The Titan Arum Blooms: Alberta Election on May 5th

[niwell]

Originally Posted by freeweed

When Klein slashed public spending, THAT would have been the time for a sweeping NDP victory. As of right now Alberta is still pouring boatloads of money into public services, moreso than any other province. The most recent budget hardly changed that, and in fact added billions in new taxes to keep that spending intact.

The Alberta government spends a lot per capita, but I'm not too sure if they see that much in reality. I certainly feel like I am getting more provincially provided services in Ontario for my taxes than my parents do in Calgary (healthcare, in particular). Working in government here I know the Alberta public service is seen as somewhat inefficient and bloated. Rightly or wrongly the view is that they have been able to coast on resource revenues as opposed to restructuring/modernizing to balance budgets.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by freeweed

I'd like to think this wasn't all about something as petty as a couple of private plane flights, but I'm really not so sure.

Remember when Chrétien was famously quoted as saying something like "meh, it's only a couple of millions, a droplet of water in the ocean of the federal coffers" to excuse some case of total corruption among his gang?

It's the principle. Chrétien is totally right in saying that it makes no real impact on federal finances, but it's about principle. As we say "qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf" (never found a true equivalent to this proverb un English). Voters won't tolerate proven, exposed corruption, and that's perfectly normal.

I actually happen to think that at the moment voters (generally speaking) are still too soft on corruption, mainly because I suppose they think it's just that inevitable in politics.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I watched the election results with great interest last night. It's a very refreshing change, but I'd like to make a few comments.

- People who say this heralds a new era of progressivism or leftism in Alberta should be more cautious. You have 40+ years of provincial conservative governments as a legacy as well as near-unanimous support for the federal conservatives for just as long. I don't think Alberta is on the verge of becoming North America's Norway even though, as I said, this is a refreshing change.

A comment on this... I'd actually argue that that is a just a jump that emerged out of a gradual shift that has been a long time in the making. While this defeat will likely be associated with Prentice's name in the futre, the decline of the PCs for failing to capture the centrist nature of Alberta politics has been in the works for a long time. The PCs hold on power has been a game since the 90s that they have won not because of fundamentally conservative values but because of luck with leaders and struggles with other centrist alternatives.

After Klein - which was certainly a very neoliberal era - the party moved towards the centre because that is where the greatest support lies. Combine that with Stelmach's ties to the rural north and Edmonton, the areas mostl likley to abandon the PCs, they stayed in.

The re-emergence of the more centrist PC part did, however give strength to the wildrose. The PCs managed to win again with Redford despite themselves because of the wildrose threat and lack of credible centrist candidates.

I think the line of PC decline can be traced much farther back than their election wins suggest, they've been artificially bouyed by other circumstances that have worked out to their benefit. The concept of "hold your nose and vote PC" has been a important part of Alberta politics for a long time.

I also expect the NDP to be quite centrist...and that has generally what their campaign has been based on. So is it a new era of leftism? No. But it is a search to find somebody else to represent the credible centre? Yes.

Similarily, to group the PCs and wildrose together and discuss how much the popular vote went to conservative parties also discounts the realities of the PC party. I think if you could section off the most centrist of the PC voters and the Centrist of the NDP voters, then add that to the vote for Liberals and Alberta Party that would be where the majority of support would be. This is why the Alberta Party exists, despite the fact that the major parties have kept them sidelined.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I think the constant comparison of Alberta to Texas does a huge disservice both to Texas and to Alberta. I think the best barometer for determining party support is the presidential election, which shows Texas voting 3,308,124 (41.38%) for Obama versus 4,569,843 (57.17%) for Romney. That is an enormous showing of Democratic party support and was a much closer race compared to both New York and California.

The major difference between Texas and provinces of Canada is gerrymandering. The Republican politician machine absolutely owns Texas and re-writes districts over and over and over again to ensure they have political majorities after political majorities. That isn't possible in Canada.

Texas is a whole lot more blue then many people suspect, and if the PC's in Alberta were allowed to gerrymander like Texas, we would be looking at another PC government majority, no question about it.

Even if the districts weren't gerrymandered, the problem in Texas (and most states) is that the Democratic vote is heavily concentrated in urban areas where they sometimes get 80%, 90% of the vote (in some states it has reached the suburbs but not in Texas), so the districts are forced to be drawn to a GOP advantage unless a reverse-gerrymander was done with boundaries that make no sense at all.

That is also partially true in Alberta, although the NDP definitely benefitted from the vote splits. If the NDP tied Wildrose (or PC), they would have likely lost the election since they absolutely dominated Edmonton.

I don't see the NDP dominance of Edmonton going away anytime soon (in almost every riding there they had an absolute majority and then some) - they are not going to turn to Wildrose unless they completely change their policies (alienating the rural base in the process) and the PC's and Liberals are in total disarray. Calgary was mostly a benefit of the vote splits than anything.

[MasterG]

It is nice to see a party in charge that - on paper anyways - has no reason to placate the rural vote.

As others mentioned, Alberta has been a much more centrist place than many think. Sure, we have the vocal Rob-Ford-anti-tax types here - perhaps more than our share - but Calgary and Edmonton are progressive, centrist and above all pragmatic cities that have increased in power provincially with each passing year. The NDP capitalized on this trend while the political establishment was more concerned with the rural and fear-based vote gathering with a limited appeal and ultimately a limited pool of voters.

The Alberta NDP will be one of the most centrist NDP regimes in Canadian history. The return of realistic progressive tax structure on high-income earners is widely popular and hardly destroys the "Alberta Advantage" by asking richest Albertans to pay similar rates as in other jurisdictions. It really is a testament to how much lower Alberta taxes have been for so long that taxes can increase significantly on high-income earners and still be among the lowest jurisdictions in the country.

The PCs could have easily made moves to appeal to the urban vote and popular tax reform issues over the past couple decades. Their resilience has always been due to the ability to select popular ideas from both left and right. This time around they got preoccupied fighting for a fixed-pool of rural votes, anti-tax right-wing votes and coddling up to industry for too many years (at least in public perception).

Their undoing was of their own making.

[SignalHillHiker]

I think AB is average in provincial expenditures per capita.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation (ugh) lists them as...

Provincial Expenditures per Capita - 2011-2012

QC: 7,196
ON: 7,659
BC: 7,692
NS: 8,074
AB: 8,669
SK: 8,725
NB: 8,889
PEI: 8,981
MB: 9,996
NL: 12,693

[lio45]

Originally Posted by geotag277

That is an enormous showing of Democratic party support and was a much closer race compared to both New York and California.

Texas is a whole lot more blue then many people suspect

Simultaneous post from you and I, it's not often that we happen to agree that totally on this forum

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by lio45

My outsider analysis is that the one thing that had to change is the PC's dynasty grip on the province and the impression they had that they owned it and could do whatever they wanted. That's obviously going to be pretty intolerable to many voters.

Federally this happened during the Chrétien era when the Bloc Québécois was the Official Opposition and nothing seemed to stand in the way for the federal Libs. The scandals that surfaced towards the end of the "we own this place" era eventually sunk Canada's Natural Governing Party just like it sunk Alberta's.

That's also exactly what it felt like to me, too. I don't remember anything particularly WRONG with Canada when the Libs were voted out, but boy howdy did we need change.

And we've been reaping the results of that sort of voting mindset every day since. Here's hoping it plays out better in Alberta than it did Federally.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

The floor crossing can't be underestimated.

Did they at least all lose their seats? That would be sweet.

[eternallyme]

Rural Alberta is still Tea Party country for the most part, but so are the rural parts of most other provinces. So there isn't that much difference there either.

We should have known all along Alberta wasn't much different than most other provinces. I'd argue the Atlantic provinces (except probably New Brunswick which has the same splits) are most different, with a more liberal tradition all around.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lio45

Did they at least all lose their seats? That would be sweet.

I believe all of them lost their seats. Most lost to the new Wildrose candidate, a couple lost to the NDP (mostly on vote splits).

[Spongebob]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Well what did Saskatchewan have going for it at the time? Farming, and a little bit of mining. Once you've filled up all the farmland growth is going to slow down, and Saskatchewan seems like it filled up fairly quickly.

Also, even when Saskatchewan was number three by population they didn't have any of the top ten biggest cities, while Alberta had 2 in the top ten by the 30s.

Saskatchewan was just a rural province and fell behind because of that. Now they've got a resource boom that's letting them remain fairly rural focused.

Without belaboring the point too much, Saskatchewan has one of the most diversified economies in the country. The potential to extract all the resources from the ground ended when the CCF took power. The oil companies left (to Alberta), the potash industry and oil industry were nationalized and unionized labor came to dominate and run the province along side the CCF/NDP. Don't think for a minute the unions aren't lining up at the trough right now in Alberta in anticipation of big handouts.
Saskatchewan's demise in the 20th century had nothing to do with being a rural province that fell behind. It had everything to do with government policies that prevented private investment in the economy through regressive taxation, government appropriation of resources and preferential treatment for unionized labor. This is totally foreign to Alberta and I hope people there are ready for it.
The one thing I have learned living in Saskatchewan is that government cannot drive the economy. Like I said earlier......good luck!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by freeweed

That's also exactly what it felt like to me, too. I don't remember anything particularly WRONG with Canada when the Libs were voted out, but boy howdy did we need change.

See my latest post where I'm quoting you about "only a couple of private plane flights" for what I and many voters (in AB too, apparently) consider to be very wrong-in-capital-letters with that attitude.

[Dr Nevergold]

Saskatchewan didn't have oil, so I don't think it's government had much to do with that.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by MasterG

The PCs could have easily made moves to appeal to the urban vote and popular tax reform issues over the past couple decades. Their resilience has always been due to the ability to select popular ideas from both left and right. This time around they got preoccupied fighting for a fixed-pool of rural votes, anti-tax right-wing votes and coddling up to industry for too many years (at least in public perception).

There's no question that the WR turned into the Reform party, at least in terms of the political impact (the fact that their early platforms coincided is just a fluke, it can happen with any party). The Reform DESTROYED the PC party in Canada, for all intents and purposes. The current Cons are really a different animal.

So here's praying that we don't see Alberta electing our own Harper in 10-15 years, once the WR consumes the PC and comes out swinging.

[BretttheRiderFan]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

I am not sure this is actually the case. The PCs were a big tent. People on the left said they were a right wing party. People on the right said they were a left wing party. But the tent collapsed and the progressives and the conservatives split, leaving only the party die-hards. The idea being bandied about here that there was a split amongst right-wing, or that most of the voters voted for a right-wing party, is frankly farcical.

Very much agree with this.

Plus, the PCs and WRP offer quite different visions for Alberta IMO. The PCs are a firmly Red Tory party and have been since Klein left. Their remaining MLAs are overwhelmingly in Calgary whereas Wildrose still hasn't been able to penetrate urban areas.

I don't think it's wise to clump those votes together and say "the right wing parties had more support than the NDP". Given the choice of one or the other, I think a significant number of PC voters and even some MLAs would go with Notley's NDP.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by lio45

See my latest post where I'm quoting you about "only a couple of private plane flights" for what I and many voters (in AB too, apparently) consider to be very wrong-in-capital-letters with that attitude.

Yeah, and this is where I just don't glom onto ideology.

Personally? The world is never going to be perfect, and certainly government will never be. I'd rather have a mildly corrupt government that drives a kick-ass economy and creates a wonderful place to live for everyone, than a perfectly clean government that ends up driving the economy into the ground.

Not saying that's what's gonna happen, but the large focus on what amounts to rounding errors in a budget kinda worry me. Big picture, folks. This sort of stuff is how Harper got into power. Of course, hopefully it's also what will get him OUT of power - sadly the electorate seems to ignore the tremendous damage he's done, so maybe some insignificant scandals will help.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by lio45

It's the principle. Chrétien is totally right in saying that it makes no real impact on federal finances, but it's about principle. As we say "qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf" (never found a true equivalent to this proverb un English). Voters won't tolerate proven, exposed corruption, and that's perfectly normal.

"If you'll steal the egg, you'll steal a cow."

I can't think of a matching English proverb off hand, but the translated version reads well regardless, and is a good take on the point of view. Basically they were saying they weren't sweating the small crimes, but people saw it as just a step up to bigger crimes/scandals.

And really, looking on the national stage, it does feel like Harper's crew is at a similar stage that Chretien's group was back then; plagued with small scandals and leaving people worried about when/if a big one will be done.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by BretttheRiderFan

Given the choice of one or the other, I think a significant number of PC voters and even some MLAs would go with Notley's NDP.

That's exactly what happened yesterday.

[Dr Nevergold]

Originally Posted by Tropics

This could actually be the nail in the coffin for the NDP. Oil is slowly climbing back up atm, they just took control of the strongest economy in Canada and when oil prices are good one of the easiest economies to manage and work with.

If they fail at this task, if they cannot manage to lead Alberta, they will simply prove they are what many people say they are.

An NDP supporter might have a reason to be a little nervous now. It is time for the NDP to actually lead, and prove they can do so well..

Voters were clearly fed up with conservative corruption and conservative entitlement.

Whatever conservatives need to tell themselves to feel better about a horrific situation will not change the fact that other NDP governments have led strongly through recession. I linked this earlier, look at Manitoba throughout the modern great recession.

http://www.gov.mb.ca/jec/invest/busf...ploy_rate.html

While the NDP in manitoba is polling low, they've led manitoba well for a long time through a rough period.

In so far as oil regulations, it's time Canada and Alberta get up to speed in the era of climate change. Even China has committed to some big standards. It's not good to fall to far behind. The only people that stand strong against environmental policy are usually those directly in the industry. It's hard to see the bigger picture when your paycheque depends on not understanding it. So I'm not surprised by industry being opposed, the NDP hopefully stand for environmental standards in alberta. Standards do not equal shutting down the oil sands... that's conservative fear mongering.