THE ALBERTA NDP THE PARTY OF OIL WORKERS

THE COINCIDENTAL BIRTH OF THE NEW DEMOCRATS 

AND THE OIL INDUSTRY IN ALBERTA

Rachel Notley warned New Democrats that adopting the LEAP manifesto which demands the end of oil extraction from the Tar Sands as well as conventional and shale gas plays, and NO pipelines, would put the Eastern arm of the party in direct conflict with a party that is proudly Albertan and directly involved in the oil industry history in the province even more so than the long ruling party the PC’s.

It was the development of oil and energy in Alberta that created new wealth and a new industrial province after WWII. The discovery of oil not only brought the oil industry but also the oil and energy workers union, a small American union that had an arm in Alberta, the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers OCAW. In Alberta it was beginning its organizing of workers in the field and in the new gas and chemical plants being built between Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan.

This was the post war boom, the party in power was Social Credit, and while  there was no NDP there was an active labour political movement housed in the AFL and Edmonton Trades and Labour Council, members belonged to the Communist Party, the CCF and some still belonged to the OBU and IWW.

Edmonton had a history of electing labour council members as Mayor, Aldermen (women), school board trustees and Hospital Board members. Elmer Roper  longtime labour activist, CCF activist and candidate, owner of ABC Printing and publisher of Alberta Labour News would be elected Mayor of Edmonton after the creation of the NDP by the merger of the CCF with the newly created post war Canadian Labour Congress.

The sixties saw the growth of the labour movement in Canada and in Alberta, including the creation of an active movement of organizing public sector workers, provincially, municipally and federally. The Federal Workers Union originating in Calgary would merge with the Ontario based National Workers Union to create what we know as the Canadian Union of Public  Employees, the Civil Service Union of Alberta would become a union known as the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

But throughout the oil boom of the fifties and sixties the union most associated with the provincial NDP was the Oil Chemical and Atomic Energy Workers Union under the leadership of Neil Reimer and his assistant Reg Baskin

That’s right the party was brought to life in Alberta by Oil Workers in the provinces new Energy market. Its first party leader was Neil Reimer, who would meet a charismatic young politician a contemporary of Peter Lougheed and Joe Clark at the University of Alberta, Grant Notley who would go on to become party Leader and its first elected MLA.

Notley himself did not represent Edmonton but his home region, the oil rich north of Alberta, the Grand Prairie, and Peace River riding.

As it had since 1936 the Social Credit party of Alberta held power in the province as a one party state, under the permanent leadership of Premier Ernest Manning, Preston’s daddy.  The New Democratic Party of Alberta focused its energy not only on consolidating union power in the party as well as the voices of the left and progressives but in challenging that Social Credit domination of Alberta Politics.

This was also the time of the Cold War and the Anti Communist Witch Hunts, a time being anti war, anti nuclear war, pro labour, was considered suspect. Where union members who were left wing were exposed to police spying, where padlock laws in Quebec had been used to raid imprison and steal property belonging to those accused of opposing the Duplesis regime or who were suspect of being Reds.

Duplessis ‘s party in Quebec aligned with that provinces Federal Social Credit Party which was aligned with Alberta’s Party as well. In both provinces the left faced one party dictatorship which reminded many despite their democratic trappings of the forces they had been fighting against in WWII.

As in Alberta it would be the post war labour movement in Quebec under Louis Lebarge that would mobilize politically as well as economically against the Old Regime, his right hand was a young activist lawyer named Pierre Eliot Trudeau. And like Alberta they were building a provincial and national party; the Liberals.

This then is the historical basis for the differences between the left in Quebec and the rest of Canada and why it took so long to breech these two solitudes, as was done in 2012 under Jack Layton and the federal NDP.

Premier Rachel Notley, the daughter of Grant Notley, the first NDP MLA ever elected to the Legislature, the first opposition member elected against the Social Credit party of Ernest Manning  had this rich history as her prologue at this week’s national NDP Convention in Edmonton where the party adopted the LEAP manifesto which challenges the very energy economy that makes Alberta a modern industrial state.

This province created the NDP under the leadership of  Neil Reimer, an oil worker and oil union organizer.  Neil was the first leader of the Party, and Reg Baskin was his right hand in their union and the party.

Neil also created the modern Canadian Energy Workers union,  Neil and Reg first represented oil workers in the new industry in the province with the OCAW  oil chemical and atomic workers of Canada, which had one other base of expansion; Louisiana.  He and Reg made it the Canadian Energy Workers Union, which became CEP merging with the Canadian Paper workers unions in BC, and now has consolidated with CAW to create UNIFOR.

Neil’s daughter was Jan Reimer two term Mayor of Edmonton during the 1990’s and while party labels are not used in Edmonton municipal elections everyone knew that we had an NDP mayor.

Meatpackers, a union that disappeared in the eighties with amalgamation of the meat packing industry into a smaller and smaller oligopoly, was a militant base of union workers and activists including communists and socialists, that was a large base for the party, as was Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 488.

These were the post war unions that were the party’s base in Edmonton and across the province. Federally the postal workers were a strong backbone for the Federal Party, though there were two separate unions at that time, letter carriers and inside workers, the latter being more left wing and militant with OBU IWW communist, socialist and Trotskyist activist workers.

It was the discovery of tar sands oil that led to the growth of the province, the union and the NDP. It was also this discovery and its needed development during the Arab Oil Crisis of 1971 that led to the end of the Social Credit government, its movement, but not its essence. In its place came the newest members of the Alberta Legislature elected in 1967 for the first time, the Lougheed Progressive Conservatives. They would be joined by Grant Notley and the NDP in opposition in 1968, when Grant won a by-election in Spirit River.

The “Progressive” element in the Lougheed PC’s represented the post war Liberal base among the non Anglo ethnic communities in Edmonton and Calgary, such as the recent post war immigration of Ukrainians, Italians, Portuguese, Greek, European, Asian, and Displaced Peoples. The Liberals had no political existence in Alberta since they were wiped out by the United Farmers/ Labour Party coalition in 1921.

Even Lougheed’s conservatism was not the neo conservative Austrian school embraced by the republican lite Preston Manning cons of today, it was classical liberal capitalism, that progressive aspect of capitalism that sought to ameliorate through regulation what short comings capitalism itself may suffer from despite its idealism of being the ‘ideal’ system.

The history of the Alberta NDP is the history of the Oil Workers and the Oil Industry in Alberta, even more than it is for the current batch of Conservatives provincial or federal.  The NDP in Alberta grew up with the oil industry with its workers and their union. For the Alberta NDP to reject both the LEAP manifesto and those call for the end of pipelines is natural and should have been expected by those who know the party history in the province.

For those who fail to understand this historic base of the party in Alberta fail to understand the social democratic politics of the oil industry, the NDP has long supported a form of nationalization under public ownership and increased workers control through unionization.

This occurred in the case of Suncor which was the earliest of the oil sands operators, before the Syncrude conglomerate was created.  In the early seventies after the Lougheed government promoted the oil sands, Suncor began mining operations.  Neil Reimer’s new Canadian Energy and Paperworkers union, CEP, got its birth in a long and bitter historic strike at the Suncor operations.

CEP went on to organize refineries in Edmonton, Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan.

It tried but failed to organize Syncrude due to its conglomerate ownership and its concerted anti union efforts over the decade of the seventies into the eighties. Today unionized Suncor has bought out Syncrude so this situation opens it up to unionization decades later.

The seventies and eighties saw massive growth in the province including growth in both private and public union membership.

This also saw the success of the NDP and the left in Edmonton. While Grant Notley was a lone NDP member in Alberta Legislature, Edmonton saw a left wing U of A Prof David Leadbeater elected alderman.  Notley was joined in the house by Ray Martin, from Edmonton.

The NDP elected Ross Harvey its first federal MP from Alberta in the eighties from the old packing plant and union district of Edmonton Beverly. This was at the height of the Arab Oil Crisis of early eighties, which the Conservatives in Calgary blamed on the NDP Liberal National Energy Plan, NEP, which included the creation of the Canadian Publicly Owned Oil and Gas Company PetroCanada.

PetroCanada was a success and saved Calgary and the Lougheed Government during this oil crisis, it was able to buy up, nationalize, American oil companies like Gulf Mobile, Texaco, Chevron,  as well as smaller Canadian and American oil companies that were going broke or bailing out of Calgary heading back to Dallas and Huston.

And CEP was there to unionize it. Today PetroCanada is no more the Liberals privatized during the Austerity crisis of the Nineties, and Paul Martins Liberal Government sold off the last of our shares prior to the 2006 election.

Ironically it is Suncor that bought them and then bought up PetroCan and absorbed it., just as it has done with its competitor Syncrude.

It would be during the late eighties and early nineties that under Ray Martin the NDP would gain a record number of seats, going from 2 to 23 and status of official opposition. But by the time of the middle of nineties and the Austerity panic of debt and deficit hysteria and the birth of the neo conservative movement that two city Mayors, Ralph Klein of Calgary and Lawrence Decore of Edmonton would battle it out for Premier of the Province, Klein for the PC’s and Decore for the Liberals. Both ran on Austerity budgets, one promised massive cuts the other brutal cuts. It was a close election the losers were the NDP who were wiped out as a third party.

In Edmonton we had a new NDP mayor to replace Decore, Neil’s daughter Jan Reimer, joined by another leftist alderman the bus driver Brian Mason. The NDP centred itself in Edmonton at this time and got elected the enormously popular  team of Pam Barrett and Raj Pannu.

The CEP was critical in supporting the NDP at this time, including having its past president Reg Basking become leader of the Party.

After the shocking early death of party leader Pam Barrett, former alderman Brian Mason ran in her riding, Highlands, which also covers the Federal riding of Beverly that Ross Harvey once represented and won her seat in the house. Raj Pannu became the first Indo Canadian leader of an NDP party in Canada.  After he stepped down Brian Mason became the leader of the party.

The party went from four seats to two to four until Brian stepped down and the party elected Grant Notley’s daughter, Rachel Notley, who had sat in the house with Brian through all those ups and downs in electoral success.

The party base is the labour movement and left across the province and no less important unions such as CEP, IBEW, Carpenters and UA488 all involved in the oil sands and the petrochemical industry in Alberta.

So why are the various wags and pundits surprised when the Alberta NDP does not LEAP off the edge of a cliff named STOP PIPELINES, STOP DIRTY OIL.

In the finest of social democratic traditions, the Alberta NDP will do no such thing nor should it be expected to. It will ameliorate the worst of the environmental damages that the fossil fuel industry has and can be expected to cause. They will create a green plan, and expand the carbon fuel tax the PC’s brought in.

 It will do what the conservatives would not do, and that is eliminating Alberta’s Socred PC dirty energy economic backbone: coal. And that is the real dirty energy in Alberta, coal fired utility plants. These plants are evenly divided between private ownership, with state support from the ruling Socreds and PC’s, TransAlta Utilities, and publicly owned municipal utilities EPCOR and ENMAX. TransAlta is the original P3 funded by taxpayers under the Socred and spun off to become a private company where government cabinet members retire to the board of.

Even Lougheed was tied to the coal industry representing his old employer Mannix Inc, as a board member of Luscar Coal, which during the nineties created a major controversy with its efforts to mine outside of Jasper National Park.

Contrary to Greenpeace and other environmentalists who claim oil sands are the dirtiest energy the real dirty energy on the Palliser Plains of Alberta and Saskatchewan is coal.

Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel that needs to be kept in the ground. There is no such thing as clean coal!

There is however clean petrochemical fuels, that is the nature of refining, creating finer and finer grades of hydrocarbons; ethenes, benzenes, oil and gas for plastic production, diesel etc.

That is the reason for both the Joffre and Scotford massive refining projects and the plan for the heartland refining project, which would allow the province to crack and refine bitumen into secondary and tertiary hydrocarbons.

That is what the future of the energy is in Alberta, stopping the use of coal, refining hydrocarbons and shipping them south, east, and west.

Why would the NDP limit the provinces ability to ship what it processes.

As I have pointed out the pipeline west will probably go through the Peace River Athabasca highway route to Prince Rupert, which coincides with BC Site C dam development and its LNG  pipeline development, giving pipeline companies an alternative to going to Kitimat via the BC Sacred Bear Rainforest.

Energy East will be built and the NDP will promote as it did in the eighties, the idea that Alberta energy for a fair price should go east. What occurred instead was it was shipped to refineris in Ontario and Quebec at discounted prices where it was refined and sold to the US while oil was imported from the Middle East.

This was the original idea of the NEP that the NDP and Liberals promoted to Lougheed, and he agreed to! And like the NDP this was his vision for Alberta oil before he died.

While the LEAP manifesto is suitably left wing green etc, even shudder, anti capitalist ( read anti corporations) it is not something either the labour movement or NDP in Alberta will agree to do much more about than debate. Debate will be welcome, dictat not so much.

LEAP like most environmentalism today fails to take into consideration that even if workers had control of publicly owned energy companies, we would still be producing hydrocarbons, and will be even after the glorious Socialist Revolution.

The dirtiest energy causing climate change is not oil sands in Alberta or Venezuela it is coal and wood burning worldwide.  That is the challenge we face to shut down coal, and wood burning, not to accept the myth of Clean Coal, and to make sure we ameliorate environmental damage caused through hydrocarbon production.

You want to keep something in the ground its coal, and the biggest fight back in Alberta today is the utility lobbies who oppose the Alberta NDP Government ending of coal fired utilities.

In Alberta the NDP is the party of oil and oil workers. Never forget it. The old Social Credit of Preston Manning’s daddy’s day and the PC’s of Lougheed Klein were both parties of coal.

 ALBERTA ELECTION 2023 ANALYSIS

The NDP are the official Opposition in Alberta.  And screaming separatist Danielle Smith is now Premier for real.  After a handful platitudes  in her acceptance speech she immediately declared war on the "Trudeau Government in Ottawa", as to be expected. So we can expect that the Smith Sovereignty Act (modeled on American States Rights) will come roaring out of the legislature at first sitting. 

UCP is a not a conservative party it is a wannabe Americanized party; Landlord Libertarianism under Smith.

As will her attempt to cut Albertans off of our CPP benefits for a made in Alberta pension plan, one look at the Conservatives handling of the Heritage Trust fund or its attempts to privatize provincial pensions under Klein. Then the late to the game creation of a provincial investment fund AIMCO like CPPIB, or Ontario Teachers Pension fund. Unlike them AIMCO promptly lost millions including the Alberta Teachers Pension Funds, which they were sued over. Oh yes bring on that Provincial pension fund.

This was an issue since Kenney won in 2019. It was an issue to the NDP opposition as well Alberta Mayors, the Alberta Federation of Labour. But it was not an issue in the election.

And that is why the NDP lost their chance at government. They made the issue about the leaders. The negative attacks on Smith by Notley and visa versa distracted from Policy and Issues. In fact neither party ran on issues. Especially climate change as the north of the province burned with wildfires through out the election 

Smith in her winners speech whined about nasty attacks by third party ads, claiming with no evidence that they spent more then in any other election. She would be right except that those third parties were on UCP's side with personal attacks on Notley popping up on TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, in online ads on my newsfeeds etc.

This was the strategy the NDP failed to use. Again their reticence to use the Internet and now social media was the way the Party should have worked with their Labour ,Social Justice, Environmentalist lobbies to form an effective counter to Alberta First the extremist separatist lobby. The NDP allies were not mobilized to do the negative and attack ads on UCP.  Instead the party made it as much about Rachel as UCP did.

Policy be damned the Party said. The election could have been in a Meta boxing ring for all the discussion of the NDP agenda for Alberta. 

Wildfires welcomed Rachel when she was into her tenth month as Premier in 2016. Wildfires are still raging in Alberta on a more regular basis in the north of the province which is oil sands country and that northern region of the province voted solidly UCP, including the riding named after Notley's father.

It is this region that faces Environmental and Climate change accelerating with regularity of Wildfires followed shortly after with Floods; as they say 'of biblical  proportions'. 

These have been occurring since Ralph Klein was premier, with the worst flooding in Alberta history occurring in 2013 during the premiership of lame duck Alison Redford, the first female Premier of Alberta stabbed in the back by the misogynist leadership of the PC.

The Climate Crisis apparently was not occurring in Alberta during the election.

If anyone is to blame for a failed strategy to win Government, it is the Communications and Strategy committee of the NDP. The brain trust that lost the 2019 election by attacking Kenney used the same strategy again. 

Notley announced she was staying on as Leader, and as Leader of His Majesty's Loyal opposition. And well she should. some pundits sound bites claimed she would have to step down, even after she announced she wasn't. Rachel took this party from four seats to 37 the largest unified opposition in Alberta history. 

It is also unheard of in Alberta Politics provincial or federal for a Party leader to stay on after a defeat let alone two. But that is politics in Alberta to build a movement or Party to win government you must look like the government in waiting, and that is what Rachel is doing.

Pause for a moment and ponder this. In 2015 the NDP swept way the Conservative WildRose parties to become government with untold new MLA's. 

It immediately faced an economic crisis left by the previous PC government. The oil industry crashed in 2014 leaving Alberta in a growing financial crisis. Through this the  fledgling NDP government had to deal with a monolithic Conservative bureaucracy as  well as ending Conservative austerity programs. It was constantly under attack by rent a crowd protesters from Kenney's party, whether it was Bill 6 to protect farm workers or the right for LGBTQ clubs in schools.

The NDP showed strong winning the rural mountain riding of Banff Canmore. The also won another seat in Lethbridge. Which will be reviewed by Elections Alberta because the races were so close all night long and were only a few hundred votes or less for the winner.

The NDP swept Edmonton and Sherwood Park for the first time.  The last three UCP seats in the city were lost the NDP. 

In doing so they finally unified the opposition under one movement banner ( as the NDP likes to call themselves) eliminating lesser parties like the long standing fly in the ointment the Alberta Liberals. Now there are literally rump parties the Greens and the Alberta Party (yes those pesky Liberals changed their names) who barely impacted the vote count for the winner.

Alberta is no longer a one party state! 

First it was twenty years of the United Farmers Of Alberta government then the  1930's under the Social Credit party until 1971. Then it was 44 years of the Lougheed/Klein Progressive (sic) Conservatives. Let that sink in dear reader. This province was a one party state longer than the Soviet Union or Castro's Cuba

While the NDP did not win government they created a movement for democracy in Alberta which placed them in this historical moment of creating the largest unified and diverse  left wing opposition ever in Alberta's existence as province.

Alberta has left behind the one party state mentality of the rural petite bourgeoise. The NDP is the party of the future as it took more seats in Calgary then it ever has. It is the party of the metropolitan future for Alberta.

The NDP dragged Alberta kicking and screaming into the traditional two  party rule in Canada. Our motto is not the Yankee "the land of the free" Smith promotes it is POGG. Peace, Order and Good Government. With the NDP strength in Opposition this will be assured.

EUGENE PLAWIUK

Former chair of the ABNDP Communications and Strategy election committee 1997 which elected two NDP MLA's ( Raj Pannu future party leader and Pam Barrett the party leader at the time ) after the NDP were decimated by Klein in the 1993 election. We also put the NDP on the web at that time, being the first Canadian political party to do so during an election.

SEE

THE ALBERTA NDP THE PARTY OF OIL WORKERS

THE COINCIDENTAL BIRTH OF THE NEW DEMOCRATS 

AND THE OIL INDUSTRY IN ALBERTA

Alberta Provincial Election 2004

FAIR COMMENT

Below are articles I have written during the Alberta Provincial Election Campaign.

The Election was held November 22, 2004 and saw the ruling PC's lose 17 seats, which still left them with an overwhelming majority of 61 seats in the legislature, returning Alberta again to a one party state.

These stories were also posted on the web at Indymedia, StriaghtGoods, and Rabble.ca, as well as being circulated over a variety of listserves.

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ALBERTA UBER ALLES

(1214 words)

Ralph Klein kicked off the provincial election campaign kicking the disabled while they are down. Ralph is using his position as Premier not just as a bully pulpit, but as the pulpit of a bully. Making a caricature of disabled protestors, who rightly demanded a few crumbs from the Alberta Advantage (oil), Klein instead warned them that they looked able enough and that he would crack down on those abusing the system.
This is the same Premier who while drunk in public entered the single men’s hostel in Edmonton seeking out the poor to shove, berate, and threaten. His excuse then was he had a drinking problem.
No he has a poverty problem, he cannot believe that anyone in Alberta, er HIS Alberta, isn't as well off as the members of the PC's (Party of Calgary). He likes to bully the poor, the disabled, those who protest his decisions or lack of decisions.
Lets compare crooks, there is no evidence that people on AISH are taking advantage of us. For 5 years there has been no increase in AISH payments and for the past decade the number of people on AISH has not increased. 31,450 Albertan’s get $850 a month from AISH, half that is federal funding, excess federal tax credits for the poor get clawed back by the Alberta government. That comes out to over $2.6 million annually, less then the cost of the current Senate election.
If the disabled work their wages are used to claw back the $850. If they do work it will be at minimum wage, which is the lowest in Canada. In Alberta working full-time for minimum wage would earn a you $860 a month. The severely disabled are expected to live on $10,200 a year. That is below the national poverty level, no matter who calculates it Stats-Can or Ralph’s pals at the Fraser Institute.
If there is any financial funny business going on its in the Legislature, not in the AISH program. Take the Health minister's executive assistant for one. He got $400,000 for giving advice on health care projects, work he supposedly did but did not have any evidence of doing, and he got his contract without tender. We call that cronyism if not criminal. But in Ralph's World he calls it good government. Lets see that $400,000 would support 4000 severely disabled Albertan’s on AISH for a year, with spare change left over.
If this were the federal government doing this, Ralph would be joining his Calgary pal Steven Harper calling the Liberals crooks. Wait it did happen, it’s called Adscam.
But this is Alberta home of the longest lasting single party government in North America, if not the world. We are a single party state and have been for over 70 years. First it was 20 years of the United Farmers of Alberta then 35 years of Social Credit theocracy and now 33 of the right wing Tories. That is longer than Castro has ruled Cuba. It is longer than one party state rule in the Soviet Union.
Ralph likes to refer to the mythical volk of Alberta, as severely normal, so there cannot be anyone poor in Alberta, or injured workers, or seniors, or disabled. And woe betides those that insist they are not getting a fair shake in Ralphs Volkstadt. It’s the Alberta Advantage Uber Alles.
Peter Elzinga, a long time PC insider and the un-elected deputy Premier for Edmonton, is still managing this election for the party of Ralph, while he is employed by Suncor as legal counsel as they sue the Alberta Government over royalties they owe us.
And Ralph is going to lecture the disabled on abuse of the system. That’s a clear case of the kettle calling the pot black.
With 74 of 83 seats Ralph can bully anyone he wants from his Teflon pulpit. He can with the aplomb of a King Charles dismiss the legislature as a damned nuisance that gets in the way of his government. Nor does his view of parliamentary democracy include an opposition, they too are a nuisances, just as Cromwell was.
He can walk out of the Federal health care meeting to go gambling, dropping some cold Alberta cash into the VLT's in Quebec. Showing his political solidarity with the Quebec government of his protege; Jean Charest no doubt.
He dropped a wad that would have paid the rent and utilities for at least one person on AISH.
Ralph likes to drink, so we privatize the government liquor stores. Ralph likes to gamble so we introduce VLT's into bars. On the other hand, women’s shelters in Alberta have to beg for money to meet increased insurance costs.
He can hold another useless Senate election a $3 million dollar red herring while claiming there is no democratic deficit in Alberta. It would do Bonnie Prince Charlie proud. And like other leaders who follow the fueher principle Klein dismissed elected health board representatives two years into their mandate, because they were not Tories. They were another opposition to his government. He has dismissed school board trustees for the same reason. They voiced opposition to government cuts. Vox Populi is not popular with Ralph. If Ralph and the PC's had their way every level of government in Alberta would be dominated Tories. And opposition be damned.
And the reason for electing another senator in waiting, we already have two from the last exercise in futility in 2001, is because Alberta Tories want to reform the federal government. But no reform is needed in Alberta insists Ralph, where the legislature sits less often then in any other parliamentary democracy. In Alberta the most important matters of State are decided in closed cabinet meetings.
But that should be expected from a Premier who states in the legislature that Augusto Pinochet is just a misunderstood democrat. He was forced to overthrow a democratically elected government because it was socialist. Them reds got what they deserved. And with unabashed aplomb his evidence for this opinion was an essay he wrote for a University course. The fact he plagiarized whole sections of his essay off the internet was dismissed with a wave of a hand. And the iron fist of his Minister of Learning who met with Alberta’s University Presidents and demanded they write public letters of support for Ralph saying he didn't really cheat on his homework. In Alberta when it comes to the crime of plagiarism, to paraphrase Geoge Orwell, some undergraduates are more equal than others.
Ralph claims there is no democratic deficit in Alberta. In Calgary home of Canada's corporations and right wing lobby groups, all is well for the Party of Calgary and Ralph, the Reform, er Alliance, er Conservative Party of Stephen Harper demands fixed election dates, referendum, recall, and proportional representation in Ottawa. What is good for goosing Ottawa dare not be gandered in Alberta.
This election is being held 3.5 years into a possible 5-year mandate. And while our Teflon Emperor has proclaimed this is his last election that will mean Ralph expects to rule until 2010. By that time Alberta may be the last single party state in the hemisphere, including Cuba.
For the mythical "severely normal Albertans; Martha and Henry" Ralph may be their boy, for real Albertan’s living in Ralph’s World it’s Caveat Elector.


ALBERTA’S NEW DEFINITION OF ‘PC’ (Party of Calgary)

(2336 words)

When Ralph Klein announced shortly before the election call that his government was giving $3 billion dollars as a ‘gift’ to Alberta municipalities, it looked like another typical Tory election ploy of buying votes with our own money. But in this case there was a twist, the $3 billion was not going to be divided evenly between Alberta’s two largest cities. Rather Ralph’s hometown of Calgary was going to get $1billion, Edmonton was going to only get $750 million based on its population, while the rest of the money was to be spent across the province in smaller cities and municipal districts. The reason Ralph gave for giving Calgary more than Edmonton was revealing he stated that it was because the Mayor of Calgary had come up with the idea in the first place and asked him for the money. Once again Calgary benefited while the Capital City was short-changed by Ralph and his PC party.
In Alberta it has become clear that in this election the term PC does not mean Political Correctness, nor does it mean Progressive Conservative it’s new meaning is PARTY OF CALGARY. Having re-branded themselves the Progressive Conservative Association, deleting any reference to being a political party in their ads, the PC’s as they have been known since 1971 have become a regional party representing Central and Southern Alberta. They are an ‘association’ a corporation which runs the province from the real centre of power; Calgary. They have returned to their roots, which was in the office towers of Calgary in particular the offices of the Mannix Corporation, which hired Peter Lougheed and later Ernest Manning.
After 35 years in office as the provinces ruling party, the Social Credit party of Manning was in decline with a lame duck Premier Harry Strom. In the 1971 election the small PC caucus of six swept the province with an overwhelming majority. And has stayed in power for almost as long as their predecessor.
The success of the PC’s under Lougheed was engineered by the former quarterback by amalgamating the interests of Calgary’s Liberals and Tories and with a backroom deal with Ernest Manning to quietly throw his support behind the new party pulling southern Alberta votes in for the Lougheed team. The Socreds disappeared off the map over the next decade, slowly becoming irrelevant as the PC’s amalgamated their party along with the Liberals. Only the NDP with one member in the house stood as an opposition to the Lougheed Government.
With the oil boom of the seventies and eighties, the governing Tories could do no wrong. Until that fateful mechanism of capitalism, the boom and bust business cycle slammed into the province in the 1980’s. The recession that had been hitting the rest of the world and Canada had been avoided in Alberta with the expansion of the tar sands oil project. The boom busted. Unfortunately it busted as prices for refined oil increased, while raw product declined. The bust in Alberta was a boon for eastern Canada, in particular Ontario, where much refining was done. Alberta’s export prices were kept down for a made in Canada price, while its ability to refine, process and export to the US market were limited. This was the real crisis that caused oil executives in Calgary to leap from their executive offices in a repeat of the great Wall Street crash of 1929. Construction dried up, laying-off thousands of trade’s workers, thousands of white collar workers in the oil industry in Calgary were laid off, steel and pipe manufacturing plants closed.

In order to stabilize oil prices in Canada, the minority Liberal Government in Ottawa under pressure from the NDP introduced the NEP, (ironically named since an earlier form of the NEP was Lenin’s attempted to create a market space for capitalism in Russia in the 1920’s) and created Canada’s national Oil company PetroCanada. In Alberta this partial ‘nationalization’ of Alberta’s oil production in order to create a provincial refining processing industry is still seen to this day as having ‘caused’ the crash of the eighties. What Albertan’s forget when they mention the dreaded NEP is the famous Globe and Mail photograph of then Prime Minister Trudeau and Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, toasting champagne glasses together over the creation of PetroCanada, as a result of the NEP. PetroCanada saved Calgary from its market forced crash. It revived the oil industry in Alberta by increasing investment in the refining process, and contrary to the gnashing of teeth and spitting of blood over the NEP, allowed for Alberta to enter an unprecedented twenty-year boom.
A room full of monkeys could have governed this province over that time, and in fact that is exactly what happened.
After Peter Lougheed retired, the natural governing party of the PC’s elected its first Edmontonian as leader; Don Getty. Getty while an Edmontonian and former football teammate of Lougheeds, was well connected with Calgarys Petroleum old boys network. He was their point man in the Provincial capital, acting an oil business consultant and lobbyist. He however was unfortunate enough to takeover the party as the economic crisis continued in Alberta. However with record oil reserves, the government was able to throw money around ‘like a drunken sailor’ in order to save collapsing farms, as well as collapsing secondary and tertiary businesses. In rural Alberta it subsidized secondary processing plants for canola, beef, and pigs. In order to save the construction industry, and maintain its rural Social Credit base it built hospitals and schools, it expanded university construction, and in order to win seniors votes it built seniors housing in the cities. And it got re-elected.
Unfortunately even though the government built much, it was unable to fund staffing for seniors homes, hospitals or universities. And it couldn’t find enough tradesmen to build infrastructure.
It invested in meat packing plants, in a hazardous waste reduction plant in Swan Hills, it began partnerships with Japanese companies in building processing plants for timber export, all with an open cheque book paid with oil money and interest from the heritage trust fund.
Getty ended his short-term premiership in a personal and political crisis. His son was busted dealing cocaine (after his parole he was hired by Tory Bagman Ron Southern of ATCO as favour to Getty), his reputation was besmirched by the party as having been a lame duck premier. The knives were out after Getty lost his seat in Edmonton to a Liberal and hadto run in Stettler in a safe seat to retain his party leadership. Getty continued to be attacked by the opposition as well as by party insiders, in particular by leadership candidate Ralph Klein. The Liberals who had not been on the Alberta political map since they lost to the United Farmers at the beginning of the 1920’s had been revived as a centre right party to contest the Tories domination of the Alberta political map.
Under Getty the party lost a record number of seats to the NDP and Liberals, and the PC’s forced Getty out. In a closely fought leadership race between Edmonton MLA Nancy Betkowski (who would later become a lame duck leader of the Liberals) and former Calgary Mayor and boozing good old boy Ralph Klein, Getty was attacked for having created a fiscal crisis in the government.
In reality Getty had primed the pump in a good old-fashioned Keynesian attempt to forestall the worst crisis the province had seen since the Great Depression.
And the Depression was a memory in the province that still brought shivers to those who had lived through it. It was this memory that had kept the Socreds in power for 35 years, it would be the NEP that would be blamed for the crisis Getty faced. Albertans have long memories of those who done them wrong and those who saved them. In the Depression it was the Socreds that challenged the ‘eastern bastards’ in Ottawa as Klein called them, after the NEP fiasco it was the Tories who challenged Ottawa. To this day Klein uses Ottawa bashing to gather round the wagons and the mere whisper of NEP is enough to silence provincial opposition politicians and federal politicians as well.
Klein won the leadership race by Getty bashing, and in no small way Edmonton bashing. If Ottawa bashing won votes in Alberta, Edmonton bashing was equally a winner in the rest of the province.
Obviously Edmonton as the Capital of the province was like Ottawa a government town, though in fact it is the largest working class city in the province, full of tax and spend bureaucrats, government workers and folks who don’t know how to balance a budget. The Tories returned to their roots in electing Klein, and once again became the Party of Calgary.
The next test of the Party of Calgary came in the provincial election of that year, which saw former Edmonton Mayor Lawrence Decore leading a revived Liberal Party face off against former Calgary Mayor Ralph Klein leading the Party of Calgary. The NDP had been the official opposition for the first time in it’s history prior to the election, but by the end of the election were wiped off the map.
Like the rest of the country and in fact the rest of the world, the province was facing a short-term deficit which was increasing the provincial debt. All levels of government were facing increasing debt as corporations and foreign investors began divesting themselves of bonds in order to have access to cash.
Once again the business cycle of capitalism was glossed over, while politicians blamed the Getty government for its excess spending. In the United States and England Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher were elected and blamed Keynesianism for the economic downturn. It was the big lie of debt and deficit that allowed right wing politicians to begin to move towards increased privatization and outsourcing of government services based on the demands of business lobbies with cash to invest.
Decore called for ‘brutal cuts’ to government spending, Klein called for ‘massive cuts’, Klein won. Albertans stick with the one that brung ya. The vote was, ironically against the Tory government of Don Getty, with both Klein and Decore making him the boogieman.
In Edmonton and Calgary a sense that the crisis facing the Tories could mean a Liberal victory, led to strategic voting which ended in a wipe out of all the sitting members of the NDP, a larger Liberal Opposition and the election of Ralph as Premier of Alberta.
The Tories could do no wrong in Alberta except in Edmonton, where every sitting Tory lost to the Liberals. The Edmonton Sun renamed the city Redmonton, after the Liberal party colour of Red.
It would be a black day for the city, for government services, for democracy in the province as the Klein government would adopt the Republican Agenda, the New Zealand Agenda and the Thatcher Agenda to deal with its short term deficit crisis.
The Klein Government embraced privatization and outsourcing of government services and cutting payments to the poor, the disabled, and the artistic and cultural communities. Getty style Keynesianism was replaced with Fraser Institute policies. In fact Ralph became the poster boy for the Fraser Institute and its Free Market / Less Government policies.
Calgary became the HQ not only of the Oil industry in Canada but the HQ of privatized federal corporations like CN and former Quebec companies like the CPR. It became the HQ of National Citizens Coalition, (NCC) the right wing political arm of the Fraser Institute and the Business Council on National Interest. And it gave birth to the Reform Party of Canada, led by Ernest Mannings little boy Preston. The Reform party became the Canadian Alliance and now today is the Federal Conservative Party (having dropped any pretence to be being ‘Progressive’ by removing that prefix). The current leader of the Conservative Party is Stephen Harper who was also spokesman for the NCC.
Under Klein Calgary has boomed with growth of white collar, high-income movers and shakers. While across the rest of the province secondary and tertiary industries have declined like meatpacking. Hospitals have been closed, nurses and doctors laid off, social services have been cut, work for welfare has been imposed, private secondary and post secondary schools compete with the public schools and universities, teachers have been cut.
Where there haven’t been cuts is in Northern Alberta, where there is a construction boom in the oil industry of the Tar Sands and the secondary refining and processing plants in and around Edmonton.
This later boom was originally created by the NEP and has been funded by reduced royalties that the Klein government introduced when it took over. It was these very reductions in royalties that exasperated the Alberta deficit that led to such brutal cuts in the nineties.
It is Calgary where the right wing think tanks, the political science department at the U of C, and others have launched their cross Canada attempts to promote: charter schools, privatization of liquor stores, an elected Senate, and a firewall around the province. Calgary represents the new conservative politics of the Republican Party North.
Jean Charest when he was leader of the Federal Progressive Conservative Party during that first term when Klein began his ‘revolution’ said "Alberta sets the agenda for Canada". Today Charest is Liberal Premier of Quebec and modeling his restructuring of Quebec’s social contract on what he learned from Klein, as is B.C. Premier Gordon. That Agenda is alive and well in Canadian politics provincially and federally, but let’s call a spade a spade, it’s not the Alberta Agenda anymore than Klein’s Party of Calgary represents the province, it’s the Calgary Agenda.

ALBERTA’S SENATE ELECTION-Don’t Vote It Only Encourages Them

(881 words)

For the third time in seven years Albertan’s will get the privilege of electing our Senators in waiting, which are the proverbial bridesmaids of Canadian Politics. This is a $3 million dollar farce foisted on the taxpayers of this province by Ralph Klein in order to appease his parties Calgary rightwing rump, who are the movers and shakers in the new federal Conservative party. Albertan’s are one again being led down the golden brick road by Ralph, in this election which is non-binding on the Federal government. Don’t peek behind the curtain, or the smoke and mirrors of this non-event will become clear.
It’s all about the old Reform party agenda of having a Triple E Senate, ‘Equal, Elected, Effective’, but wait the Reform party is no more. And the masses have not been clamoring for an elected Senate, heck Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party (the Reform party in wicked witch of the west drag) didn’t even raise the issue in the June Federal Election. Ralph wasn’t even going to run any of his own party candidates in the Senate election till he faced pressure from some of those same Federal Conservative faithful about what a sham a Senate election looked like when the ruling party in the province didn’t play along.
So the provincial Tories are running candidates. The newly formed Alberta Alliance (another incarnation of Mormon-Elder Randy Thorsteinson attempt at creating a rural right wing party, he was the leader of the Alberta Social Credit party in the last election) is running the majority of candidates and there are three Independents all former supporters of the Reform party.
It’s a race to the right. The provincial and federal Liberals and NDP are not running candidates, nor is the Green Party, or the Communist Party, or the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist, nor even the Natural Law Party.
During the last Senate election at least there were truly independent candidates, severely normal Albertan’s as Klein calls them, running. Not so in this non-event. And the lack of any real election presence, signs, leaflets, radio, TV or newspaper ads underlies the whole phoniness of this election of a Senator in waiting.
And given the fact that Senate appointments are a lifelong appointment to the Red Chamber, one has to wonder how you can even elect one once every twenty-five years let alone having three elections in seven years.
Did I mention that Senators are appointed? Appointed by the Government of Canada, the Senate is a Federal institution and it has not been reformed to be a Triple E Senate, despite the feeble attempts by the Calgary based right wing party known as the Reform-Alliance-Conservatives, in its early years to make this an issue.
The only place one hears of Senate Reform is from the mouths of Calgarians, such as Peter Lougheed, Preston Manning and Stephen Harper. For the rest of us in Alberta and across Canada it’s a non-issue.
And we still have Senators in waiting elected prior to this election awaiting appointment by the Federal government, so why do we need more? The fact that these previous elected Senators, members of the Reform party, like the current crop has a snowballs chance of being appointed is irrelevant. It is another shtick the right wing can use to proclaim from the office towers in Calgary of how the West Wants In and no one in Ottawa is answering the door.
Once upon a time it was about electoral reform in Canada, the agenda of the Reform party was Referendum, Recall and a Triple E Senate. As it went through its transformations into the Conservative party, it dropped all pretence to democratic reform, and is now all about States rights, err Provincial rights, Flat Taxes, Tax Reduction, Privatization, the Republican Agenda for Canada.
The real question is not about reforming the Senate but why we should even have this elitist institution, a vestigial remnant of the British Parliamentary system modeled on its House of Lords. In order to be appointed to the Senate you must be a landowner. You must own property renters need not apply. It does not even represent all the parties in the Federal House of Commons, there are neither NDP nor BQ Senators. Of course in the case of the NDP that’s because they have held that this elitist establishment should be abolished. Now there is a real reform.
We should not be electing Senators but abolishing the Senate. Real reform would be to expand the House of Commons through a system of proportional representation to make up for elimination of this archaic vestige of British colonialism.
Senate reform is not on the agenda for any of the Federal parties, proportional representation is.
In Alberta on the other hand such radical ideas challenging the severe democratic deficit we face under the one party state of Ralph Klein is not even on the horizon. Instead Ralph gives us a phony election for a phony senator. Smoke and mirrors.
When it comes to electing a Senator from Alberta the old adage; "Don’t Vote It Only Encourages Them", holds true.

For background on Abolish the Senate Campaign in 2001 see my web-site:
http://www.connect.ab.ca/~plawiuk/senate.html


THE ALBERTA LIBERALS ARE NDP LITE

(540 words)

If imitation is the highest from of flattery, Brian Mason and the NDP should be blushing. With only two members in the Alberta Legislature they have been the sharpest critics of the Ralph Klein regime. The Alberta NDP has set the agenda in Alberta for mobilizing opposition to the right.
It’s the proverbial battle of Alberta. It’s the Edmonton Oilers against the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Eskimos against the Calgary Stampeders. It’s a case of Edmonton Reds versus Calgary Rednecks.
With the election of Kevin Taft as leader of the Liberal Party and the ‘official’ opposition, which have seven seats all from Edmonton, the Liberals have abandoned their centrist attempt to be Tory Lite and have become NDP Lite.
Since this election is a forgone conclusion, the only real challenges and races will be in Edmonton. It’s the battle for Redmonton. And Tafts Liberals keep trying to be the NDP.
They have called for public auto insurance, a long time NDP policy. They have called for tuition freezes for post secondary students, the NDP has called for a 10% rollback in tuition and a freeze.
The latest election foible Taft has thrown out is a call for a review of Alberta’s Democratic Deficit, which really is what this election should be all about. He is calling for proportional representation, which the NDP has called for over the past two elections. He has raised the issue of reducing the number of seats in the Legislature to 64, an issue the NDP raised back in 1986.
There is nothing that the Liberals have said this election that differentiates them from the NDP.
They even changed their party logo to appear more radical, they have eliminated the Lubex L that symbolized their party in the past, for a slick black and red banner, an obvious attempt to appeal to the anarchist youth vote.
The Liberals have been on a decline since their heyday over a decade ago under the leadership of Lawrence Decore. Since then they have had three leadership changes, every time they lost the election to the Tories, they lost seats, and inevitably they bring out the knives and change leaders.
Today they are a left rump in Edmonton. But the NDP has returned, and with only two MLA’s in the house has still been a more effective opposition than the Liberals, who maintain ‘official opposition’ status by the skin of their teeth. Decore’s neo-conservative Liberals are no more, the Liberals under Taft are the left of the party, and what’s left of the party.
Instead of being NDP Lite they should simply give up their pretence to being a centrist-left party and join the NDP, giving Edmontonians a solid voice of opposition to the Party of Calgary and its leader Ralph Klein. The battle is for Redmonton and it is only a matter of time before this stark choice will be made clear to Taft and company. That time is fast approaching and will be made very clear on Nov. 23.
The Liberals are only the official opposition in name and should do Edmontonians a favour and unite with the NDP.

Climate battle looms as Alberta premier Smith takes aim at Trudeau after election win

May 30, 2023

By Steve Scherer and Nia Williams

May 30 (Reuters) -Alberta's election of conservative leader Danielle Smith puts her on a collision course with Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over climate policies that she claims will underminethe province's massive fossil fuel industry.

Smith, leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP), defeated left-leaning New Democratic Party leader Rachel Notley on Monday, and immediately targeted Trudeau, threatening the country's ambitious climate goals.

Smith said Trudeau'sLiberal climate policies will destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the oil and gas sector, which contributes more than 20% to Alberta's gross domestic product.

Trudeau's government is aiming to cut climate-warming carbon emissions 40-45% by 2030, but will struggle to meet that target without significant reductions from Alberta, Canada's highest-polluting province.

Some analysts have said deep emissions cuts are not possible without cutting oilproduction, which Smith fiercely opposes.

In her victory speech in front of cheering supporters in Canada's oil capital Calgary, Smith called on Albertans to stand up against policies including the federal government's proposed oil and gas emissions cap and clean electricity regulations, expected to be unveiled within weeks.

"Hopefully the prime minister and his caucus are watching tonight," Smith said. "As premier I cannot under any circumstances allow these contemplated federal policies to be inflicted upon Albertans."

Canada has the world's third-largest oil reserves, most of which are held in northern Alberta's vast oil sands. The province produces around 80% of Canada's 4.9 million barrels per day of crude oil.

"Let's create more good jobs, grow our economy, and continue to position Alberta as a leader in clean energy," Trudeau said in a tweet on Tuesday congratulating Smith on her victory.

The federal government says Canada needs to cut emissions from oil and gas production to stay competitive as the world transitions to net-zero by 2050.

'BELLICOSE RHETORIC'

Since winning party leadership and becoming premier in October, Smith passed legislation allowing the province to refuse to enforce federal laws it deems unconstitutional, and she has threatened to use it on legislation seen as a potential threat to the province's energy industry.

Smith and Trudeau have also sparred over who should pay for potential increases to tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects that the oil and gas wants to use to decarbonize its production process.

"One of the challenges is there is a political class in Alberta that has decided that anything to do with climate change is going to be bad for them or for Alberta," Trudeau told Reuters in a January interview.

However, some industry leaders seeking public sector funding for CCS are tiring of the combative relationship between the two levels of government and have called for better collaboration.

Earlier this year, Alex Pourbaix, the then-CEO of oil producer Cenovus Energy CVE.TO, said he would "like to see the temperature turned down a little bit".

For Trudeau, Smith may be a better political counterpoint than her less controversial rival Notley would have been, as the Liberals can cast her as a western version of federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

On Tuesday,Poilievre welcomed Smith's "resounding victory" and said Albertans had voted to "stand up for our energy sector and unleash the full potential of Alberta's economy".

That said, provincial leaders of all political stripes tend to work with the federal government when it is beneficial to their electorate, as has been the case recently with federal funding for healthcare and childcare.

"Danielle Smith is canny enough to know that she has to be able to work with Ottawa," said Shachi Kurl, president of pollster Angus Reid Institute.

"There is a lot of bellicose rhetoric that comes from the Western premiers sometimes... But at the end of the day, politically, it does none of them any good to not be able to work together."

Reporting by Steve Scherer and Nia Williams; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Denny Thomas and Michael Perry

United Conservatives’ narrow Alberta win sets up conflict with Trudeau

Party leader and Alberta premier Danielle Smith used victory speech to attack the prime minister’s climate policies

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023 

Alberta’s United Conservatives have scraped a majority government, narrowly defeating the rival New Democrats in what proved to be the province’s closest ever election.

The triumph for incumbent premier Danielle Smith foreshadows more friction between the western province and Canada’s federal government on environmental regulation, with Smith using her victory speech to attack the climate policies of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau.


Alberta’s party leaders are ignoring the climate crisis while the region burns

Read more

The United Conservative party won 49 of the province’s 87 electoral districts in Monday’s vote, a figure that includes one candidate whom Smith has barred from joining the party’s caucus because of offensive remarks she made, comparing transgender students to feces.

The New Democratic party, under leader Rachel Notley, won the remaining 38 seats. Even though the NDP picked up more than a dozen seats, it fell short by razor-thin margins in the key battlegrounds.

Pollsters had predicted a tight race, but economist Blake Shaffer found voting results showed Notley’s NDP needed only 2,611 votes across six electoral districts to form a government. More than 1 million registered voters did not vote in the election, Shaffer said.

Taking the stage late on Monday, Smith told supporters she would fight Trudeau’s climate policies, arguing they would be harmful to the province’s largest industry and warning tens of thousands of jobs were at stake.

Trudeau’s government has pledged to cut carbon emissions by as much as 45% by 2030, a goal it is not yet on track to meet. To meet this goal, experts agree the oil industry would need to make steep cuts to its emissions.

“This is not a road we can afford to go down. If [Trudeau] persists, he will be hurting Canadians from coast to coast and he will strain the patience and goodwill of Albertans in an unprecedented fashion,” Smith said. “Hopefully the prime minister and his caucus are watching tonight … As premier, I cannot under any circumstances allow these contemplated federal policies to be inflicted upon Albertans. I simply can’t and I won’t.”

Smith has previously used the federal government as a useful political foe in the oil-rich province, where many residents are wary of aggressive climate goals. She and Trudeau have feuded over who is responsible for carbon capture and storage projects, as well as what a “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewable energy might look like.

Earlier this year, Smith’s government passed a controversial “sovereignty act” which allows the province to refuse to enforce federal laws it believes to be unconstitutional. Smith has previously warned it could be used on federal legislation that Alberta views as a potential threat to the province’s oil and gas industry.

“Let’s keep working together to deliver results for Albertans – let’s create more good jobs, grow our economy, and continue to position Alberta as a leader in clean energy,” Trudeau tweeted on Monday night, congratulating Smith for her win.

The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, who endorsed Smith in the final days of the campaign, called it a “resounding win” and said Smith would help the province “unleash the full potential of Alberta’s economy”.

With such a narrow victory, Smith is likely to face internal challenges within her party. Her margin of victory was slim for a province where conservative premiers typically dominate general elections. Smith must also contend with a history of party mutiny: no conservative premier has been able to serve a full term in office since 2004. Instead, they fall victim to fierce infighting between factions of libertarians, populists and fiscal conservatives.

Notley, who served as premier from 2015 until 2019, fell short in her goal of recapturing the province’s leadership. Despite the loss, she vowed to lead her party into the next election.

“It is my honour to serve as your leader,” she said in her concession speech. “And it is my privilege to continue to serve as leader of the official opposition.”

Notley, whose tenure as centrist leader has become enmeshed in the party’s identity, will oversee the largest official opposition in Alberta’s history, a feat of political manoeuvring that has seen her grow the NDP from an also-ran party into a contender to threaten the conservative lock on the province.
Topics

Alberta premier Smith takes aim at Trudeau after winning provincial election

"My fellow Albertans we need to come together no matter how we have voted to stand shoulder to shoulder against soon to be announced Ottawa policies that would significantly harm our provincial economy," Smith said. Trudeau's government is aiming to cut carbon emissions 40-45% by 2030, but will only be able to achieve its climate plan with significant reductions from Alberta, the highest-polluting province.

Reuters | Updated: 30-05-2023 

Danielle Smith 

Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party (UCP) won the Alberta provincial election on Monday, securing another four years in power in Canada's largest oil-producing region, and immediately fired a warning shot at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over climate change. The UCP defeated Rachel Notley's left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) in a closely-fought election that focused on affordability and healthcare, but the UCP will return to the legislature with a diminished caucus.

Smith used her victory speech in Calgary to take aim at Trudeau. "My fellow Albertans we need to come together no matter how we have voted to stand shoulder to shoulder against soon-to-be-announced Ottawa policies that would significantly harm our provincial economy," Smith said.

Trudeau's government is aiming to cut carbon emissions 40-45% by 2030, but will only be able to achieve its climate plan with significant reductions from Alberta, the highest-polluting province. Alberta's oil sector produces the majority of Canada's 4.9 million barrels per day of crude.

Smith is fiercely opposed to a Liberal plan to cap oil and gas emissions, arguing it will lead to a production cut, and the federal goal of a net-zero electricity grid by 2035. She called on Trudeau to halt those climate policies, warning he would "strain the patience and goodwill of Canadians in an unprecedented fashion".

In a note published last week, BMO Capital Markets analyst Jared Dziuba said the UCP is committed to decarbonization, but at a slower pace and lower cost than the NDP would have been. Notley conceded defeat in a speech before supporters in Edmonton, in which she congratulated Smith and noted the NDP would add at least 10 new lawmakers and form one of the largest official oppositions in Alberta's history.

"Now although we did not achieve the outcome that we wanted but we did take a major step towards it," Notley said. Tallying the votes took much longer than usual, with the result being called by television networks more than three hours after polls closed. Elections Alberta, the official body responsible for administering the election, said some voting locations closed late to accommodate all voters in line.
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UCP supporters were undeterred by a series of controversies since Smith became premier in October, including a report from Alberta's ethics commissioner this month that said the premier breached conflict of interest rules by discussing a pandemic-related prosecution case with her justice minister. The UCP's victory also cements a shift to the right in Alberta politics. The western province has traditionally been a bastion of conservativism but Smith also garnered support from a growing Alberta populist movement spurred on by opposition to pandemic-era public health restrictions and distrust of the federal government in Ottawa.

Her government will be bolstered by robust oil prices that are enabling Alberta to pocket record resource revenues. Even so, provincial unemployment at 5.9% sits above the Canadian average of 5%, which is partly a hangover from the energy sector downsizing during the 2014-15 oil price crash, and the healthcare system is under strain. During the election campaign the UCP promised to enact a law guaranteeing governments cannot raise personal or income taxes without approval from Albertans in a referendum.

The government is also looking into policies like Alberta leaving the Canadian Pension Plan, which all Canadians have to pay into, and replacing the national Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a provincial force.

Danielle Smith's UCP Wins Majority In Alberta

Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party will return to government with a diminished but secure majority in the Alberta Legislature.


by Alex Cosh

The Maple

May 30, 2023 ∙ 

Photo credit: Danielle Smith via Facebook.


Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party will return to government with a diminished but secure majority in the Alberta Legislature.

Despite being projected to lose 14 seats when compared with the 2019 election, including a handful of those held by key cabinet ministers, the UCP are on track to secure 49 seats compared to the Alberta NDP's 37 at the time of writing. Several ridings in Calgary remained extremely close late into the night.

The campaign saw Smith grappling with backlash against extremist comments she made in the months and years before she became UCP leader last fall. These comments included comparing those who took COVID-19 vaccines to followers of Adolf Hitler and proposing a plan to sell off Alberta's major hospitals to for-profit operators.

Her party's election platform ultimately resembled a run-of-the-mill conservative offering, including tax cuts and heavy handed "law and order" policies. The platform contained no mention of Smith's signature "Sovereignty Act," a piece of legislation lambasted by critics last December as undemocratic and unconstitutional.

Rachel Notley's NDP, meanwhile, explicitly tried to court conservative voters disaffected by Smith's far-right political history, and pitched right-leaning fiscal policies like eliminating the province's "small business" tax and promising to maintain the lowest corporate tax rate in Canada (despite a proposed three per cent increase). The NDP secured endorsements from two high-profile former Progressive Conservative ministers on the basis of Smith's extremist views.

The NDP also tried to focus the election campaign on healthcare, promising to undertake a major recruitment drive of health professionals to address wait lists.

Ultimately, the NDP's rightward tack on economic policy failed to deliver sufficient gains, particularly in Calgary, which had been dubbed the election's key battleground. As predicted, the NDP swept Edmonton, the provincial capital, while the UCP overwhelmingly dominated rural areas.

Conspicuously absent from both parties' campaigns was a focus on the climate crisis, despite wildfires raging across the province throughout much of the election period.

In her victory speech, Smith opened by taking swipes at pro-NDP third-party campaign groups (she did not name any names) but said she wanted to put partisanship and "personal attacks" aside.

"My oath is to serve all Albertans no matter how you voted," she said. "I will work every day to listen and to improve on the issues you care about."

Smith then attacked the Trudeau government, taking particular aim at Ottawa's plans to cap emissions in the oil and gas sector, and to introduce a net-zero electricity grid by 2035.

Speaking to NDP supporters late last night, Notley said she would continue serving as leader of the opposition, despite acknowledging her party's disappointment at the results.

'Miracle on the Prairies:' Alberta United Conservatives win majority government

The Canadian Press
Tue, May 30, 2023

 

Alberta’s United Conservative Party emerged bloodied but still standing in Monday’s bitterly contested provincial election.

Danielle Smith’s UCP dominated outside Alberta’s two largest cities while retaining enough support in Calgary to overcome an NDP sweep in Edmonton and win a second consecutive majority government.

"To paraphrase our dear friend (former Alberta premier) Ralph Klein, welcome to another miracle on the Prairies,” Smith told cheering supporters on the Calgary Stampede grounds.

Smith thanked the hundreds of thousands of Albertans who voted UCP, but also addressed those who did not.

"Though I didn’t do enough in your judgment to win your support in this election, I will work every day to listen, to improve and to demonstrate to you that I can be trusted to improve on the issues you care so deeply about.”

The UCP were winning or elected in 49 seats to 38 for Rachel Notley’s NDP in the 87-seat legislature, but a final tally was unknown early Tuesday given close races in Calgary.

The change represents a 13-seat swing compared to the 63-24 vote split between the two parties in 2019.

It was an election night beset by slow reporting from Elections Alberta. Only a small fraction of results were available 90 minutes after polls closed and a UCP win wasn’t called for another 90 minutes after that.

Smith easily won her seat in Brooks-Medicine Hat, as did Notley in Edmonton-Strathcona.

Notley told supporters at a downtown Edmonton hotel she will stay on as leader and harness the power of the largest official Opposition in the province’s history.

“We will continue to speak up on behalf of Albertans who struggle to have their voice heard. We will fight for better health care, better education, better jobs," Notley said.

"And, my friends, we will be unequivocal in our demand for respect for the rule of law and an unqualified belief in human rights and basic dignity.”

Support for third parties, such as the centrist Alberta Party, fell away as voters concentrated on either supporting or defeating the two main contenders.

There were 758,550 votes cast in advance polling, smashing the previous record of 700,746 in 2019.

It was the second victory in seven months for the 52-year-old Smith. She had been out of politics for seven years, working mainly as Calgary-based radio talk-show host and political pundit.

Key cabinet ministers retained their seats, including Adriana LaGrange (Education), Rebecca Schulz (Municipal Affairs), Nate Horner (Agriculture), Rick Wilson (Indigenous Relations) and Nathan Neudorf (deputy premier and Infrastructure).

However, Jason Copping, who was health minister, was defeated in Calgary-Varsity as were Nicholas Milliken, the minister for mental health and addiction, in Calgary-Currie, and deputy premier Kaycee Madu in Edmonton-South West.

Justice Minster Tyler Shandro was losing by seven votes as of early Tuesday to NDP challenger Diana Batten in Calgary-Acadia.

Smith ran on a platform of fighting crime and lowering personal income taxes in what is already the lowest-taxed jurisdiction in Canada. She promised a bill forbidding any future hikes to corporate or personal income taxes without a referendum.

She also aimed to woo voters in Calgary by announcing, on the eve of the race, a $330-million provincial contribution to a $1.2-billion deal with the city and the owners of the Calgary Flames for a new NHL arena.

The NDP dominated in Edmonton, a city in which they won all but one seat in 2019.

The three Calgary NDP incumbents — Kathleen Ganley, Irfan Sabir and Joe Ceci — were all re-elected, as were stalwarts Sarah Hoffman, Shannon Phillips and Heather Sweet.

Jennifer Johnson was the winning UCP candidate in Lacombe-Ponoka, but her future wasn’t clear.

During the campaign, Johnson apologized for comments she made last year comparing transgender students to feces. Smith has said Johnson would not sit in the UCP caucus because of the remarks but later, when asked about Johnson, said she believes in redemption and second chances.

The vote capped a bitter campaign that began even before the writs were issued May 1. Both parties warned the other could not be trusted with the economy or with fixing a health system plagued by long surgical waits, teeming emergency wards and a shortage of family doctors.

Smith was dogged by a litany of comments and actions — past and present — that moved the party further to the political right while alienating moderates and prompting some former Progressive Conservatives to announce they were parking their vote with the NDP.

Smith had compared the COVID-19 vaccinated to followers of Adolf Hitler. And two weeks ago, Alberta’s ethics commissioner concluded Smith breached a fundamental democratic firewall earlier this year by leaning on her justice minister, unsuccessfully, to drop the criminal case against a COVID-19 protester.

Smith also refused to disavow comments from her pundit days that she would like to see patients pay out of pocket for some medically necessary services in order to keep the system sustainable. However, she promised on the campaign trail that she would respect the sanctity of medicare.

She also promised to revisit, after the election, proposals such as abandoning the RCMP for a provincial police force and pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan.

There are questions around what role a growing faction within the party called Take Back Alberta will have with Smith’s government.

The fundamentalist libertarian movement has links to last year’s protest against COVID-19 restrictions that blocked the main United States border crossing at Coutts, Alta., for two weeks. The group successfully backed a slate that forms half the UCP governing board with plans later this year to take over the other half.

Smith, the former leader of the Wildrose Party, won the UCP leadership in October, capitalizing on broad party resentment toward then-leader Jason Kenney, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and COVID-19 health rules.

The win was a vindication for Smith, after presiding over two of the biggest debacles in recent Alberta conservative history that long made her persona non grata within the movement.

In 2012, Smith’s Wildrose saw a late election polling lead evaporate after she questioned the science of climate change and refused to sanction candidates for intolerant remarks, including one who called on gay people to repent or face eternal suffering in hell’s “lake of fire.”

In 2014, Smith tried to unite the fractured conservative movement by leading a mass floor crossing of her Opposition Wildrose to the governing Progressive Conservatives.

The Wildrose and PCs joined forces to create the UCP in 2017 and, led by Kenney, defeated the NDP in the 2019 election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2023.

— With files from Ritika Dubey and Angela Amato in Edmonton and Bill Graveland and Colette Derworiz in Calgary.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

What Danielle Smith’s Alberta election win means for the rest of Canada

By Sean Boynton  Global News

Posted May 30, 2023 

Danielle Smith: Alberta election: A look back at Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley's political history

When Danielle Smith took the podium Monday night to celebrate her victory  in the Alberta election, she had a message for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

On Monday night, voters will either give the sitting premier a mandate, or return a former premier to office. But how did we get here? From floor crossings to the 2015 Orange crush, Scott Roberts looks back at the political histories of Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley.

“Hopefully the prime minister and his caucus are watching tonight,” the newly re-elected premier told a raucous crowd of supporters in Calgary.

Indeed, all eyes will be on Alberta as Smith begins her second term, which political watchers say will have implications not just for the province but for the rest of Canada as well.

Alberta has always had a testy relationship with the federal government and even other provinces as it defends its profitable energy industry and other interests.

But the past four years under the United Conservative Party and during the COVID-19 pandemic have seen Edmonton’s relations with Ottawa grow particularly tempestuous.

The question now is whether a fresh start is on the horizon — though experts have doubts.

“It’s gospel that the federal government ignores Alberta, and to a degree that is correct,” said Allan Tupper, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who spent decades teaching in Alberta. “There’s a great deal of resentment.”

“At the end of the day, (Smith) has to recognize that she has to deal with the federal government. No matter what kinds of laws she passes, provinces have to work with Ottawa.”

2:34Decision Alberta: The changing dynamic of the province’s politics

Global News and others projected a Smith victory Monday night after a race beset by slow tabulations. It was a race that saw both Smith and Notley trying to frame themselves as someone voters could trust.

It remains to be seen whether Smith continues to pursue the often-tense approach with Ottawa she demonstrated during her short premiership. Her government passed the controversial Alberta sovereignty act and openly mulled opting out of the Canada Pension Plan and replacing it with a provincial version.

None of those proposals were part of the UCP platform during the campaign, and it still remains to be seen what will happen when or if Smith’s government invokes the sovereignty act — a move that would likely spark court challenges.

10:17Calgary MP says moderate conservatives face tough decision in Alberta election

The Onion Creek First Nation in Alberta has already sued to block the legislation, claiming the government did not consult with Indigenous groups. Smith launched Indigenous consultations after the act was passed.

If Smith moves forward with pursuing a provincial pension plan or other similar moves, experts say that could hurt efforts between Ottawa and the provinces to work together on solving national issues, like health-care funding earlier this year.

“I think there are questions about how Canada and the federation can work together when there seems to be some political advantage to be gained by attacking the federal government and provinces with which they disagree,” said Lori Williams, a political science professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University.

2:27Decision Alberta: Provincial election comes at critical economic time

One area where Smith will be likely to butt heads with Trudeau is climate. The premier has decried the Liberal government’s “Sustainable Jobs Plan” to move Canada’s economy away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy while ensuring oil and gas workers are trained for the jobs of the future.

Smith has pushed for Alberta to be exempted from the plan, arguing it fails to recognize Alberta’s right to develop its own natural resources and manage its workforce.

Smith has also criticized Ottawa’s carbon tax and its goal to cut emissions 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade, as well as a net-zero electricity grid by 2035.

4:24Decision Alberta: Breaking down the debate

Alberta’s energy sector has already taken steps to reduce emissions and adopt measures like carbon capture and other technological advancements. Experts believe local and outside investors will want a premier who supports the oil and gas industry by standing up for its own environmental measures, rather than clinging to a reliance on fossil fuels.

“Striking that balance … strategically just makes more sense,” Williams said. “I’ve never understood why Jason Kenney, now Danielle Smith, think (supporting oil and gas while fighting climate action) is a winner long-term beyond energizing their base.”

During her victory speech Monday night, Smith urged Trudeau and his government to work collaboratively with Alberta to develop a “meaningful” climate strategy that won’t adversely impact jobs or revenues in the province.

She warned incoming federal policies will hurt Canadians across the country and “strain the patience and goodwill of Albertans.”

“When Canadians work together, there’s no challenge that we can’t overcome. I believe that, but it takes two parties acting in good faith to achieve that meaningful partnership,” she said.

“Alberta is willing to be that partner, and we need our federal government to show it is willing to partner in good faith as well, and now is the time to do so. We are waiting.”

One person who will be watching Smith’s victory and performance moving forward will be federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Like Smith, he has tapped into voter resentment of Trudeau’s Liberals while seeking to expand his base.

2:11Alberta ethics probe finds Danielle Smith violated conflict-of-interest rule

While Poilievre will likely be encouraged to see Smith retain her premiership, it’s not yet clear if his endorsement of her could hurt him when his party faces more moderate swing voters in Ontario and Quebec, whose votes he will need to become prime minister.

Until the next federal election, what Smith’s victory means is likely more political friction between Alberta and Ottawa — not to mention, the possibility she will be forced out of party leadership just as her predecessor Kenney was.

In a recording of a Take Back Alberta meeting earlier this month, canvasser recruiters were heard urging supporters to convince voters to support the UCP despite their concerns about Smith, suggesting the premier could either be reasoned with or ousted down the road.

Political strategist Stephen Carter, who has plenty of campaign experience in Alberta, told Global News that strategy is a bad one.

“‘Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of my boss’ is generally not a great starting position in politics,” Carter said.

For now, despite evidence to the contrary, the hope will be Smith and Ottawa can reset their relationship and move forward with, as Smith put it Monday night, “good faith.”

“The country does not want constant friction with Alberta, and I think broadly speaking, at the end of the day, neither does Alberta,” Tupper said.

— with files from Global’s Saif Kaisar and the Canadian Press

Alberta election: UCP, NDP split battleground Calgary; cabinet ministers unseated in close races

The United Conservatives lost several key seats in Calgary but maintained a hold on the city

Author of the article: Jason Herring
Published May 29, 2023 

NDP supporters are bathed in orange light as they watch election results at the NDP watch party at the Palace Theatre in downtown Calgary on May 29. PHOTO BY JIM WELLS /Postmedia


The United Conservatives lost numerous key seats in Calgary but maintained enough seats in the hotly contested battleground to secure a majority government in Monday night’s Alberta election.

When the dust settled on the election early Tuesday morning, Danielle Smith’s UCP had won 12 out of Calgary’s 26 constituencies, while Rachel Notley’s NDP triumphed in 14 ridings.

The split result in Calgary is the culmination of a campaign which saw the bulk of electioneering take place in Alberta’s largest city. Parties, pundits and pollsters had predicted Calgary would hold the balance of the election, with the NDP slated to win Edmonton and the UCP taking much of rural Alberta, a forecast which held true Monday.

Though they won the election, the night brought several big losses for the UCP in Calgary, as several incumbents fell in their bids to return to the legislature.

Those defeats include prominent cabinet ministers Jason Copping, Jeremy Nixon, Jason Luan and Nicholas Millikan.

And Tyler Shandro was behind in Calgary-Acadia by a razor-thin margin, with the former health minister and justice minister trailing behind the NDP’s Diane Batten by only seven points. A judicial recount is expected to be triggered for that riding. NDP candidate Nagwan Al-Guneid’s 31-vote win over UCP incumbent Whitney Issik in the neighbouring Calgary-Glenmore also lands in recount territory.

Both parties and their leaders spent the vast majority of their election campaign within Calgary’s city limits, pitching residents their vision for the future of the city and province.

UCP Calgary-Shaw candidate Rebecca Schulz retained her seat. She said at the UCP’s election-night party prior to final results that she was feeling optimistic.

“And I mean tonight, seeing the momentum, I think others are feeling that as well,” Schulz said.

“I’m just so grateful for those people that put their trust in us and are out there putting in the hard work to hopefully see a re-elected United Conservative government.”

At the NDP’s Calgary headquarters Monday night, Calgary-Buffalo candidate Joe Ceci said he was feeling good despite some early tallies suggesting a UCP lead. He says it’s been a “marvellous” campaign.

“It used to be blue, blue, blue, here in (Calgary) and we’ve changed that,” he said. “I had so many people say I can’t believe the number of orange signs that are in this city. It’s invigorating. It’s enlightening to kind of feel that there’s support behind every door.”

WHY UCP STANDS FOR UNITED CALGARY PARTY

The UCP’s biggest pledge for Calgary came before the campaign even began, when they promised $330 million to pay for infrastructure costs needed to get the new arena deal for the Calgary Flames across the finish line. Smith has said her government will give final approval for that funding after the election.

Prior to the election, the UCP held 23 Calgary seats, while only three NDP MLAs represented the city.

A slow trickle of vote reporting meant it was unclear for much of the night which party had won in the city.

Despite the sluggish reporting, Elections Alberta said in a statement to Postmedia there were no problems with vote counting.


Please see the Twitter thread below for further updates on results in Calgary:



— With files from Michael Rodriguez and Matthew Black

jherring@postmedia.com

Alberta heads to the polls with Canada's green agenda in balance

Nia Williams
Published May 29, 2023

Voters in Canada’s main oil-producing province Alberta head to the polls on Monday in a tight election race that is expected to have a significant bearing on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate goals, which are already seen as lagging global peers.

The battle between populist Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP), which is seeking a second consecutive term, and Rachel Notley’s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) is expected to be extremely close, pollsters say, even though Alberta is traditionally a conservative bastion.

The result could reshape Trudeau’s climate agenda if the UCP wins, making it harder for Canada to meet its goal of cutting emissions 40-45% below 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

Smith is opposed to many of Trudeau’s policies including an oil and gas emissions cap and a net-zero electricity grid by 2035, arguing they will hurt an energy sector that contributes more than 20% to Alberta’s GDP.

Notley’s NDP, which ruled from 2015 to 2019 after a shock election victory that ended decades of conservative rule in the province, is seen as more amenable to Liberal plans to rapidly cut emissions, although it also opposes the oil and gas emissions cap.

Alberta is Canada’s highest-emitting province, largely due to vast oil sands operations in the northern boreal forest and produces 80% of the country’s 4.9 million barrels per day of crude oil.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Jared Dziuba said both parties are committed to decarbonization, but the pace and costs of the effort vary.

“We see the likely outcome of an NDP victory as (possibly) accelerated decarbonization, but potentially at much higher net costs to industry given its position on environment and taxes,” Dziuba wrote in a note to clients, adding the UCP would likely support a steady pace of progress at a lower cost.

The latest survey from polling firm Leger shows the right-wing UCP slightly ahead province-wide, backed by 49% of decided voters versus 46% for NDP. However, the NDP holds a modest lead in Alberta’s corporate oil capital Calgary, a key battleground where a number of seats could go to either party, according to a poll from ThinkHQ Public Affairs.

Both leaders held rallies in the city over the weekend.

“I will never permit any Liberal Prime Minister or any Ottawa politician to phase out our energy industry or the jobs of our amazing energy workers,” Smith said in a speech on Friday that included pledges to grow the economy and make the cost of living more affordable.

Notley addressed supporters in Calgary on Saturday and defended her party’s record on jobs, healthcare and reducing childhood poverty. She held another major rally in NDP stronghold and Alberta capital Edmonton on Sunday

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare has become a big issue in Alberta, while affordability has emerged as another key voter concern due to inflation.

Polls are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time and the result is expected to be called late Monday night.

A victory for Smith would cement a rightward shift in the province. Since becoming UCP leader in October, Smith has pushed back against perceived federal government over-reach and passed the Alberta Sovereignty Act that gives the province the power to ignore federal laws it deems unconstitutional.

She has also been dogged by a string of controversies largely related to her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

(Reporting by Nia Williams Editing by Denny Thomas and Deepa Babington)

Alberta votes in the strangest — and closest — election in its political history

A year ago, it looked like Rachel Notley's race to lose. Danielle Smith has caught up in high-drama, low-issue battle

Author of the article:Tyler Dawson
Published May 29, 2023 • 

NDP Leader Rachel Notley and United Conservative Party Leader Danielle Smith are shown on the Alberta election campaign trail in this recent photo combination. PHOTO BY JEFF MCINTOSH /The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Whoever wins the Alberta election on Monday, it will be one of the strangest campaigns ever fought in the province, with plenty of drama but few policy issues, and the real possibility of the closest outcome in Alberta political history.

In 2015, when the NDP won, it was the reversal of 40 years of conservative rule, aided by vote-splitting and a voting public whose patience was at an end. In 2019, when the United Conservatives won, it was a massive victory, featuring a re-energized right-wing movement looking to revitalize the province’s economy.

But this time, with the two parties neck-and-neck as voting day approaches, the election is not about jobs or pipelines or even party platforms.

It’s about Rachel Notley, leader of the NDP, and Danielle Smith, leader of the United Conservative Party.

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“This race, [has] become presidential, presidentialized…people are not going to say, ‘Am I voting UCP or NDP?’ They’re like, ‘Do I want Rachel Notley as my premier or do I want Danielle Smith as my premier?’ And I think that’s a very different question,” said Ken Boessenkool, a staunch Smith critic, longtime conservative strategist and policy adviser with Meredith & Boessenkool.

Issues have surfaced, none of them campaign-defining. The NDP has hammered away on health care. They’ve promised a recruitment strategy for doctors and nurses, and repeatedly raised the spectre of private medicine, which is actually part of the UCP’s handbook. It’s an issue the NDP poll better on than the UCP.

And the UCP have talked extensively about the economy. Former prime minister Stephen Harper even put out a video early in the campaign warning about the economic damage he believes the NDP would do if they were re-elected. The UCP polls well on the economy.

“It’s been a very low issue-profile campaign,” said Evan Menzies, formerly director of communications for the UCP, now with Crestview Strategies in Calgary. “The thing that makes this campaign very complex is the fact that we have an incumbent premier, (and) we have a former premier contesting it. So, Albertans really are looking at sort of two records in office and saying, ‘Which is the record that I prefer?’”

Albertans seem to put Smith and Notley in a dead heat in terms of who they like more: 39 per cent have a positive view of Notley, 38 per cent have a positive view of Smith. The numbers are equally tight for those who dislike Notley (46 per cent) and Smith (47 per cent), per recent Abacus Data polling.

Six months, a year ago, it looked like Notley’s race to lose. The NDP had good polling numbers, and Notley was well-liked. The party out-fundraised their opponents and was flush with cash.

The UCP, an alliance of two different Alberta conservative traditions, was supposed to end vote-splitting and guarantee conservative rule for another generation. Yet, amidst the pandemic and intense economic fluctuations, it spent considerable time absorbed in internecine quarrelling.

After Jason Kenney quit the UCP, a leadership campaign last summer saw the party’s right edge emerge victorious, with Smith taking the helm in a narrow victory. By the time the UCP held its convention last fall, the party was united to defeat Notley’s NDP.

The latest polling — the bulk of it from Mainstreet Research — shows the United Conservatives with a modest lead. On May 25, the pollster reported 46 per cent of Albertans planned to cast a ballot for the UCP, and 42 per cent for the NDP, with seven per cent still undecided, and the remainder scattered between small parties.

NDP leader Rachel Notley chats with fellow NDP candidates following a campaign announcement at High Park in downtown Calgary. Gavin Young/Postmedia

“The fact that the NDP are even close is already an indictment of the Danielle Smith era of the UCP,” said Boessenkool. “There’s no way that any party should be close to a united conservative tent.”

At least part of the reason has been the “bozo eruptions.” In a country where an impropriety or an inelegant comment has been enough to end a political career — and scuppered Smith’s last crack at becoming premier in 2012 — the UCP has largely kept its candidates while dealing with a steady drip of controversy.

“I think these things will affect turnout: they’ll hurt UCP turnout and they’ll boost NDP turnout,” said Boessenkool.

Jennifer Johnson, a nurse and farmer who lives near the central Alberta town of Bentley, was the UCP candidate for Lacombe-Ponoka, at least until audio of her comparing transgender children in the classroom to feces in cookie dough leaked out. She’s still technically on the ballot — it was too late to remove her — but Smith said she won’t sit in caucus.

Christine Myatt, who worked for Kenney and is now with New West Public Affairs, said the UCP has done a good job of “neutralizing the attacks.”

“(They’re) focusing on the UCP’s record on the economy, and really sowing equal doubt in the minds of voters about ‘do you want to go back to to a Rachel Notley-led government,'” Myatt said.

For most of her career in media and politics, Smith has operated on something of the political fringe; the libertarian wing of Alberta politics. As recently as June 2021, Smith argued in a position paper that out-of-pocket payments would be necessary to sustain the health-care system, and in October 2021, suggested selling off several Alberta hospitals. Those positions have been repeated ad nauseam by her NDP opponents, and Smith has had to swear, repeatedly, she doesn’t stand by her previous comments.

Smith also famously embraced fringe positions during the pandemic. She supported the border blockade in Coutts, Alta., and vowed to seek “amnesty” for those who faced charges for violating COVID-19 public-health rules. She said the unvaccinated were the “most discriminated against” group she had seen in her lifetime. And she stopped wearing a poppy on Remembrance Day because of the way politicians tackled COVID

Additionally, she promoted hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, as a “100 per cent” effective treatment for COVID-19, and herself took Ivermectin — an anti-parasitic drug — when she came down with COVID-19, picking up the drug on the same day the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta said it should never be prescribed to treat the viral infection.

While all of this featured prominently in the attacks against Smith during the campaign, the latest bombshell was the finding by Marguerite Trussler, Alberta’s ethics commissioner, that Smith violated the Conflict of Interest Act when she lobbied Tyler Shandro, her justice minister, to intervene regarding charges against Artur Pawlowski, a Calgary street preacher, who has now started his own party to the right of the UCP.

Trussler compared Smith’s actions to those of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the SNC-Lavalin affair. “In the whole scheme of things, it is a threat to democracy to interfere with the administration of justice,” Trussler wrote.

Again, the report didn’t seem to move voters. At least part of the explanation, said Menzies, is that everyone knew the report was coming and anticipated it wouldn’t exonerate Smith. It was already baked in with voters, Menzies said.

What NDP candidate drama there has been has made even less of a mark.

Albertans seem to put Smith and Notley in a dead heat in terms of who they like more 

Gavin Young/Postmedia

The UCP mentions in its campaign advertising that Notley once said Alberta risked being Canada’s “embarrassing cousin” if it didn’t get its environmental record under control. And that Sarah Hoffman, former NDP deputy premier, once called Wildrose supporters “sewer rats.” Campaign literature in Edmonton details “anti-police” NDP candidates, too, but none of it seems to have broken into the popular discourse.

“I think voters kind of look past the noise now,” said Menzies.

On May 18, Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith faced off in a one-on-one leaders debate. It was just hours after Trussler had released her report. The UCP had crowed victory, as Trussler also said that she could find no evidence that Smith had contacted Crown prosecutors directly regarding COVID prosecutions, a central allegation the CBC had been reporting that the NDP had seized on.

In the debate, Notley seemed unable to land a decisive punch on the topic. “You were found to have broken the law in order to interfere with the system of justice to assist with somebody who had been charged with attempting to get people to commit violence against police officers,” said Notley.

“Ms. Notley, the NDP and the CBC lied for months saying I was calling Crown prosecutors and my staff were calling Crown prosecutors and it wasn’t true, and that is what the ethics commissioner found,” Smith responded.

For Smith, the debate was a strong showing. Perhaps her best day on the campaign.

“The NDP has had a full campaign of draws and the UCP has had a full campaign of losses, with one draw,” said Boessenkool.

Anecdotal evidence from those working the doors around the province for the NDP suggests voters do care about some of the scandals.

“They’re saying, ‘this is not the brand of conservatism that I grew up with,'” said Deron Bilous, a former cabinet minister under Notley, who’s now with Counsel Public Affairs, and has been volunteering with the NDP.

There have been some high-profile defections from conservative camps, who aren’t voting blue this time.

There's no way that any party should be close to a united conservative tent

Doug Griffiths, who served as a cabinet minister under former Progressive Conservative premier Ed Stelmach, said he’d be giving his vote to the New Democrat in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, a suburban and rural riding east of Edmonton.

“I don’t believe the UCP party is conservative anymore,” Griffiths said in a video. “They are conspiratorial, they are feeding anger. They are anti-science, anti-truth, anti-fact.”

And, Jim Foster, who was attorney general in the 1970s under PC premier Peter Lougheed, argued that Smith’s ethics breach may actually warrant criminal charges, and that he’d be voting New Democrat in his home of Red Deer.

“I’m a lifelong conservative both federally and provincially, and this is a big change for me to abandon my party, but I simply cannot any longer tolerate this,” Foster told the Calgary Herald.

“The vast majority of conservatives who are nervous about Danielle are ultimately going to wind up supporting her,” Myatt predicted.

The tight popular vote polling doesn’t break down cleanly in terms of seat count, which are weighted towards Calgary and small-town Alberta — conservative heartlands. There are 87 seats in the Alberta legislature, 20 of them in Edmonton, 26 in Calgary and 41 in the rest of the province.

Throughout the campaign, the NDP has enjoyed a solid lead in Edmonton. Abacus Data’s most recent polling, released a week before voting day, showed 61 per cent of Edmontonians planned to vote NDP, with 27 per cent saying they’ll vote UCP. The race in Calgary is far tighter: 42 per cent said they’d vote NDP, and 47 per cent UCP. The gap is wide in favour of the UCP in the rest of the province, at 59 per cent UCP to 28 per cent NDP.

On Monday, it may come down to who can get people out the door and to the polling stations.

“The only thing left to do is to motivate and mobilize your supporters to get to the polls,” said Leah Ward, Notley’s former communications director, now with Wellington Advocacy. “There’s very little persuading left to do.”

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

Alberta’s Vote Will Test American-Style Far-Right Politics

An election in Alberta will be a test of a premier who has said that she models her politics after those of prominent right-wing U.S. politicians.


By Ian Austen
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Ian Austen traveled to Calgary, Alberta and through the province’s south to report on the election
May 29, 2023

Voters in Alberta, the epicenter of conservative politics in Canada, will select a new provincial government on Monday.

Albertans will vote for local representatives in the provincial legislature and the party that wins the most seats will form the government, with its leader becoming premier.

The election pits the United Conservative Party, led by the current premier, Danielle Smith, against a leftist party, the New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley, a lawyer.

Before the pandemic, the governing United Conservative Party appeared to have a firm hold on power. But last year, large and angry demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and against vaccine mandates helped spark a trucker convoy in the province that eventually spread, paralyzing Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and blocking vital cross-border crossings.

A small group of social conservatives within the United Conservatives ousted their leader, Jason Kenney, ending his premiership, after the government refused to lift pandemic measures.

The party replaced him with Ms. Smith, a far-right former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to incendiary comments; she compared people who were vaccinated against Covid-19 to supporters of Hitler.

Danielle Smith, the leader of the United Conservative Party, while campaigning this month in Calgary.

Credit...Amber Bracken for The New York Times


The Background

Ms. Smith likes to extol right-wing U.S. politicians, for example, calling Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican running for president, her hero.

She also has floated ideas that most Canadians would never support, like charging fees for public health care.

Ms. Smith now finds herself, analysts say, far to the right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should been a near-certain victory for her party into a close race that has provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, a leftist party.

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“This would not be a close race if anyone other than Danielle Smith was leading the U.C.P.,” said Janet Brown, who runs a polling firm based in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city.

Ms. Notley is seeking to steer the labor-backed New Democrats to a second upset victory in the province in recent years.

In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta’s history, thanks in part to a fracturing of the conservative movement into two feuding parties.

The stunning win broke a string of conservative governments dating to the Great Depression. But her victory coincided with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province’s economy. Ms. Notley’s approval ratings plunged and the United Conservatives took over in 2019.

Ms. Smith’s support is largely based in the province’s rural areas, surveys show, while Ms. Notley’s path to victory on Tuesday will likely be through Alberta’s urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary.

Edmonton, the provincial capital and a city with a large union presence, is likely to back the New Democrats.

That could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative leaning, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, particularly immigrants from South Asia, and Ms. Smith’s is unpopular with many of those voters because of some of her extreme statements.
Why It Matters

If Ms. Smith’s brand of conservatism fails to return her party to office in Canada’s most conservative province, the federal Conservative Party of Canada may need to reconsider its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in the next national elections.

The federal conservatives also replaced the party’s leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa, the capital, with coffee and doughnuts. Mr. Poilievre shares Ms. Smith’s penchant for promoting provocative positions.

Even a narrow victory for Ms. Smith could actually be a loss, if it means fewer conservative seats in the provincial legislature, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

In that scenario, Ms. Smith could find her position as premier and party leader tenuous and many of the policies she promotes could be cast aside, he said.

“If she loses, she’s gone,” he said. “If she wins, I think she’s still gone.”






A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto and currently lives in Ottawa. He has reported for The Times about Canada for more than a decade. More about Ian Austen

Promise tracker: What Alberta's UCP and NDP pledge to do if they win the election


The Canadian Press
Published May 28, 2023 


Albertans go to the polls on Monday. Here's a look at some of the promises announced by the two major parties. 

Economy, health care, trust: Alberta election campaign hits final day before vote

Alberta NDP holds rally in Calgary, UCP talks about crime, mental health supports

UCP leader warns voters against re-electing Rachel Notley and NDP at Calgary rally

Alberta NDP promise laws by summer to lower consumer costs, keep Canada Pension Plan

United Conservative Party 

 Create a new tax bracket that would deliver about $760 more for everyone making more than $60,000 a year. Those making less would see a 20 per cent reduction to their provincial tax bill.
Extend the pause on the provincial fuel tax, with savings of 13 cents per litre at the pump, until the end of 2023.
Put into legislation a guarantee not to increase personal or business taxes without approval from Albertans in a referendum.
Contribute $330 million toward a new National Hockey League arena project for the Calgary Flames.
Follow a public health-care guarantee that no Albertan would have to pay for a doctor out of pocket.
Introduce a 25 per cent discount for seniors on personal registry services, camping fees and medical driving exams.
Bring in the proposed compassionate intervention act, allowing people with severe drug addiction to be forced into treatment.
Dedicate $80 million over four years to get recreation facilities built in rapidly growing communities.
Alberta New Democratic Party 

Ensure every Albertan has access to a family doctor, hire 4,000 more health care workers and create 40 new family health clinics.
Cover the full cost of birth control, including oral contraceptives, copper and hormonal intrauterine devices, hormonal injections and the morning-after pill.
Provide more support for schools by hiring 4,000 new teachers, and 3,000 educational assistants and support staff.
Create a new tax credit to spur investment in areas including clean technology and critical minerals processing.
Bring back the Rapattack program of elite aerial wildfire fighters that was cancelled in 2019.
Table the proposed eastern slopes protection act to ban coal mining projects in the Rocky Mountains and surrounding areas.
Raise the corporate tax rate to 11 per cent from eight per cent to increase revenue; a fully costed economic plan predicts a $3.3-billion surplus over three years.
Reconvene the legislature this summer to pass bills to lower costs for Albertans, close the door on the province quitting the Canada Pension Plan, repeal the UCP's sovereignty act.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

Where They Stand: The UCP and NDP on Four Key Issues
An expert look at policies on the economy, education, health care and the environment.

Brett McKay, David Slater and Charles Rusnell 

26 May 

 The Tyee
Brett McKay is a journalist based in Edmonton. David Slater is a student journalist at MacEwan University. Charles Rusnell is an investigative journalist in Edmonton.

What can Albertans expect after Monday’s elections? We asked the experts. Clockwise from upper left: Mount Royal University poli sci prof Lori Williams, political analyst and campaign strategist Najib Jutt, Yellowhead Institute research fellow Robert Houle and political strategist Sarah Biggs.

Four days before Alberta’s provincial election and an aggregate of polls is so far showing the United Conservative Party will win a tight race.

But pollsters were dead wrong in Alberta’s 2012 election. Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative party won a handy majority over Danielle Smith’s upstart Wildrose Party despite a series of polls in the weeks before the election that predicted a Wildrose win.

If either party wins a tight race, they will probably need to put aside their partisan differences and try to collaborate on major policy initiatives, said Sarah Biggs, a political strategist and lobbyist who managed former UCP MLA Leela Aheer’s leadership campaign.

“No matter who wins on the 29th, they still have to remember that half of the province voted against them,” Biggs said.

“We are a two-party system and they are going to have to try to find some middle ground to not alienate more people, even more than we’re seeing right now.”

Biggs is one of four political observers interviewed by The Tyee. We asked them how either a UCP or NDP government would govern the province’s economy, education and health-care systems, and the environment.

Economy

As Andrew Nikiforuk recently observed, Alberta’s politicians don’t have the backbone to end the province’s economic dependence on oil. And so, once again, for both parties, expansion of the energy sector is the main platform for the economy.

Political analyst and campaign strategist Najib Jutt said there is little foresight by either party about where jobs will come from when the price of oil drops.

“In terms of energy, our two major political parties are two sides of the same coin, and that coin is owned by oil and gas corporations,” said Jutt, who is advising Alberta Green Party Leader Jordan Wilkie.

Though the UCP has promised to fight Trudeau’s Just Transition, a plan to shift Canada’s workforce into a clean-energy economy, the party has accepted the need for economic diversification and its economic plan includes industry incentives and municipal infrastructure investments.

As recently as 2020, former premier Jason Kenney said diversification is a luxury Alberta couldn’t afford. That has changed.

“They have finally started talking about diversification,” Biggs said with a laugh. “They finally accepted the word.”

The UCP issued a raft of incentives to attract big players from the film and television industry to the province, and Biggs expects those kinds of incentives will continue.

Similar schemes have been proposed by the UCP for forestry, agri-business and skilled trades, while the NDP plan includes incentives for diversification through tax credits for petrochemicals, clean tech, carbon and critical minerals and advanced manufacturing.

Robert Houle is a research fellow at the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led research and education centre at Toronto Metropolitan University. He anticipates an NDP government would bring back the green energy projects and other initiatives it introduced during its first term, including those aimed at increasing First Nations participation in the green economy.

Along with diversification, Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams said affordability is a key issue in Alberta’s economy. The UCP’s affordability payments don’t compensate for the financial burdens created by the elimination of rate caps for utility bills and auto insurance, she said.


“This puts them in a bit of an ambivalent place,” Williams said. “They seem to be out of touch with the experience of high costs for ordinary Albertans, because most Albertans aren’t experiencing the comfort and the surplus that the government is.”

Biggs also said the UCP will need to address the electricity and insurance caps, which the NDP have promised to restore.

Both the UCP and the NDP are on a spending spree, Biggs said, but whether they can deliver on their many promises depends on the price of oil since neither is willing to introduce a sales tax to buffer against a future bust.

Education

Education has been a hot-button topic in Alberta throughout the UCP reign as the party upended the province’s education system. The Kenney government sharply expanded fully funded charter schools, implemented cuts to staffing and imposed a new curriculum that 56 of 61 school boards refused to pilot because of its poor quality.

Political observers expect an NDP government to immediately begin the process of replacing the K-12 curriculum with the previous curriculum, which had been produced through an extensive process over a decade.

Jutt said if the UCP wins another mandate the party would likely see no reason to withdraw or redraft the curriculum. And he said a UCP government would likely expand the number of private and charter schools.

“You can always rely on a Conservative government to do what is best for the private industry,” he said.

Williams said the NDP are in a bit of a quandary over private and charter schools because they understand the need to allow some choice to appease a significant portion of the population, including religious groups.

“It is going to be a tricky balancing act for Rachel Notley,” she said. “Up until this point, even on private school funding, even though she has opposed that, she has allowed that to continue.”

Houle expects an NDP government would increase formal scrutiny of these private and charter schools to ensure they are not teaching problematic ideologies or excluding LGBTQ2S+ students.

The major difference between the parties, Williams said, is that the NDP have promised to hire 4,000 new teachers and about 3,000 educational assistants and support staff for a total investment of about $400 million.

In contrast, “the UCP’s proposals seem to be a little on the vague side,” Williams said.

The UCP also threw the province’s post-secondary education sector into turmoil with major cutbacks to universities while they increased funding for skills and trades training.

“They believe everything should be paid by the user and I think they will continue the cuts and push post-secondary to figure out other ways to fund themselves,” Jutt said.

Williams said the Notley government has talked about increasing spaces in universities, particularly for health-care workers to address the province’s chronic shortages.

Both parties have promised to freeze tuition at universities.

Health care

All four political observers expect both parties to continue the health-care policies they have advanced in the past.

Houle said the UCP, based on its previous record, will abandon its public health guarantees and continue the expansion of private for-profit health care.

During this election, the UCP has repeatedly denied it will implement health spending accounts and privatize hospital operations, both proposals that Smith mused about for years before she became the party’s leader.

Alberta has always had some degree of private health-care delivery, Jutt said. The question is whether the government covers the costs or patients pay out-of-pocket.

“The UCP wants us to pay out-of-pocket for everything,” Jutt said.

“They believe private is the best way to run things,” he said, adding however that “health care around the world has shown that health care that is publicly delivered has the best results and outcomes.”

A recent report from the Parkland Institute found outsourcing publicly funded surgeries to for-profit clinics in Alberta reduced surgery volumes and capacity in public hospitals.

In the short term, the NDP won’t have any option but to honour private contracts already in place, Williams said, “but I expect there will be an evolution to the kind of privatization that delivers more in the way of care at a lower cost.”

“We have shortages everywhere in terms of health-care professionals. So outsourcing is probably the only thing they can keep doing,” Jutt said. “It’s just a matter of who pays.”

The most direct and consequential thing that the NDP has committed to is being respectful with health-care workers, Williams said.


What’s at Stake for Alberta Voters? Just Democracy and the Rule of Law

READ MORE

“Under Jason Kenney, and Tyler Shandro in particular, there was a lot of damage that was done and we’re seeing the effects of that,” she said, referencing the high number of vacant family practitioner residencies in Alberta.

“It looks like docs are choosing not to stay in or come to Alberta to do family medicine because of something that is happening in Alberta.”

The NDP is making extensive, and expensive, promises about health care. But there is the same historical hitch — the price of oil.

“Everything that we can do in health care all depends on the revenue we are getting,” Biggs said.

“If we do not have the money to fix health care, then it won’t get done.”

Environment

UCP and NDP environmental policies will remain industry-friendly, despite the wildfires burning across the province.



As Alberta Burns, Politicians ‘Dare Not Speak’ of Climate Change

READ MORE

Robert Houle said the UCP climate policy is status quo, and they will continue to spend public money fighting Ottawa on environmental policies needed to avoid future disasters.

The NDP, Houle said, “are still committed to continuing with the resource industry as it stands.”

Williams said the UCP will continue “being a champion of energy and the image at least of balancing energy and the environment will not be the emphasis by the looks of things so far.”

Jutt said UCP climate policy is laughable.

“Their net-zero goals are ridiculous,” he said, “They mean nothing.”

“All of the large corporations in oil and gas have net-zero targets, which mean nothing,” he said. “They have made no efforts to hit any of them.”

The UCP retained almost all of Notley’s climate action plan, Williams said.

The NDP knows climate action is a hard sell in Alberta, Jutt said. “That is why the NDP has moved further right on the portfolios of climate and energy.” 


READ MORE: Politics, Alberta

Tired of UCP and NDP? There are other options on most Alberta ballots

John Roggeveen of the Alberta Liberals, Jordan Wilkie of the Green Party and Sue Timanson of the Alberta Party in interviews with CTV News Edmonton.

Sean Amato
CTV News Edmonton
Published May 25, 2023 

Voters who have had enough of Alberta's two-party legislature will have other options in most ridings this election, but it appears highly unlikely that any other party will grab a seat.

The province is in line for more of the same with the UCP versus the NDP, according to political analysts and several polls predicting a two-way race when votes are counted Monday.

"In the last couple of weeks, and this has shown up in the polling, is the support for the third and fourth and fifth parties has literally just evaporated," analyst and commentator John Brennan told CTV News Edmonton, referencing a recent Abacus Data poll.


"The Alberta Party is now down to two per cent, the Liberal is at one per cent and the Greens even less than that."

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An Angus Reid poll done earlier this month found all other parties combined at just six per cent among decided voters, with the Alberta Party a distant third at three per cent.

The UCP and NDP are the only parties with a full slate of 87 candidates and those are the only options in eight ridings

While both reported revenue of more than $7 million last year, third-place Pro-Life Alberta reported roughly $327,000. The Green Party, for example, reported just $17,000.

Still, candidates not dressed in blue or orange are out there knocking on doors.
'IT'S DIFFICULT TO GET PEOPLE TO RUN'

Gaining support, candidates and money is not easy right now, allowed the leader of the Alberta Liberals.

"Quite often people hear the name Liberal and they close us off," John Roggeveen told CTV News Edmonton.

His party has just 13 candidates.

"It's difficult to get people to run when your party is so far down in the polls," Roggeveen said.

The Liberal bank account is also running low. The party raised about $100,000 in 2022 and its leader said they have about two or three per cent as much as the big parties.

He acknowledged that he and NDP Leader Rachel Notley are like-minded on many things.

"I would say that our policies are closer to the NDP than they are to the UCP. We have a lot of overlaps with their policies, or frankly, they overlap with us in a lot of ways," Roggeveen said.

Still, he feels Liberal voices in the legislature would help "tone the rhetoric down" and lead to better government for Albertans.


The Liberal platform includes supporting the federal Liberals "just transition" plan to create jobs for oil and gas workers, building more affordable housing and maintaining the Canada Pension Plan in Alberta.

Former Liberal Leader Dr. David Swann endorsed Rachel Notley and the NDP Thursday.
'WE JUST SEE BICKERING GOING BACK AND FORTH'

The Green Party agrees with Roggeveen that the legislature needs more diversity.

It is running 41 candidates, third most in Alberta.

Leader Jordan Wilkie, who is on the ballot in Edmonton-Rutherford, said his party needs to get a seat on Monday in order to increase "accountability" and "collaboration" in the province's political scene.

"People are really starting to wake up to the idea that these third parties are important, that we can break up a two-party system and that we can represent Albertans better," he told CTV News Edmonton.

"The debate sure didn't help these two parties [UCP and NDP], when we just see bickering going back and forth without real solutions or really listening to what Albertans want and need. Ever since the debate, I've had a lot more support."

Wilkie acknowledged his party cares very much about cleaning up the environment but pointed out that it will do no good if people no longer have jobs and can't afford food.

The Green Party platform includes policies on wildfire management, electoral reform and cleaning up oil and gas wells to "create 10,000 jobs per year."

 
'WE KNOW WE'RE NOT GOING TO FORM GOVERNMENT'

The Alberta Party has 19 candidates on the ballot.

The party was swept out of the legislature in 2019 after going into that election with three seats.

Sherwood Park candidate Sue Timanson said she's not worried about her party winning the election and she tells people that when she knocks on doors.

Her pitch to voters is to help her get a seat so she can fight for her constituents.

"We know we're not going to form government. It takes the pressure off the expectation that that's what we're going to do," Timanson said.

"And again, puts it back onto what the job of an MLA is and I can do, and I can probably do better as an Alberta Party MLA than a backbencher on the other parties, who are restricted in what they can say and what they can do. I'm not."

Timanson said she was disappointed the party was not able to attract more candidates.

"We worked really hard to up that number, but we're in a really challenging political climate right now," she explained.

"We had a lot of people that, although they were interested, were not willing to put themselves out there, which is too bad. They were worried about some consequences if they put themselves out for a party that wasn't one of the big two."

Timanson described her team as socially progressive and fiscally responsible.

She said many people have thanked her for running and providing voters another option.

The Alberta Party platform promises to freeze funding for private and charter schools, directly fund mental health counselling and reduce the province's reliance on oil and gas revenues.

The Solidarity Movement, Wildrose Loyalty Coalition, Alberta Independence, Advantage Party, Communist, Wildrose Independence, Reform, Buffalo and Pro-Life parties are also running at least one candidate.

There are 22 independent candidates also on ballots across Alberta.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson