It was the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of entitlement.

On Monday, the day before the Alberta election, the province’s four largest newspapers — the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun — endorsed the Progressive Conservatives.

Now, newspapers endorsing parties is nothing new, but every major newspaper in Alberta being owned by one company is new. (Postmedia acquired the Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun this March when the Competition Bureau signed off on the purchase.)

What else appears to be new is that the Edmonton Journal (which did not endorse in 2012) was asked to endorse not by local management, but by head office in Toronto, according to editor-in-chief Margo Goodhand.

Asked by Canadaland who chose to endorse the PCs, Goodhand responded: "The owners of the Journal made that call.”

It’s hard to imagine a better way for Postmedia to undermine its own credibility than by dictating editorial policy in Alberta — from Toronto of all places.

As new Premier Rachel Notley said in the last days of the campaign: “Alberta doesn’t belong to any political party. Alberta is not a PC province, it’s not a Wildrose province. Alberta belongs to Albertans.”

As a born and bred Albertan with an election-watching obsession, it’s that quote that best sums up why Alberta voters made the leap to electing a majority NDP government. Albertans like to be their own bosses.

For a long time, they thought voting PC made that so, but this time, that changed — at least for the 40 per cent of voters who selected an NDP candidate on the ballot.

“The unprecedented New Democrat surge in Alberta was certainly abetted by a Conservative regime that looked out of touch and, frankly, acted like a dysfunctional family that needed counselling,” wrote Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday.

The first big blunder was made by PC Leader Jim Prentice, when he said Albertans needed to “look in the mirror” when it came to the fiscal mess the province is in.  Albertans weren’t too pleased about being blamed for a problem created by decades of fiscal mismanagement.

Next up, Prentice insinuated during the televised leaders debate that Notley couldn’t do math.

That moment was the embodiment of so much that had become wrong with Alberta politics — old, white guys so entitled that they think they can treat everyone from average Albertans to smart female political leaders with condescension.

The Edmonton Journal’s editorial on Wednesday (not written by Postmedia bosses in Toronto by the look of things) hit the nail on the head:

“The one thing we know about Notley and all of these fresh new faces that now govern us is this: They will not take their victory for granted. They have never been the ruling party, and they well know that governing this province is a privilege, not an entitlement. That’s the lesson for all Alberta politicians this time around.”

More than a lesson for Alberta’s politicians, it’s a lesson for oil companies that had grown too tight with the PCs and too full of their own sense of entitlement. Aided by the government, they’d begun to lose sight of the fact the resources they are digging up actually belong to Albertans.

The NDP has promised to review the royalty system: “The resources we have in Alberta belong to all of us, and the return we get on resources needs to be discussed publicly and regularly, openly and transparently.”

Unlike much of the fear mongering coming from the oil industry today, the NDP has made no indication that it will rashly move to increase royalties in the midst of slumping oil prices.

"Business is mobile," Adam Legge, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Calgary, said before the election. "Capital, people and companies move."

Well, apparently votes move too, Mr. Legge. And unless the world’s third largest proven reserve of oil is going to migrate outside of Alberta’s borders, it’s time for politicians and companies alike to stop taking Albertans and their resources for granted.

Image Credit: Jim Prentice via Flickr 

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Postmedia has struck a $316 million deal to buy 175 of Quebecor’s English-language newspapers, specialty publications and digital properties, including the Sun chain of papers, according to a report in the Globe and Mail this morning.

If it passes regulatory hurdles, the deal will mark a step further down the path of media concentration in Canada.

What does this mean for Canadians in practical terms?

In Calgary, for instance, the Calgary Sun would be owned by the same company as the Calgary Herald. In Toronto, the Toronto Sun and 24 Hours would be owned by the same company as the National Post. In Ottawa, the Ottawa Sun would be owned by the same company as the Ottawa Citizen. And in Edmonton, the Edmonton Sun would be owned by the same company as the Edmonton Journal.

It’s Vancouver that takes the cake for media concentration though — Postmedia already owned the Vancouver Sun and The Province, but if the deal goes through it will take over the free daily 24 Hours as well.

In a statement, Postmedia president and CEO Paul Godfrey said the company intends “to continue to operate the Sun Media major market dailies and their digital properties side by side with our existing properties in markets with multiple brands as we have in Vancouver with the Province and the Vancouver Sun for more than 30 years.”

Sean Holman, journalism professor at Mount Royal University, says the deal means three major things for the Canadian public.

“First, I think the Canadian public should be worried about what this potential sale could mean for press freedom,” Holman says. “If you have one media owner with the capability to dictate editorial policy across almost every single major newspaper in the country, that is not a healthy thing. There may be assurances of newsroom editorial independence, but we have seen over the years that newsroom independence has been violated by Canadian media owners.”

Holman also notes that as media companies encounter more financial trouble, business reasons are increasingly being used to compromise editorial standards. Case in point: In June, DeSmog Canada revealed that Postmedia had been running unlabelled oil advertorials.

The second major reason Canadians should be worried about this deal has to do with press criticism, Holman says.

“Right now, the Canadian media is not held to a very high level of accountability,” he says. “You look down in the States at the amount of media analysis and media criticism there is there and we simply can’t hold a candle to that. This potential sale will make that worse.

“If there is only really one major employer behemoth, how reluctant are newspaper journalists going to be to criticize one of their few major potential employers?”

Thirdly, Canadians ought to be worried about the capacity of the media to cover the important issues, Holman says.

“[Postmedia CEO] Godfrey has said that the chain won’t be closing any of Sun Media’s properties in major markets. I note that that statement does not include minor markets. Without further clarification, at this point in time, we could see closures there…We could see layoffs.”

“And as we reduce those newspaper resources and newsrooms themselves, that erodes the capacity of the media to perform its societal role which is to hold power to account.”

Media capacity is getting to such a point in Canada that Holman says Canadians need to be having a serious national conversation about how we are going to hold power to account in the absence of companies that seem to be concerned with that.

“I think this is certainly going to increase the pressure on independent and activist media to perform some of those tasks, which mainstream newsrooms may not be able to fulfill,” Holman says.

At DeSmog Canada, we are trying to fill that gap and hold power to account. Please give what you can today.

Photo: Rachael F. via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.