Alberta: the bloom of a new right?

Almost lost in the excitement of an actual competitive election race in Canada is what this particular election might really mean to the political landscape.

Alberta’s choice — the upstart and inexperienced Wildrose Party versus the rusting Progressive Conservatives — has quickly become a battle about what it now means to be a conservative in this country. And should recent Alberta polls prove accurate, we might have just pushed the envelope of conservatism in Canada much, much further right.

Before we go too far down that road, however, we should explore a couple of important points that are germane to any such a discussion.

First, such philosophical debates are always going on in political parties. (See: the recent machinations in federal Ndp/liberal ranks). In fact, they’ve been happening in conservative ranks for the last quarter century. (See: demise of federal and provincial PCS; rise of Reform, the Saskatchewan Party and Stephen Harper Conservatives, etc.) Second, elections are about less philosophical matters and more important to Alberta voters is the state of the 41-year-old government.

This has certainly been the theme of Wildrose leader Danielle Smith who talks about “career politicians” and even how Progressive Conservative rule has been on the wrong path for much of the past 41 years. Certainly, that narrative has been aided and abetted by things like the PC MLAS’ “no-meet committees” for which they gleefully took paycheques for doing nothing. (Perhaps the consequences of this culture of entitlement might be of interest to Premier Brad Wall’s government, which has little problem adding three more MLAS and accepting a 2.8-per-cent pay raise at a time that it is also calling on seniors to pay more for their prescription drugs.)

Nor have the current Alberta Progressive Conservatives done themselves many favours in what appears to have been a rather shoddily-run campaign. The tweet from PC ranks wondering aloud why Smith didn’t have children was simply atrocious. And the Alberta media has been quick to point out the problems of the inexperienced and insular style of Premier Alison Redford and how the PCS have long forgotten (or perhaps never knew) what a competitive election campaign is really like.

But notwithstanding these factors, what’s most interesting about this Alberta family feud is how it might actually be redefining the boundaries of right-wing conservatism in this country.

Take Thursday night’s leaders’ debate in which Redford and Smith (and the also-ran leaders of the Alberta NDP and Liberals) squared off over issues like the $300-rebates a Wildrose government would offer Albertans from surpluses versus the PC vision of no rebates, but putting more money towards health and education.

To be clear, Redford’s PCS haven’t exactly turned into frothing-at-themouth socialists (notwithstanding her predecessor Ed Stelmach’s interest in getting slightly more equitable royalties from the oil sector). After all, this is still Alberta. That there wasn’t much meaningful debate on oilsands future/environment issues says much about how right-of-centre Albertans expect their governments to be.

But consider what right-wing discourse has become in this most right-wing of provinces: One very right-wing party is advocating spending cuts for the purpose of giving rebates to voters. And the party that has governed the province from the right for the past 41 years is now advocating the “moderate” stance of public tax dollars for schools and hospitals as the priority? This has become an election campaign that we all should be watching.

Smith has criticized Redford for putting pragmatism before principles. She is an unabashed admirer of Harper and her party advocates health-care professionals choosing what services they provide on the basis of conscience. Wall and the Sask. Party have been criticized for being too loyal to Harper and too right-wing (including Wall’s recent budget where he’s advocated an end to subsidies to the film industry as a matter of philosophical principle). But have we ever heard Wall advocate anything close to what we’re now hearing from Smith?

Redford is clearly a “red” Tory by Alberta standards and arguably left of Wall. But like Wall, she’s also an admirer of Peter Lougheed’s brand of conservatism that emphasized delivery of public services and shared ownership of public resources.

The Smith/wildrose conservative brand is far more right than that.

In this Alberta campaign, we may be witnessing the bloom of a very different kind of conservativism in this country.