Nobody fired a gun or waved a green flag. But the race has started - there's clearly no doubt. And Ed Stelmach's dozy New Alberta Tories are already bringing up the rear. Their dithering and indecision on the oilsands royalty review and value-added strategy has seen to that.
Meanwhile, federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and Prime Minister Stephen Harper - with his puppet master Jack Layton at his side - are already well up the track.
The prize is to reap the rewards of the Alberta oilsands. Which are huge. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers resident "sky is falling" expert, Pierre Alvarez, has already warned that $40 US-a-barrel is now at the break-even point for new oilsands projects. With all parties in Ottawa now determined to green up Alberta's economic engine at the oil industry's expense, the fight for surplus energy company dollars is already on. Yesterday, Dion released an old fund-raising letter from back in the Canadian Alliance days, which he insisted shows conclusively that the prime minister is a "climate change denier."
SECRET PLAN
Then his natural resources critic, Mark Holland, let slip exactly what the Liberals have in store for the energy patch if Albertans are unlucky enough to have the Ottawa Liberals lording it over us again.
Holland accused Harper of having a secret plan to "encourage rapid, unfettered growth in oilsands production." As though that's a sin. He said it's "just one more example of how he will ensure Canada will fail to meet its obligations to the world under Kyoto."
How the Libs plan to fetter (another word for hog tie) the oilsands, sadly, Holland didn't say. But if the letter proves that Harper was skeptical about the worth of the Kyoto accord - which sneaky Jean Chretien signed without consulting Albertans - then will the real Stephen Harper please come back? Not the present impostor who must cut a deal with NDP leader Jack Layton to get his tax-cut budget passed.
In the 2002 letter - which the Liberals released as a 10th-generation photocopy version - Harper launched something called "the Battle of Kyoto."
It described Kyoto as a "job-killing, company-destroying" deal that's based on "tentative and contradictory scientific evidence."
Harper notes that the pact is based on harmless carbon dioxide emissions - not pollution - as the Libs' scare tactics would have us believe.
"Implementing Kyoto will cripple the oil and gas industry," Harper continued. "Which is essential to the economies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia."
Because the oil industry hit will "trickle through" to industries in other parts of the country, "THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD," Harper blasted.
Finally, a politician who tells it like it is.
'FAIR' RETURN
Except that Stephen Harper is no longer with us - replaced since before Christmas by the Prince of Appeasement who is trying to out-green the Liberals, or at least leave the impression he is.
Back to Alberta and the struggling Stelmach government. The premier campaigned in the PC leadership race to get a "fair" oilsands return for the owners of the resource. And to stop shipping raw bitumen (Stelmach compared it to "topsoil") down the pipeline to Illinois and Texas.
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