Tories stage extraordinary comeback to extend 41-year reign of power
Debate cited as turning point in PC campaign
AProgressive Conservative government that appeared to be a dead duck turned out to be a phoenix.
With the Tories hanging on to government with a healthy majority, it marks both a remarkable fall — and an extraordinary comeback — after being written off early in the campaign.
The Progressive Conservatives had held a commanding lead in the polls just three months ago but once the campaign began, it appeared the upstart Wildrose Party was poised to take them down — and end the Tories’ 41 years in power.
But a day before the vote, Ken Hughes, former head of Alberta Health Services who appeared headed to victory as the PC candidate in Calgary-west, said the momentum had shifted in the Tory’s favour.
“There were a lot of people who were not happy in the first couple of weeks,” said Hughes, who was a Progressive Conservative MP in 1993 when the federal Tories were crushed.
“But they had not yet had a chance to envisage what the alternative might be.”
Hughes said Tory Leader Alison Redford’s performance in the debate impressed more voters than was originally realized, with undecided voters beginning to swing to the Tories afterward.
Bombshell comments and writings about race and sexuality by a pair of Wildrose candidates — and Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith’s muted reaction — also had a major impact, he said.
“The issues have crystallized the last few days around two visions of Alberta. One that is future-looking, one that is still looking to the back, to the rear-view mirror,” Hughes said.
The Tories soared upwards, despite the accumulated baggage of four decades of power, as well a series of unforeseen events and seeming political missteps by Redford that dogged the party in the weeks leading up to the election call — and into the campaign itself.
“She, rightly or wrongly, has been the one bearing the brunt of the pentup anger at the PC party,” said Bruce Foster, policy studies professor at Mount Royal University.
“She’s basically carrying the baggage of the Stelmach years.”
The party’s seeming vulnerability started with changes to the energy royalty regime under former premier Ed Stelmach’s regime that coincided with the worldwide economic downturn, he said.
That, combined with the deficit budgets of recent years, brought money and supporters to the Wildrose.
Foster said Redford had to deal with the hangover of those issues even while new problems sprang up. These included accusations of intimidation of municipal and school officials, or allegations that her main leadership rival, Gary Mar, had improperly used the role of Asian envoy to which she had appointed him.
And while Redford had moved to address the flawed system of MLA pay, the government was blindsided by the public furor over a legislative committee whose members were paid $1,000 a month for no work.
The party seemed to take a body blow from Redford’s decision to hold only a limited public inquiry into health care queue-jumping, rather than have it look at doctor bullying and the lack of immediate action on the so-called “no-meet” committee.
Choosing to call the election only after passing the budget subjected the Tories to daily attacks from the opposition parties for weeks during the legislative sitting.
Once the writ was dropped, the campaign took time to get its feet under it.
At times, it was knocked further off-course by a Twitter posting by a volunteer about Danielle Smith’s childlessness that brought wide sympathy for the Wildrose leader, questions over Redford’s fealty to former premier Ralph Klein and uncertainty over whether Mar had been cleared by the investigation Redford ordered.
But Redford stressed her progressive bona fides. While making little attempt to reach out to right-leaning conservative voters — who once sol- idly backed the PCS — she made a concerted pitch to win non-voters and former Liberal and NDP supporters.
Rick Orman, a former cabinet minister under Don Getty who ran as a “Blue Tory” in last year’s PC leadership race, said that since Lougheed, the PC party’s long run in power was an exercise in balancing out the dynamics of right, left and centre that existed in the big-tent party.
He said there were opportunities for Redford to appeal to conservative voters, though he believes she was acting on her true principles.
“Her view is that Alberta has changed. She said that many times. The question then becomes, has it?” said Orman.
Foster said Redford faced an enormous task trying to shake up a PC party that over time grew encrusted by the habits of office — atrophied, arrogant and too comfortable with power.
Controversies over improper donations and issues such as bigspending and electrical deregulation that caused problems stretch back into the Klein years.
The party’s problems appeared to be most acute in rural Alberta, where Tory MLAS in the past regularly ran up massive margins of victory.
While it was the royalty review that damaged the Tories in Calgary, it was a series of land use laws that lit a fire in rural Alberta.
Ray Danyluk, the transportation minister who was in a tough fight for his Lac La Biche-st. Paul seat, said Wildrose targeted his riding, with property rights activist Keith Wilson came into his riding four times to stir up opposition to the government’s land bills.
“You know what? I am a landowner. I farm 3,000 acres. We have 200 cow calf pairs. My great grandfather came to this country in 1896,” he said last week.
“You think that as a sitting member (of the legislature) I am just going to sit back and let somebody take away the rights of my children and grandchildren. Forget it. It ain’t going to happen. But I know people will believe what they want.”