areas where oil, crops and cattle are produced than is the case today.
A growing proportion of people living in the big urban centres have spent less than one generation living on the prairies. Increasingly they have no family living and working in the countryside and lack an appreciation of how much of their provinces’ wealth is produced in rural areas. Indeed, most lack even a shallow understanding of rural culture and economic life. They do not fully appreciate the role that natural resources like oil, soil, gas and grass play in underpinning wealth creation in their respective provinces.
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The foregoing is of course a generalization. Plenty of farmers, oil and gas patch workers; potash and uranium miners; and people working in construction, trucking and manufacturing plus their extended families live in the big cities on the prairies. It’s just that they now make up a smaller percentage of the population than they once did. At the same time, the proportion of the big city populations made up by teachers, government employees, retail clerks, realtors, white collar office employees and other service sector workers has increased. These people are more likely to vote NDP and belong to unions which support the NDP. Their party preferences are heavily influenced by these conditions.
It is widely appreciated that In Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary it is much more difficult for Conservatives to win seats in the legislatures than it was in the past. Edmonton and Regina have become NDP strongholds where conservatives are much less likely to be elected.
These new political realities make it less likely Danielle Smith and Scott Moe can make the same sort of grand combative gestures in opposition to bad federal resource policies that Peter Lougheed could make in 1970s and 80s. It is not that it is impossible for them to do things like turning off the oil and gas taps to the East or B.C. But doing so today is more likely to harm their electoral fortunes. A government that does the right thing by aggressively reacting to bad policy from Ottawa once may not get the opportunity to do so again.
The political conditions just described are reflected in polls conducted in Alberta over the past six months. They show a decline in support for the UCP and growing support for the New Democrats at a time when tensions between the government of Alberta and Ottawa have been running high.
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The table provided below shows the trend. It is possible that the recent slide in UCP popularity is only a temporary situation associated with the UCP’s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to end the teachers’ strike. Nevertheless, the results might suggest Smith’s reaction to a poorly presented and executed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that seemed to promise a coastal oil pipeline will be more muted than would be the case if her government’s popularity was where it was in May of this year—an impressive 58 per cent.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that a weak performance with respect to the actual execution of goals presented in the MOU also has the potential boost support for the UCP. Albertans who have recently gone soft on the government may react negatively to deception and betrayal on the part of Ottawa. If so, Smith may feel secure enough to get tough with both Ottawa and British Columbia. It’s another one of those wait and see situations—they’ve become all too common since Mark Carney became prime minister.
Polls done in Alberta showing party support for the standard,
“If an election were held today, which party would you be more likely to support,” type question.
| Pollster | Date | UCP | NDP | Liberal | AB Party |
| Leger | 2025-10-11 | 44 | 39 | 9 | 2 |
| Cardinal | 2025-09-19 | 43 | 36 | 5 | 4 |
| Angus Reid | 2025-09-01 | 51 | 40 | 3 | 4 |
| Leger | 2025-05-24 | 48 | 34 | 9 | 2 |
| Abacus | 2025-05-18 | 58 | 32 | NA | NA |
Source: Wyatt Claypool, YouTube
In Saskatchewan, opposition to federal environmental and emissions reduction measures are less about oil than is the case in Alberta. Although, a new bitumen pipeline to Canada’s West coast is expected to free up pipeline space in conduits heading into the US and allow Saskatchewan to increase its declining production of crude oil. More disturbing would be any action taken by Ottawa to enforce its demand that coal-fired electricity production end by December 31, 2029. In 2025, Saskatchewan announced that it would continue operating its coal-fired plants, regardless of the law, until such time that coal-fired power can be replaced with nuclear power.
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In addition, there have been unwelcome signals from Ottawa regarding carbon capture and storage (CCS). Apparently, the operation of carbon capture and sequestration projects which use captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery will no longer be treated as suitable emissions reduction activities when it comes to emissions taxation and other exemptions from federal environmental policy. Should those conditions be applied to SaskPower’s electrical power generating unit which employs CCS technology, the provincial government can be expected to frustrate federal efforts to enforce the rule. SaskPower was an early innovator in the commercial application of carbon capture technology and spent $1.6 billion setting up the CCS plant.
It may be the case Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government will be less inhibited than Alberta’s UCP when it comes to strenuously resisting federal environmental and emissions policies which threaten to harm the interests of the province. The Moe government has had the backing of the Saskatchewan NDP, who have been careful to support the government’s defensive measures.
Nevertheless, the Saskatchewan Party won 14 fewer seats in the 2024 provincial election than it did in 2020. The NDP increased the size of its caucus by 13 in 2024. Currently the legislature has 61 seats. The Saskatchewan Party holds 34 of them, just seven more than the NDP total of 27. The Saskatchewan Party has a reasonably safe majority of seven seats, but it is far smaller than the 41 seat majority it won in 2020.
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If it appears that the next provincial election will be just as close, or closer, than the last one, the Saskatchewan Party may prove reluctant to do anything too combative or controversial with respect to bad federal emissions reduction policies. Yet, if Ottawa does something especially extreme in support of “Nut” Zero and the green transition the Moe government could potentially earn support by rigorously defending provincial interests.
There are smart people from the parties in both provinces working to improve their electoral fortunes. Conservative party strategists have had to calculate how to hold onto power while at the same time rigorously combatting federal climate change policies harmful to their province’s interests. Governments in both Saskatchewan and Alberta would do well for their provinces by launching educational programs and promotional efforts in support of their conventional energy sectors along with agriculture and mining. People in the big cities need to know how critical those industries are to the economic fortunes of their provinces.
Pipeline Online has been making that effort. Now would be a good time for government to get with the program.
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