Well Edmonton, what’s it going to be?.On May 29th are we finally taking a serious seat at the table of the provincial government, or are we letting Calgary continue to outgrow us as our MLAs languish in opposition. (Again?).On election day 2023 Calgarians will have the chance to decide which of their 26 will head north to the legislature. Here in Edmonton we will get the chance to decide whether our 20 MLAs sit with the government or spend another four years sulking in opposition..Why’s that? Why is Calgary electing 30% more MLAs than Edmonton? Well, that’s because Calgary is now home to 300,000 more Albertans than Edmonton is. Both cities continue to afford NHL hockey teams, but the fact Calgary keeps outpacing Edmonton’s population means the Flames now have a 30% larger fanbase to help financially ensure their franchise doesn’t close up shop and head to richer American pastures south of the border..Oilers fans take note: That can happen. As Peter Pocklington indicated in 1995, whether an NHL franchise stays in a city rests very much on the whim of the owner. With a population of 2.3 million Houston is now the third largest metropolis in the United States and is very much in the market to join the NHL, as are many other American cities much bigger and more prosperous than Edmonton. If our beloved River City continues its trajectory of economic stagnation and voting for NDP provincial candidates then do not be surprised to read one morning that Darryl Katz has decided it's a good time to back the team's bags permanently..But that was not always the case. Would it surprise you to know that 70 years ago Edmonton actually had 20% more citizens than Calgary? In 1952 120,000 Albertans called Edmonton home to Calgary’s 100,000..So why does Calgary now house 1.3 million souls to Edmonton’s million? Why has Cowtown’s population outpaced the Big E by essentially 50% since 1952? It doesn’t make economic sense. Being more centrally located means province-wide companies are logistically better off being based in Edmonton and there are more primary industries here. Where is Calgary’s refinery row? It doesn’t exist..So what happened? Well that’s simple. Politics. Edmontonians may boast about winning more Stanley Cups, but Calgarians clearly know how to play that political game far better than we Edmontonians..Back in the 1952 Alberta election an event occurred that at the time meant little but has since gone on to become everything when it comes to winning in provincial politics. Calgarians gave a small majority of its five seats to the Social Credit Party, which went on to form government. Meanwhile, half of Edmonton’s six seats went to Liberals and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (or CCF, which we now call the NDP). .So in that election 70 years ago the party that won in Calgary went on to form the government. And for the next 18 elections (including even the 2015 NDP win) this critical political maxim has held true: if you win Calgary you win Alberta..In fact, I hate to break it to Edmontonians, but the cold hard political reality is that the UCP doesn’t need Edmonton to win. Even if we elect all 20 NDP MLAs we will only be sending them to the spend the next four years crying and whining about being left out of the political picture as the UCP MLAs sit down once more to make critical decisions on how to guide our beautiful province to a prosperous future. .If that happens, and we go on to see Calgary continue to boom while Edmonton stagnates, the number one person Edmontonians should be upset with will be the one looking at them in the mirror. We will have done this to ourselves. Yet again. Either we didn’t get off our duff enough to persuade our neighbors to get out and vote with some common sense, or worse yet: we actually voted NDP, the party that is committed to destroying the economic backbone of not only our province but our nation: the oil and gas industry..Let me say that again, a vote for the NDP in 2023 is a vote for economic suicide. At the end of the day, the vast majority of jobs in our province, public and private sector alike, absolutely depends on a vibrant and prosperous provincial energy economy. .Earlier this year, Edmonton mayor Amarjit Sohi complained when the provincial government offered $300 million for Calgary to rebuild its main arena. Adding salt to this pork-barrel wound is the fact that the number of taxpayer dollars offered to Edmonton by the province when we built our own new arena a few years back was precisely zero..Is this surprising? What should Edmontonians expect when they vote against the governing party over and over? .To end this political situation all Edmontonians need to do is get out and vote UCP in force on May 29th. If enough of us do this, and we elect a sizable share of conservative MLAs — dare I dream, a majority of MLAs from Edmonton — then this will send a powerful message to the government of Alberta: Edmonton is back in the game. Edmonton is now a political battlefield once more. Edmontonians are ready to take a serious share of the prosperity of this province..It’s really up to you, Edmonton. So on May 29th, what’s it going to be?.Vince Byfield is a political commentator and manages TheChristians.com, which publishes the 12-volume history book series The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years.
