Alberta’s vote will test American-style far-right politics

CALGARY, ALBERTA >> Voters in Alberta, the epicenter of conservative politics in Canada, planned to select a new provincial government Monday.

Albertans will vote for local representatives in the provincial legislature and the party that wins the most seats will form the government, with its leader becoming premier.

The election pits the United Conservative Party, led by the current premier, Danielle Smith, against a leftist party, the New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley, a lawyer.

Before the pandemic, the governing United Conservative Party appeared to have a firm hold on power. But last year, large and angry demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and against vaccine mandates helped spark a trucker convoy in the province that eventually spread, paralyzing Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and blocking vital crossborder crossings.

A small group of social conservatives within the United Conservatives ousted their leader, Jason Kenney, ending his premiership, after the government refused to lift pandemic measures.

The party replaced him with Smith, a far-right former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to incendiary comments; she compared people who were vaccinated against COVID-19 to supporters of Hitler.

Smith likes to extol rightwing U.S. politicians, for example calling Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican running for president, her hero.

She also has floated ideas thatmost Canadians would never support, like charging fees for public health care.

Smith now finds herself, analysts say, far to the right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should been a near- certain victory for her party into a close race that has provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, a leftist party.

“This would not be a close race if anyone other than Danielle Smith was leading the UCP,” said Janet Brown, who runs a polling firm based in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city.

Notley is seeking to steer the labor-backed New Democrats to a second upset victory in the province in recent years.

In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta’s history, thanks in part to a fracturing of the conservative movement into two feuding parties.

The stunning win broke a string of conservative governments dating to the Great Depression. But her victory coincided with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province’s economy. Notley’s approval ratings plunged and the United Conservatives took over in 2019.

Smith’s support is largely based in the province’s rural areas, surveys show, while Notley’s path to victory Monday will likely be through Alberta’s urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary.

Edmonton, the provincial capital and a city with a large union presence, is likely to back the New Democrats.

That could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative leaning, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, particularly immigrants from South Asia, and Smith is unpopular with many of those voters because of some of her extreme statements.

If Smith’s brand of conservatismfails to return her party to office in Canada’s most conservative province, the federal Conservative Party of Canada may need to reconsider its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in the next national elections.

The federal conservatives also replaced the party’s leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa with coffee and doughnuts. Poilievre shares Smith’s penchant for promoting provocative positions.

Even a narrow victory for Smith could actually be a loss if it means fewer conservative seats in the provincial legislature, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

In that scenario, Smith could find her position as premier and party leader tenuous and many of the policies she promotes could be cast aside, he said.

“If she loses, she’s gone,” he said. “If she wins, I think she’s still gone.”