National Post (National Edition)
Is this the end for the Alberta PCs?
Iin Calgary n 1971, Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party went from 10 seats in the provincial legislature to a majority government, where they have remained ensconced ever since. Widespread expectations are that today Albertans will finally dislodge their political masters, perhaps doing for the NDP what they did for the PCs 44 years ago. Yet nearly everyone in Alberta is reluctant to conclude that what is normal in every other democracy — a change in government — may actually happen here.
The Progressive Conservative party is like a villain in a horror film. Just when it appears to finally have been killed, it roars back to life, brutally laying waste to all rivals. In 2014, it appeared as if the old beast was about to be put down as the premiership of Alison Redford went up in the flames of self-indulgence and entitlement. Redford was indeed dispatched, but the 44-year dynasty demonstrated its remarkable powers of selfrenewal and self-preservation. The esteemed Jim Prentice won the PC leadership easily and set about restoring the government to a secure position in public opinion.
Last October, Prentice swept four byelections, including his own, dealing a devastating blow to the Wildrose Party. Not satisfied with a weakened opposition, he moved swiftly for its decapitation, which was made rather easier when Wildrose leader Danielle Smith willingly laid her head on the chopping block. In December, she announced that she and eight other Wildrose members would cross the floor to the new Prentice government. She had concluded that the PC serial opposition-killer was back in stalking form, and that the wiser move was to join what could not be beat. Alberta history, if not personal integrity and basic democratic hygiene, appeared to be on her side.
Smith learned soon enough that the PCs, who had denounced her only three years ago as dangerous, now found her superfluous. While Prentice was willing to secure PC nominations for other star candidates, he allowed Smith to lose her nomination. It was cold-eyed calculation and cold-hearted politics. Having demonstrated that the right to govern Alberta belongs exclusively to his party, with Smith’s political carcass evidence of what happens even to those who once objected, Prentice then called this election, a full year ahead of schedule, to allow Albertans the opportunity to do what Smith did, namely to give their consent to the reign of a new king.
The voters of my home province, apparently, are not inclined to do so, which is as delightful for democracy as it is unexpected. Tom Flanagan, the Wildrose campaign manager in 2012 and former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wrote about this election that: “two passions rule Canadian politics, fear and loathing. The opposition parties try to make voters loathe the governing party and its record, while the incumbents try to make voters afraid of the unknown results of electing another party.”
In the last week, the PCs themselves implicitly acknowledged that everyone loathes them. So they have offered a massive amount of fear of the NDP and the Wildrose. Perhaps this time though, Albertans may allow their loathing to exceed their fear. That’s not an ennobling political ideal, but the step from one-party rule toward a functioning democracy is difficult.
In addition to fear and loathing, a basic desire for democracy may also be at work. In properly functioning democracies, voters refuse to cooperate in their own marginalization by simply confirming the machinations of party elites.
When the Liberal Party of Canada decided that it would defenestrate the thrice-elected Jean Chrétien in favour of Paul Martin, on the grounds that the latter was entitled to a
The Progressive Conservative party has been like a villain in a horror film — always coming
back after everyone thinks
it’s dead
turn, voters threw sand in the gears of the fearsome Martin juggernaut. The current Conservative government in the United Kingdom, facing an election on Thursday, came to power after the Labour Party there did the same thing, with Tony Blair agreeing to hand over, as if it were a family heirloom, the premiership to Gordon Brown.
Alberta voters are far tougher to provoke. Yet the Prentice-Smith pact of December, in which the premier and the leader of the opposition agreed that in the proper order of things, Albertans should not have a choice about who governs them, may have been a sufficient outrage to cause the corpse of Alberta democracy to twitch.
A twitching corpse is by no means a healthy body, and today’s election may indeed slam shut the coffin lid on Alberta democracy, as happened in 2012. On voting day though, it is enough to be grateful that there are finally signs of life.