5 things you need to know about the Alberta election

The Alberta election on May 5 is looking to be historic, with the Progressive Conservative dynasty under new leader Jim Prentice predicted to collapse. The province could for the first time in over 40 years have a new government — and an NDP government no less. So what’s going on?

1. A win for the NDP would be about the Progressive Conservatives

Although NDP leader Rachel Notley has run a solid campaign and seems like a sound, reasonable party leader, the results of the election on May 5 won’t be about her, or her party.

“It’s a political cliche but it’s a cliche because it’s true, that governments aren’t elected, governments are defeated,” said Duane Bratt, a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

There are a number of factors that have gone into the NDP surge and the Progressive Conservative deflation — a stagnating economy and dissatisfaction with an aged political dynasty included.

“If in fact they are defeated it will be because they deserve to be defeated, and there’s a lot of anger towards the PCs,” Bratt continued.

2. Poll numbers have been fairly stable

Many are looking at the polls — all pointing to an NDP win— and also looking back to the last election in Alberta, when the Wildrose Party was poised to form government.

But in the final week of the 2012 election, the Wildrose were only leading by a small margin. In 2015 the polls have remained consistent and the PCs, today, are much further behind than they were three years ago. There has been no uptick in their popularity.

“For the Conservatives to still win, it would mean [pollsters] would have to be 20 points off,” Bratt said. “It would just be [an] astronomical difference.”

As number cruncher Eric Grenier noted over at the CBC, there were seven polls published between Thursday and Sunday “and all of them told the same remarkable story. The New Democrats were awarded between 37 per cent and 44 per cent support across these surveys.”

3. Alberta has trust issues

“What got the PCs in trouble is when the number one issue moved from the economy and the budget to trust,” Bratt said. “As soon as it became ‘Can you trust these people?’ that was it for the Conservatives.”

Prentice’s lacklustre campaign has come one year earlier than expected. Under Alberta’s election laws, the province was meant to head to the ballot box in 2016. The PCs may have expected to ride their budget — tabled in March — all the way back to government, but, perhaps, an early election based on a budget that many don’t like has irked some voters.

Grenier noted that government trust and accountability as an important election issue is “a stake in the heart of the PCs chances.”

4. An ideology free election?

In a recent column, Michael Den Tandt suggested Notley’s campaign has done well because she performed impressively in TV debates and sounds reasonable, not like a raving socialist many conservatives might fear.

He added that disenchantment with Prentice and his party “has emerged from across the spectrum and is as non-ideological as such a wave can be.”

Some contend that much of the NDP’s platform, too, isn’t all that crazy. Economist Andrew Leach, and expert on energy policy, took a hard look at the party’s energy policies and concluded an NDP government would change things, sure, “but perhaps not of the radical sort feared by many in the province.”

In fact, Leach added, it isn’t easy to find much difference between NDP policies and the policies of the PC and Wildrose parties.

5. The Alberta election may have an impact on the federal scene

It’s unclear whether, if the NDP do make historic gains provincially, that will have an effect on the federal election this year — and if so, how.

Bratt seems to think it will. “If you’re Thomas Mulcair and have one federal seat in Edmonton, and Edmonton goes and elects 20 NDP MLAs, you would think that would be good for you come the fall,” he said.

Den Tandt suggested NDP success on May 5 may not not elect more NDP MPs in Alberta come October, but rather signal to other parts of the country — namely Ontario — that New Democrats aren’t so scary after all, which could have its own consequences.

“Unless this too were to somehow morph into a wave, the practical effect would be to lower the federal Liberal vote share in Ontario, pushing more seats into the federal Conservative column,” he wrote.

“Far from making life easier for eastern federal progressives, in other words, an NDP takeover of Alberta might actually further entrench their arch-foe.”