Incredibly, but perhaps predictably, the NDP government finds itself once again in another communications disaster all because it had no idea how to handle a mischievous right-wing troublemaker whose sole purpose in life is to get on the nerves of everything that is left.
“We've heard a lot of feedback from Albertans and media over the course of the last two days, and it's clear we made a mistake," said Cheryl Oates, communications director for Premier Rachel Notley, last week after her party's latest public relations train wreck.
Wow. Double wow. Can you say Bill 6? Déjŕ vu all over again.
But give the bobble head loving Ezra Levant credit. He knows a gullible mark when he sees it and the NDP is now scrambling on damage control. Ezra, who on one day is not a journalist and a so-called reputable one the next, can hardly believe his good fortune.
This latest communications disaster may soon burn itself out as the few better heads within the government have forced the appointment of former Western Canadian bureau chief for Canadian Press, Heather Boyd, to come up with some novel ideas on who should be granted official media status.
But the more important issue here is not whether Levant and his Rebel Media organization was slighted by the NDP as not being worthy to be granted the same privileges as traditional media, it is the amateurish way the NDP got into the latest mess. Did they not count backwards to last fall when Levant and Rebel Media were among the loudest provocateurs in the agricultural community's outrage over the rollout of Bill 6?
Apparently not. Instead they forgot recent history and allowed a well-known agitator to show the entire country that last fall's public relations fiasco in rolling out Bill 6 was no fluke.
The NDP is a political party that has shown repeatedly that it has no idea of how to communicate, especially on the fly in an era of news cycles that are just hours long, even minutes.
They are operating their messaging as if it is just an afterthought, which is completely irresponsible onto themselves when a great chunk of a stressed-out provincial populace needs little to rise in protest against a first-time NDP government, whose record on financial management across the country is at best suspect, at worst disastrous.
The tragedy in all this is that the Alberta NDP government in its first nine months has been largely impressive when it comes to policy, no small thing when the economy has free fallen as much as it has. But all of that goes out the window when its handling of communications becomes a national embarrassment.
Premier Rachel Notley would do well to undertake a serious housecleaning of her communications department. She needs to restore public confidence that there is some control, that messaging comes with an understanding of the pulse of the province, and that her government is big enough to walk away from the extreme rantings of adversaries like Levant and Rebel Media.
If not, the exit sign becomes clearer for the NDP in 2019.
