As Alberta votes, the choices couldn’t be more distinct
CALGARY— After the NDP’s shocking triumph over a 44year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015, this year’s Alberta election has been intensely competitive — a true contest not seen in recent memory.
Tuesday will be the end of a tug-of-war between Premier Rachel Notley and the newly formed right-wing United Conservative Party led by Jason Kenney.
Amid a polarized landscape, the Alberta Party and Alberta Liberals are fighting to be voters’ centrist, thirdparty option. But for most voters, the decision comes down to two parties that couldn’t be further away from each other on some of Alberta’s most pressing issues.
Tuesday marks the end of 28 days of heated, sometimes “vitriolic” campaigning.
The negative tone hasn’t stopped around 700,000 Albertans from casting their ballots at the advance polls. Economic anxiety looms large. The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is still not in place to bring Alberta crude to tidewater, and a persistent oilprice differential is hampering economic recovery after the 2014 downturn.
But social issues were also impossible to ignore on the campaign trail. Numerous UCP candidates were singled out over the past month for homophobic, racist or otherwise hateful views.
The UCP’s plan to repeal NDP legislation that prevents schools from notifying parents if their child joins a gay-straight alliance — clubs aimed at fostering inclusion in Alberta schools — also ignited outrage among the province’s LGBTQ community.
Two UCP candidates resigned in the early days of the race after social-media statements promoting white nationalist and Islamophobic ideas came to light. And at least eight of the party’s other candidates faced questions during the campaign over content they promoted questioning climate change, same-sex marriage, abortion and gender-neutral washrooms, among other issues.
Kenney didn’t drop any of the candidates and has consistently steered the debate back to fiscal policy, vowing that the provincial election will end the “Trudeau-Notley alliance” that has failed to deliver the Trans Mountain pipeline. The UCP platform includes slashing the corporate tax and issuing a total spending freeze to balance the province’s books by 2023.
The day before Albertans head to the polls, Kenney insisted — as he has throughout the campaign — that this election should be summed up in three words: jobs, economy, pipelines.
“Unfortunate that the NDP has tried to talk about anything but these issues,” he wrote on Twitter. The UCP has vowed to take an aggressive approach to opponents of oil-and-gas infrastructure, including setting up a “war room” to address “myths” about the province’s energy industry. Scrapping Alberta’s carbon tax will be “bill one” of their government and Kenney has promised to take Ottawa to court over the federal carbon levy.
Notley has warned that a combative approach could actually put the pending Trans Mountain pipeline approval in danger at a critical time.
Kenney ended his campaign in Edmonton on Monday, setting off on a door-knocking blitz across what’s sure to be a tough battleground for him in the election.
Meanwhile, Notley used one of her final campaign stops Monday to emphasize her economic plan in Calgary, flanked by workers in hard hats and steel-toed boots.
With the UCP likely to lock down most of Alberta’s rural communities and Edmonton being a stronghold for the NDP, Alberta’s largest city will be a deciding factor. Notley spent virtually all her time there in the campaign’s final days.
Calgary is also where Kenney enlisted the help of Laureen Harper, wife of former prime minister Stephen Harper, as he door-knocked in four key ridings in the city. All of them are currently held by the NDP.
In her final bid to voters, Notley said Albertans shouldn’t see their vote as a choice between boosting the economy and supporting social equality.
“Moving forward in a diverse, inclusive Alberta that actually reflects the values of the majority of Albertans — it’s not a choice between one or the other,” she said. “We have a strong economic plan … and we also have a plan to support one another, not divide against one another.”
Melanee Thomas, an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, agreed the battle between social issues and economic concerns is a false dichotomy.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who studies the economy or studies social issues that would actually see these things as easily distinguishable,” she said.
Plenty of social policies, such as affordable child care, have economic benefits associated with them, she explained.
Parents who can pay for daycare are more likely to work, which ultimately impacts the economy.
While some of the public debate has treated the two as completely separate, Thomas said voters will be paying close attention to how they intersect.
“A lot of people are focused on the economy, but not so many people are focusing on the economy that the social issues don’t matter,” she said.
Aside from a fierce showdown between the UCP and the NDP, the election will also decide the fate of the Alberta Liberals, led by David Khan, and the Alberta Party, led by former Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel. The Alberta Party, currently third in the polls, will look to build on its three seats in the legislature, while leader Mandel will look to secure his riding of EdmontonMcClung.
Mandel said negative campaigning from the NDP and the UCP has allowed his party to advance as a moderate choice both in tone and policy, a role the party hopes to maintain in the legislature.
“We’ve tried to be a party and a platform of ideas.
“Not one of rhetoric or vitriolic relationships with people,” he said.
Mandel said he has heard the frustration over the polarization of provincial politics and fears the division sown by other leaders won’t be easily put to bed once the ballots are cast.
“They are aggravated by the other two parties, the nastiness, and they want something different. They like our party, they like what we have to say about our platforms,” Mandel said.
The Liberals, on the other hand, will be vying to keep their only seat, held by former leader David Swann in the heavily contested riding of CalgaryMountain View. The party’s new leader Khan will try to hold it for his party, facing off against the NDP justice minister Kathleen Ganley as well as the UCP’s Jeremy Wong.
Khan was still busy making announcements on Monday, unveiling the Liberals’ justice policy at his campaign headquarters in north Calgary.
For Khan, the stakes are high, with his party looking at no presence at all in the legislature if he doesn’t win his seat.
Other key ridings to watch will be Lethbridge-West, where the NDP’s environment minister Shannon Phillips will battle for what may be the NDP’s sole hope of hanging on to a seat outside of the province’s major urban centres. Phillips will be going up against UCP candidate Karri Flatla, a realtor and relative political newcomer. Former UCP MLA Derek Fildebrandt is also in a fight to hold onto his seat in Chestermere-Strathmore as the leader of the newly formed Freedom Conservative Party. Fildebrandt, who resigned from the UCP caucus after a series of public scandals, is running against the UCP’s deputy leader Leela Aheer, one of the party’s best-known MLAs.