Polarization pushed alternative parties out, leaders say

Two shut-out liberal parties figure they can merge to form a centrist option to UCP, NDP

EDMONTON— The leaders of the Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberal Party blame the polarization of provincial politics for keeping their candidates out of the legislature.

“We were the sacrificial lamb,” said Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel, after delivering his concession speech Tuesday night at party headquarters in Edmonton.

As the results for the 87 ridings started trickling in, it became clear Alberta’s 2019 election was firmly a two-party race, with Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party securing 63 seats and Rachel Notley’s NDP relegated to the role of official Opposition with the remaining 24.

In what was considered one of the nastiest campaigns in Alberta history, Alberta Liberal Party Leader David Khan said fear-mongering scared voters into casting their votes strategically, voting for one of the two dominant parties out of fear of seeing the other side elected.

“They were scared into voting one way or the other by the other party leaders, Ms. Notley and Mr. Kenney,” said Khan, after his party lost its only seat in the legislature. “They were scared into voting for something. We’re the only party with bold, forward-thinking policies for the future of Alberta, and it’s too bad that Ms. Notley ran a four-week campaign of fear and division and Mr. Kenney ran a four-week campaign of dropping Mr. Trudeau’s name every five seconds.”

The Alberta Liberal Party is the oldest active political party in the province, founded in 1905, but has steadily fallen from the place of prominence it once held in the legislature. Though the party did form four consecutive majority governments in the early 1900s, and has served as the official Opposition a dozen times since, it dropped to third party status in 2012 under leader Raj Sherman — holding eight seats — and had no status and only one seat after the 2015 election.

The Alberta Party was founded in 1993 and didn’t hold any seats in the legislature until former party leader Greg Clark was elected in 2015. The party tripled its presence after the election gaining two more seats through floor crossings, the first from former NDP MLA Karen McPherson in 2017 and another from Progressive Conservative MLA Rick Fraser.

Former Alberta Liberal Party leader David Swann, who until Tuesday’s results held the party’s only seat in the legislature, said many people he spoke to who had voted for him and the Liberals in the past said they felt like they needed to go with the NDP in this election to prevent the UCP from gaining power.

“They were so afraid of Jason Kenney and the kind of values that seem to be out of sync with most moderate liberal democrats,” Swann said Tuesday.

In Alberta, elections are decided on a first-past-the-post system, which means whoever gets the most votes wins.

Critics of this system say it encourages strategic voting, as voters will pick a candidate they think stands a good chance of winning over a candidate they don’t like rather than voting for a candidate they think best reflects their interests.

Mandel pointed out that while his party didn’t win a single seat — having held three before the election — Tuesday night’s results for the Alberta Party tell a different story, with the party securing almost 10 per cent of the vote.

The UCP secured 55 per cent of the ballots cast, but because of the first-pastthe-post system will hold 76 per cent of the seats in the legislature. The NDP finished with about 32 per cent of the vote.

“The Alberta Party does have the kind of values that are reflective of what the province wants, but the polarization that really occurred in the last several years since Notley came to power has pushed people to one side or the other,” Mandel said.

However, Swann sees new opportunity out of Alberta’s political polarization, saying it may make room for the Alberta Party and the Alberta Liberal Party to merge to offer a moderate, centrist option. Swann said he supported combining the parties after the 2015 election and feels more strongly about it now.

“I think it’s just increased exponentially as a result of a rather extreme party now taking government. This is going to pull us all in the middle together,” Swann said.