A province that comprises 12% of Canada’s population and almost 15% of its GDP is by definition significant enough to have impacts well beyond its borders. So, it’s good that the national media are parsing last week’s majority government win by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP). For too long “Laurentian Canada” has been seen to ignore Western Canada in general, and Alberta in particular, as not needing to be the focus of much attention..However, being covered and being covered accurately are two different things. My own take is that significant parts of the story are being misunderstood. That matters not only in how we understand Alberta and its internal politics but also for our national agenda over the years to come.. Ray PenningsRay Pennings .Admittedly, there is lots of nuance between various outlets, but the general take is that Alberta is a conservative province that historically has had massive majority governments. So, Danielle Smith’s majority government winning 48 out of 87 seats, which is only 10 more than the opposition, (with one independent, kicked out of the UCP during the campaign,) reporters are describing as “razor thin”..“The Alberta NDP came up just 2,612 votes short of winning a majority government, across six ridings, out of 1,762,299 valid ballots cast” is what Pundits’ Guide tells us. They neglected to note that just 2,805 votes going the other way in eight NDP ridings would translate to a 17-seat UCP majority..A majority government with 52% of the popular vote is a result that any leader would take in our first-past-the-post electoral system. Our prime minister runs a minority government having earned just 32.62% of the popular vote in 2021, 1.12% lower than the opposition Conservatives received. I don’t recall his results and leadership challenges being framed anywhere near the same way..Not only is the legitimacy of Smith’s win being poked at or questioned in a passive-aggressive manner, there is also the outright disdain from some columnists. It is just taken as a given that Smith must be “the most profoundly weak leader.”.“Never has an Alberta premier been more at odds with the values and mores of such a broad swath of the province,” a Globe and Mail columnist declares..Really? I have my own questions about several of Smith’s statements and policies, expressed in previous editions of this newsletter, but we are talking about a premier who has just won the majority of votes in the province..At the end of 2022, 55% percent of Canadians wanted to see the prime minister step down from office. In response, the same columnist was opining that our prime minister “has never been as unpopular as he is now.” I don’t have a hate or disdain meter to compare the measurements, but the manner in which these results are being framed tells us more about the mainstream-coloured lenses through which the electoral results are being interpreted than about the current state of Alberta politics..I won’t pretend to be an expert on all things Alberta. But I did live over a decade in Calgary from 2004 to 2016 and continue to visit the province multiple times each year. I usually travel not just to Calgary and Edmonton, but I also visit some of the rural communities and smaller cities. I think I can with credibility claim to be more than a novice observer..What I do know is that those who frame the province as a conservative bastion haven’t been paying attention lately. When I moved to Alberta, its population was 3.2 million. Today it’s 4.6 million. Add in natural demographic turnover and my back-of-the-envelope calculations tell me that more than half of the voters eligible in Monday’s election were not eligible to vote in 2004..Premier Ralph Klein’s forced resignation in 2006 after only winning 55% support in a leadership review vote, marked the beginning of almost two decades of fractiousness on the right side of the Alberta political spectrum..Premiers Stelmach, Redford, Prentice, Kenney, and Smith have all served since then (plus interim Premier Hancock), collectively, save for the one-term interregnum of the NDP and Rachel Notley from 2015-2019. Not one of them won consecutive elections. The right even split into two parties for a bit which set the stage for the NDP victory in 2015..Until recently, the NDP has had to fight among various parties on the left side of the spectrum. In the 2020 election those parties collectively earned 23% of the popular vote. This week, they only earned about three. At 44%, the NDP had its highest vote total ever. (When it won government in 2015, the right was divided between the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties, allowing the NDP to form government with 41% of the vote.).What all of these numbers mean is that the media’s framing fails to recognize profound changes in Alberta over the past two decades. The right has been divided ideologically as well as geographically during this time, repeatedly committing “leader-cide” while holding power..Conversations with Albertans I know, as well as public statements from long-time Conservatives, confirm that the divide continues in this election, with some not willing to vote for a party led by Leader Smith. Those who belong to networks such as Take Back Alberta, an insurgency group within the party, are quite ready to leverage the leader to their positions, or threaten her leadership..To say the politics of Alberta are polarized is to state the obvious, but it is not just the left-right (or woke-traditional) polarization as it is often framed..There is polarization within the right as well, even if it has been temporarily bridged by this campaign. While Ms. Smith won the leadership with several initiatives that seemed “out there” to conventional conservative frameworks and caused several to disassociate from this campaign, the fact remains that turnout was a respectable 62%, (down a bit from the last election but in the same ballpark as recent elections)..Although there were over 8,800 declined or rejected ballots, there is little evidence of a mass “opting out.” To state the case positively, whatever you think of Ms. Smith’s politics, she did manage to get enough supporters out to vote for her party in the aftermath of a vicious party fight. And that fight continues in a more open manner than is typical elsewhere..Howard Anglin insightfully observes that in addition to being credited for a well-run campaign, the change in polls over the past few years (when the NDP had a durable lead of 5-10 points) coincides with the decline of support for the Wildrose Independence Party..Formed in 2020 as an expression of the WEXIT movement, the party grew during COVID and in response to the increasing unpopularity of Prime Minister Trudeau in Alberta. While only time will tell how lasting this will prove, Ms. Smith did succeed in building a big enough tent to unite the right in their pursuit of power (unlike Jim Prentice in 2015.).Besides providing fodder for political geeks analysing what has happened, how does this affect ordinary Canadians? Experience suggests that understanding the magnetic forces propelling voters usually helps predict the sort of government that follows. Let me segue from Monday’s numbers to a few of the “magnetic pull” consequences that flow from it:.Premier Smith succeeded in getting enough conservatives who really are at odds with each other to put aside their differences long enough to win power, which is no small feat..The relative smallness of Premier Smith’s majority (if five UCP MLAs disagree on a vote, she risks losing the confidence of the legislature) will focus attention on keeping hold of power, an advantage for the premier. To state it differently, her leadership is more secure with a small minority that needs to keep its eye on holding power than it would have been had she won a larger majority which would provide more political space for infighting..Since winning her party’s leadership, Premier Smith has spoken loudly about bold action (e.g. the Sovereignty Act that provides an Alberta ‘override’ on intrusive federal laws) without actually using extraordinary powers. I expect the playbook to continue with loud and bold talk that might be more aggressive than its bite..In the meantime, the Premier will prioritize competent government and management, avoid rocking the boat, and then exceed some very low expectations. (Not that anyone aims at incompetent government but it’s easier to take it for granted with a larger majority.).In the meantime, the public focus will continue to be on resisting Ottawa’s “just transition plans” (something even the NDP had to oppose given the realities of Alberta politics) and Alberta’s relationship to the rest of country. Ms. Smith’s election-evening speech spent the most time on this, calling for a “reset” of federal-provincial relations. Rallying people to “team Alberta” will be more unifying for maintaining her support than any specific policy proposals locally..Predictions don’t provide certainties. But two things seem clear to me parsing the coverage this week..Most of the national press are framing Alberta politics in a way that doesn’t adequately capture the front-line realities and frames a binary divide between left and right without adequately focusing on the even greater divide within..And second, all of the pressures point to keeping things calm on the home front while focusing the target on the federal government and the rest of Canada. A new era of fraught provincial-federal relations is likely upon us. And while too many disrespect Alberta and the choices of her voters, we all will find out in various ways over the coming months and years that Alberta really does matter..Ray Pennings is Executive Vice-President of the Ottawa-based thinktank, CARDUS.
