Rivers: The meek are never going to inherit the earth. Ask Rachel Notley.

Rivers 100x100By Staff

April 17th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Ray Rivers is on a short sabbatical, taking some time to think about the significantly different political landscape in Ontario and now Alberta and wonder what impact that will have on the federal elections in October.

Cathedral spain Santiagp

Basílica de Santiago

Rivers made mention of a walking trip he had done in Spain where that part of the world is full up with churches – “a testimony to how religion helped keep people in poverty while building monuments to the organization in charge of their lives. Truth is that the meek were never going to inherit the earth – ask Rachel Notley.”

Ray may well have a lot to say about the election in Alberta.

rivers-on-guitarRay Rivers writes regularly on both federal and provincial politics, applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

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6 comments to Rivers: The meek are never going to inherit the earth. Ask Rachel Notley.

  • Alan Harrington

    In a perfect world, Ray Rivers would simply *command* who the next leader is however, in a democracy, voters get to choose who they want. Rightly or wrongly.

    If the voters in Alberta wanted another four years of Rachel Notley – they would have voted for her.

  • Whew! For a moment I thought you were going to blame the outbreak of measleso on Ms Notley.
    The NDP government had to learn to live with a massive drop in oil prices; Ms Notley had to work with the Fort Murray community that was burning to the ground. She brought in a minimum wage and she turned out to be a lot tougher than many expected. Justin Trudeau could have given her money for 10 thousand rail cars that would some of the oil. Shame on him for not having the guts to do so.

    Alberta lost a fine Premier. They got a hyprocrite who has led a public under great stress to beleive that he can do what cannot be done – increase the price being paid for oil.

    Nothing wrong with being a philosophical Tory but that doesn’t mean you have to forget the fundamentals.

  • Stephen White

    Notley’s win in 2015 was an electoral fluke and was due to vote splitting between the former Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party and the antics/idiocy of former Premiers Prentice and Redford. Many New Democrats got elected with as little as 31% of the vote. There were several ridings in 2015 where there was less than 2% difference separating the NDP, PC and Wildrose candidates.

    Once the PCs and the Wildrose united under the UCP banner the writing was on the wall for Notley and her crew. In several rural ridings in Alberta the UCP could have run a dead dog as their candidate and they would have won handily. An economy in which you lose 130,000 jobs in the oil sector, where you have a 24.7% commercial vacancy rate in Calgary, and an $89 million funding gap in municipal government in Calgary alone, is not exactly conducive to a government’s re-election prospects. Notley’s cosy relationship with a federal government that is abhorred by most Albertans didn’t help either.

  • Joe Gaetan

    As Rex Murphy pointed out,Rachel Notley might not have lost except for the fact Justin Trudeau helped Kenney win.
    https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-trudeau-damned-rachel-notley-and-gave-jason-kenney-generous-outside-help

  • George

    Wow Susan L. you have made quite a list and seem to be very good at it. How about make a list of the things our Nit Wit of a Prime Minister has said or done to add to your book of lists.

  • Susan L.

    I don’t think the Alberta election was just about pipelines and jobs. Here are some of the winners:

    UPC Roger Reid, was forced to explain himself after he was found promoting books on anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ themes.

    UPC Shane Getson told his far-right supporters that if they vote for him, he’ll stop the United Nations from seizing control of Canada’s border. In fact, the UN is not taking control of Canada’s borders.

    UCP Devin Dreeshen hid in a bathroom after a reporter from Vice News questioned him about his work for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

    UCP Grant Hunter In a bizarre letter to his local newspaper, praised the character residents in Cardston, Alberta by suggesting they were “reared” from “superior stock” — although he noted that thought “reeks of ‘Aryan’ undertones.”

    UCP Kaycee Madu (Edmonton–South West) refused to apologize after he was called out for promoting lawn signs distributed by the far-right Rebel Media website.

    UCP Michaela Glasgo (Brooks–Medicine Hat) an anti-abortion activist, was caught showing her support for disgraced candidate Caylan Ford, a White Supremacist, after Ford resigned for her statements echoing white nationalism.

    UCP Tyler Shandro (Calgary–Acadia) saw no consequences for showing his support for a White Supremacist either.

    UCP Tanya Fir (Calgary Peigan) said she stood 100% behind her campaign manager, Craig Chandler, after he made conspiratorial Facebook postings claiming “the Left” is secretly working to “legitimize pedophilia” by helping them “gain acceptance and be included into the LGBT community.”

    UCP Nathan Cooper (Olds–Didsbury–Three Hills) worked for a hard-line social conservative group that opposed what it called the “homosexual agenda.” On an obscure podcast run by the group, Cooper spoke to controversial guests about the “gay agenda,” including an anti-LGBTQ author who is credited with drafting Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality Act,” a controversial bill that proposed making homosexual acts punishable by death.

    Peter Singh. On Apr 12 Peter Singh issued a statement to declare his innocence in response to a police raid on his business.