Most of the legacy media, aided once again by clearly unreliable online polling said, in effect, that Albertans dodged a bullet when they re-elected the United Conservative Party under Premier Danielle Smith..Well, they didn’t exactly say we dodged a bullet since so many of them had sufficiently compromised their neutrality to be called NDP supporters anyhow. But they did say it was close. The only exception was Janet Brown who found an eight-point spread, which she projected into 51 UCP seats. But Brown contacted survey respondents with humans, not bots. Apparently polling the old-fashioned way induces accuracy..Methodological issues regarding polling aside, it was close in Calgary, where six ridings were decided by 851 votes. The upshot for the UCP is that the defeat of so many Kenney-era ministers provides Smith with the opportunity to select a smaller cabinet of loyalists..More hypothetically, if all the close contests in the province — that is, where the victor’s margin was five points or less — went NDP, it was possible the socialists could have won a majority with 44 seats. That was, however, a difficult and tortuous path to victory. But then, if the UCP won all the close contests, they would have won 58 seats..It seems to me that a 49-38 win in seats and a 53% to 44% win in popular votes is not particularly close. It is more accurate to say the result was a solid Smith-UCP win. In this respect the UCP under her leadership restored the “normal” Alberta tradition, expressed in 13 of the past 14 elections: Albertans returned a conservative majority government..Let’s look at the details. First, Smith reversed two-year-old public opinion trends against the UCP under Jason Kenney’s direction, largely the result of his (and Deena Hinshaw’s) execrable management of the COVID-19 event. By the time the election rolled around, positive and negative views of Smith and NDP leader Rachel Notley were about the same, a huge improvement over the Kenney-Notley comparison..Second, both parties waged negative campaigns against their opposition and especially against its leader. Going negative may be unseemly, but it often works well. In the recent campaign the difference was that the NDP attack on Smith was simply personal and chiefly based on her words as a radio talk-show entertainer. For most Albertans, that was yesterday’s news..In contrast, the UCP negative image of Notley and the NDP was based on their disastrous policies the last time they formed the government and the equally disastrous policies they proposed this time. “She doesn’t defend her policies,” Smith said, in effect, “because they are indefensible.”.The UCP’s positive image was chiefly economic: lower taxes, support for the Alberta oil and gas industry, and for capitalism and individual choice more broadly. All of this was top of mind for most Albertans, especially those who recalled the damage inflicted by the last NDP government. All the rest of Smith’s earlier remarks — vaxx scepticism, expelling the RCMP, the unacceptable costs of remaining in the Canada Pension Plan, and so on — were down-played or ignored by the electorate. This was why Smith promised her first bill would be the Tax Protection Amendment Act, which would require referendum approval prior to any tax increase..In contrast, and on taxes alone, Jack Mintz estimated that the tax hikes proposed by the NDP would cost over a billion dollars in immediate investment and another two billion later. The NDP would both literally and metaphorically have sent investment dollars south. It would also have extinguished 34,000 jobs..Notley also proposed to repeal the Sovereignty Act, cap electricity and insurance rates along with post-secondary tuition, and keep Albertans in the federal pension scheme. All of this, as well as her indulgence of members of her caucus who had voiced pro-communist opinions and made strong anti-oilsands remarks, were justified in the name of NDP “values.” “You and I share Alberta’s mainstream values,” she said. “Danielle Smith does not.”.“Values” are also the key to Notley’s future. She promised to stay on as leader of her party, just as she did when defeated by Jason Kenney. Her explanation: “We have achieved tremendous growth and opportunity for our future and for the values that we all share.” The evidence, however, seems reasonably clear that the notion that all Albertans share her values is delusional, which seems to be a common problem among progressives across the continent..In any event, the NDP constitution requires a leadership review by next year. Perhaps by then they can recover a sense of reality. On the other hand, if Notley is, in fact, a moderate in her party, replacing her with one whose “values” are both cringe-worthy and fringe-worthy does not promise a successful NDP future..The future actions by Smith and the UCP look clear enough. Consider first the fact that Pierre Poilievre and Stephen Harper could beneficially offer to support Smith and the UCP, but Jagmeet and Justin could not do the same for Notley. Why not?.The answer is found in Smith’s victory speech. She put Ottawa on notice. “Work with us,” she said. Does any Albertan expect a positive reply from anyone in Laurentian Canada? Then what? Think of what our future might be had Notley won, and Premier Moe in Saskatchewan was on his own..For the future, Smith fully expects further attempts by the Laurentians to destroy the Alberta economy and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. This time the attack will be directed against natural gas as a source of electricity generation. Ottawa, she said, promises to “endanger the integrity and reliability of our entire power grid,” which she said she would simply not permit. Premier Moe has said the same thing..One defiant and pre-emptive response to additional over-reach by the Government of Canada might be to expand coal-burning electricity generating plants and install scrubbers to make coal as clean as natural gas..At least one thing was decided unequivocally by the election: Alberta, like Saskatchewan, will oppose the ambitions of the malign Liberal-NDP coalition in Ottawa to interfere with the prosperity and culture of the prairie west. That is a very good thing for which we all may be grateful.
