A guide to the Alberta election — the most unlikely political showdown in Canada

In a province marked by generations of conservative rule, the 2015 rise of the Alberta NDP has given the electorate a renewed sense of agency, paving the way for this week’s unprecedented election. The result will offer a glimpse at how this corner of Canada defines itself in an era of new possibilities.

Voters have a stark choice: between Jason Kenney’s right-wing, populist United Conservative Party and Premier Rachel Notley’s left-wing, socially progressive New Democrats. One political watcher says it’s the most polarizing election the province has ever seen.

“I think the NDP has moved closer to the centre but they’re still a left-wing party, where the UCP is much further to the right than the (Progressive Conservatives) ever used to be,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“So you have a real chasm that we haven’t seen before.”

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A guide to the Alberta election — the most unlikely political showdown in Canada

Almost 10 per cent of Albertans have already voted in provincial election

For more than 100 years, Albertans didn’t really vote in parties; they voted for political dynasties.

Starting in 1905 with the Liberals, followed by the United Farmers of Alberta, the Alberta Social Credit Party and finally the Progressive Conservatives, the province has been dominated by one-party rules. The Social Credit Party governed for 36 years, followed by a 44-year Progressive Conservative dynasty.

Albertans were more likely to squabble over which person led the ruling party; the ruling party itself was foregone conclusion.

But there’s been a shift. In the 35 years between 1971 and 2006, Alberta had only three premiers. In the nine years between 2006 and 2015, there were four.

And in 2015, the biggest shift of all: Albertans saw a clear alternative to the ruling party.

“It’s become a normal province,’” Bratt said.

A number of factors led to the election of the NDP in Canada’s traditional conservative heartland. Some of it is basic politics; the conservative movement in Alberta was experiencing an “internal civil war” between the more centrist Progressive Conservatives and the more socially conservative Wildrose Party, said Bratt. The parties merged in 2017 as the UCP.

And in the 2015 election, PC leader Jim Prentice fumbled several times, such as when he told Notley during a debate that “math is difficult” or when he told Albertans to “look in the mirror” for answers to the province’s economic challenges. A group of Wildrosers crossing the floor to the PC party also angered conservative Albertans.

It led to a bizarre situation, Bratt said: Wildrose supporters voting for the NDP in protest.

“These were not ideological voters. These were just voters who wanted to kick out the PCs and they were looking for the best available vehicle to do so,” Bratt said.

Prentice’s gaffes are widely seen as the reason for the NDP victory. Kenney has dismissed the NDP as an “accidental government.”

But it’s also possible provincial politics have simply caught up with municipal politics. According to Bratt, Alberta’s two major cities have a history of electing progressive mayors.

“This idea that Alberta’s conservative, has always been conservative and always will be conservative — how do you explain (the election of) Naheed Nenshi and Don Iveson?” Bratt said.

In fact, Alberta is neither fiscally conservative nor socially conservative, argues Roger Epp, a political scientist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Starting with Alberta’s oil boom in the 1950s, the PCs spent “lavishly” on infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and highways, offset by oil royalty revenues.

Having the government coffers padded with oil money allowed governments to provide generous services without having to impose a provincial sales tax, cementing the term “The Alberta Advantage” and helping create a series of political dynasties. It led to what Epp calls “a kind of patron-client politics,” which waxes and wanes with Alberta’s boom and bust cycle.

“This is the challenge point in Alberta politics,” Epp said. “When the price of oil or energy prices fall … you throw the province into a different kind of political economy.”

That was the case in the early 1990s when the close-fisted Ralph Klein was elected premier after a global slump in the price of oil, and it was the case in 2015 when the provincial election kicked off in the midst of a worldwide oil recession.

When it comes to social conservatism, Bratt said, polls show Albertans’ positions on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights are similar to the rest of the country.

The province is perceived to lean to the right partly because Alberta has been ruled for so long by a party with the word conservative in its name. In fact, the PCs showed varying degrees of fiscal conservatism throughout their rule.

There’s also the legacy of the federal Reform party, a populist and socially conservative party that was a powerful force in Alberta politics for more than a decade. Bratt points to the death of well-known, socially conservative, cowboy-hat-wearing Reform MP Myron Thompson, which inspired obituaries nationwide.

“That’s what the rest of the country thought Alberta was, this old guy in a cowboy hat and boots,” Bratt said.

Epp said the social conservative movement in Alberta is well financed and well organized — but is too small to significantly sway Alberta politics. When Calgary’s Ted Morten ran for the PC leadership on the backs of social conservatives in 2006, he failed to secure enough support, Epp pointed out.

And the social conservative movement in Alberta has traditionally been based in rural ridings, which have lost influence. According to Bratt, Calgary and Edmonton had less than half of Alberta’s seats as recently as 2001. Today, with the growth in urban populations plus the emergence of bedroom communities such as Sherwood Park and Airdrie as urban centres of their own, nonrural ridings represent two-thirds of Alberta seats.

Alberta’s “mythology” hasn’t caught up to the electoral map just yet, Epp said. Despite the fact that four out of five Albertans live in cities, the image of wheat fields, rodeos and mountains is what most people think of when they picture Alberta.

“Sometimes people need to put on their cowboy hat and cowboy boots and pretend, but this is a very urban province … So whatever the result, no election is going to be decided in the countryside anymore,” he said.

It’s less clear what issues will sway these powerful urban voters in the 2019 election.

Social matters have taken front, right and centre stage in media coverage. Many Albertans are reacting fiercely to the UCP’s “bozo eruptions” — a term that would make people scratch their head in the rest of the country, but it’s become part of Alberta’s political lexicon.

The eruptions are a series of homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic statements previously made by UCP candidates that have tarnished the party’s reputation. Radio host Ryan Jespersen has counted dozens this election.

Bratt said that, as much as social issues have shaped the media’s coverage, he doesn’t believe the UCP’s bozo eruptions will result in electoral losses because Alberta’s economic pain is still the primary motivator for voters.

Still, the bozo eruptions bring to mind another esoteric Albertan term: the Lake of Fire. That refers to a 2012 remark by a candidate for the Wildrose Party, which was expected to win that year’s provincial election. Allan Hunsperger said gay Albertans would spend “eternity in a lake of fire” — widely seen as the iceberg that sunk the Wildrose and marked a split between socially conservative and progressive Alberta.

So will the UCP’s bozo eruptions form a Lake of Fire 2.0? Well, now you know what that means, but Canadians will have to wait until Tuesday to find out the answer.