For first time in decades, voters may opt for political party other than PCs
After a disastrous week on the campaign trail for the governing Progressive Conservatives, the stage is set for a showdown between Alberta’s three major parties Thursday night: polls suggest the New Democratic and Wildrose parties are running neck-and-neck with the PCs.
A televised debate, slated to air on Global TV, will give Jim Prentice and the long-ruling Tories an opportunity to halt the rout — or continue spiralling out of control — as voters mull whether they’re ready to elect the first non-PC government in 43 years.
“Thursday night’s debate is so integral for Jim Prentice to get back on message,” said Bob Murray, vice-president of research for the Frontier Centre, a thinktank.
Ideas or policy have been in short supply in this campaign.
This is a snap election called for cynical reasons. The government is facing a stumbling economy and weakened opposition parties, all headed by new leaders.
It doesn’t help that the PC platform is indistinguishable from the government’s unpopular budget. Only a supremely confident party could have called an election on a fiscal plan that raised taxes for the first time in a generation, while restraining spending, running up debt and posting a $5-billion deficit.
That arrogance appears to have backfired, with support for Wildrose and the NDP building on the deep feelings of anger directed at the Tories.
The Tories have only themselves to blame. They called an election before the other parties were prepared, hoping to catch the opposition flat-footed. They claimed to be seeking a mandate on what was billed as a transformational 10-year budget, but which proved to be not the case.
Other parties have struggled to keep up on the policy front. This week, the NDP issued its platform, calling for a corporate tax hike, a royalty review, a progressive income tax and a restoration of almost all of Prentice’s cuts.
A mistake in the platform — which erroneously promised a return to balanced budgets a year early — was largely forgiven.
Wildrose would repeal all tax hikes and focus on cutting Alberta’s bloated bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, the PC gaffes have been myriad and spectacular. Edmonton MLA Thomas Lukaszuk broke ranks by promising to run on higher corporate taxes and stick to the fixed election legislation the Tories had brought in, then ignored.
Then Prentice announced on Tuesday he would reverse a major budget decision to cut a charitable tax credit, a move that began to undermine his whole reason for calling this election in the first place.
That same day, the Tories’ bid to sabotage Wildrose’s hastily assembled numbers backfired when one of their vaunted economic advisers, Jack Mintz, admitted he had vetted Wildrose’s alternative budget. The PC’s very-bad no-good Tuesday finished when a Prentice’s security SUV rear-ended his campaign bus, damaging the back panels and wheels.
Debates don’t usually count for much, said Duane Bratt, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University, but Thursday could prove the exception. All the leaders — Wildrose’s Brian Jean, the NDP’s Rachel Notley and Prentice — are new to Albertans.
But the television debate could be the moment when voters start to make up their minds, considering either Jean or Notley as Prentice’s replacement.
Insiders suggest although the PCs are running scared, they won’t let go without a proper scrap. The rumour mill is churning out the muck. If policy can’t win the day, there is always a little sand that can be thrown into the eyes.