Following last month’s provincial election, Alberta premier Rachel Notley is the second most popular premier in Canada, according to a new poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, which is more than pretty much every other NDP or Liberal Party premier can say.
The poll (which does not include P.E.I. premier Wade MacLauchlan or N.W.T. premier Bob McLeod) reveals that Canadians are not too thrilled with the job their respective premiers are doing, other than Notley and Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall, who despite a recent drop, still holds the title as Canada’s most popular premier with 61 per cent approval.
In addition to NDPer Notley and Saskatchewan Party leader Wall, the Angus Reid poll includes Newfoundland and Labrador PC Party premier Paul Davis (39 per cent); a string of Liberal premiers, Quebec’s Philippe Couillard (39 per cent), Nova Scotia’s Stephen McNeil (37 per cent), Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne (31 per cent), B.C.’s Christy Clark (30 per cent) and New Brunswick’s Brian Gallant (27 per cent); and finally, Manitoba’s NDP premier Greg Selinger, who is Canada’s least popular provincial leader with 23 per cent approval.
It will be interesting to see if Notley can sustain her high approval ratings or if the numbers are more indicative of a ‘post-election honeymoon,’ which was the title of the Angus Reid report.
Truth of the matter is, people don’t like it when their political leaders take stuff away from them or start charging them more money for the same stuff they’ve been paying less for for years.
Take Premier Brian Gallant of New Brunswick as the perfect example of this. Angus Reid suggests the reason for his rapid decline in popularity – going from 40 per cent approval to 27 per cent since March – is his austerity budget, one that called for several cuts and raised taxes to battle the province’s fiscal issues. Gallant campaigned on this very budget and there was no mystery what he planned to do, but now that it has actually happened, New Brunswick voters are not happy.
We can’t have it both ways. If a government is going to provide a plethora of services for its residents, it must be paid for one way or another, and that one way is primarily through taxes. If taxes are kept low and the level of services continues to rise, deficits are the result. Sure, some provinces have royalties they can dip into (like Alberta used to have), there are grants they can apply for and in the rarest of occasions, a surplus that can pay for services, but governments make a lot of money on taxes.
And, as most politicians will tell you, the honeymoon is short-lived. For the most part, the longer you are on the job, the less likely people will like you.
Last week, the Cochrane Eagle was named one of the Top 2 newspapers in our circulation (6,500-12,499) in the entire province by the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association.
It’s extremely humbling to be recognized for the overall product that we put out. Judging was based on 11 categories, including local feature, community news, presentation, product quality, photography, advertising content, design and classifieds, front page, sports and editorial page – the Eagle received 877.5 out of a possible 1,000.
In fact, the Eagle received a higher overall score than any publication in all the various circulation classes. A total of 58 newspapers entered and were judged by the AWNA, and the Eagle scored the second highest total of all but one publication, our sister paper in Canmore, the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
This is an amazing honour to have achieved such accolades – receiving the second highest grade of any community newspaper in Alberta.
This recognition speaks to the quality of work all of our staff aim for on a weekly basis, from the wide-ranging stories we write, the locally-written editorials we run every single week, the photos we publish, the ads we design and the way our paper is laid out for our readers…nothing is put on the backburner.
Community newspapers are enormously important, and it is vital that local groups, levels of government, organizations and residents are on board with helping to make their respective newspaper as good as they can possibly be by understanding that each of them have one thing in mind…reflecting their communities to the best of their ability.
Thank you to the AWNA and to our readers for making us a top choice in all of Alberta.
