Alberta’s political Achilles heel federally is its electoral predictability. While provincially the state of affairs has been volatile, shifting from Progressive Conservatives to NDP to UCP in the span of a decade, the province has always given a strong majority of its seats to the conservative party of the day federally.This tendency has led federal parties to take Alberta for granted. The Liberals don’t pay much attention to Alberta because the likelihood of gaining seats there is slim. Conservative parties don’t pay much attention to Alberta because the likelihood of losing seats there is slim.Albertans tend to punch above their weight within the CPC because the province has always served as a fundraising hub for the federal party and an incubator for conservative politicos from candidates to strategists. When the federal campaigns come through, Alberta is quickly forgotten as the federal entity tries to win electoral love in Laurentian Canada. It isn’t personal. It’s just math. No federal party can win government without strong showings in Quebec and Ontario. To win those central provinces, the wishes of Western provinces must be sidelined.We aren’t in a formal federal campaign right now, but we are seeing a great example of the federal dynamic in conservative politics as the CPC kicks off its “Conservatives for Canada” campaign. The campaign is ostensibly to reach out to Albertans to tell them why the federation is just spiffy and that they should set aside notions of independence. If online reactions to the campaign kickoff are any indication, the response from conservative Albertans to Poilievre’s overtures is flat at best. Albertans are sick of federal politicians telling them what they are supposed to think, and that includes politicians from the conservative side of the aisle.The CPC knows their campaign won’t make much difference in the voting intentions of Albertans in the referendum. The campaign isn’t targeting Albertans. It’s targeting Eastern voters. It’s Poilievre’s way of trying to distance his party from the sovereigntists who are dominating the CPC membership in Alberta just as they dominate the UCP membership provincially. He is trying to assure Eastern voters that if he were ever to become prime minister, he would not act to change the federal status quo on behalf of his Western support base..Poilievre said earlier this summer that “all Conservatives will be campaigning for Canadian unity in Alberta.”Many members of Poilievre’s caucus kept their campaigning rather silent through the summer, if they did so at all. While orders from above may be pressuring them to wrap themselves in the Canadian flag, orders from the membership are telling them Albertans have had enough.The CPC unity campaign began with some CPC MPs posting canned statements about their indivisible federalism on X. The statements weren’t well received.Beyond that, a website for Conservatives for Canada was launched, and MP Dane Lloyd was named the point person for the unity campaign. At present, the site offers little more than a copy of a press release from Lloyd and a strong plea for donations.While it’s politically understandable why the CPC must campaign to win Eastern Canadian voters, it should also be understood that alienating the Western voter base doesn’t come without potential consequences. The federal Progressive Conservatives under Diefenbaker won every single seat in Alberta in 1958, and the PCs maintained a solid lock on Alberta support for decades. It seemed as if the PCs could maintain their hold upon Alberta voters forever.Until they didn’t..Mulroney dislodged the Liberal government in 1984, and his government was strongly supported in Alberta. When it quickly became clear that Albertans had only switched from a Liberal government focused on Eastern Canadian needs to a Conservative government focused on Eastern Canadian needs, the Reform Party was born. It took two election cycles, but the Reform Party wiped the federal Progressive Conservative Party off the Western Canadian map federally forever. There were many factors that led to the collapse of the federal Progressive Conservatives after Mulroney’s term in office. Taking the support of Western Canadian conservative-minded voters for granted was one of them.When the Reform Party was ascendant, the usual lines about vote splitting were to be heard. It was said that a Liberal victory would be assured if the West went Reform, and indeed, it turned out to be true. Chrétien’s Liberals won three straight majorities. What must be understood, though, is that when the federal Liberal and Conservative parties become indistinguishable from each other, Western voters will shun them both.Albertans would rather have opposition MPs who can speak for their province than alleged Conservative ones in government who are gagged and beholden to Eastern leadership.Nobody expects CPC MPs to come out in support of Option 2 on Question 10 in the October 19 election. The CPC is a federal party, and its members have no mandate to dip into such a divisive, local issue. The CPC shouldn’t have waded in with a full-throated campaign in favour of Option 1 on the question either. It’s a provincial referendum and having a federal party meddling in the affair won’t impress their Alberta voter base.Poilievre feels the risk of pissing off Alberta conservatives is worth it if he can signal his party’s commitment to federalism to Eastern Canada. He would be well served to remember how quickly the Reform Party rose and what it did to the federal Progressive Conservatives in Alberta. On October 20, there are going to be a lot of engaged activists and voters looking for another project to protect Alberta’s interests, and it could come in the form of a new federal entity.Albertans don't respond well to being taken for granted.
