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'Send a nice Christmas card to Jason Kenney': experts link premier's unpopularity to federal Conservative vote dip in Alberta

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Political watchers say Premier Jason Kenney’s unpopularity over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the federal Conservatives earning a lower portion of Albertans’ vote in last week’s federal election than they did in both 2019 and 2015.

After a campaign that coincided with soaring COVID-19 numbers in Alberta, increasing public pressure for Kenney to do more, and his decision to eventually implement restrictions days before voters went to the polls, Alberta went from one non-Conservative MP in the NDP’s Heather McPherson to four. McPherson will be joined by the NDP’s Blake Desjarlais in Edmonton Griesbach, Liberal’s Randy Boissonnault in Edmonton Centre, and Liberal’s George Chahal in Calgary Skyview.

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While Alberta remains a Conservative stronghold, only 55.3 per cent of Albertans voted Conservative this year compared to 69 per cent in 2019 and 59.5 per cent in 2015.

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Throughout the campaign the NDP and Liberals attempted to tie Kenney to Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole who initially praised Alberta’s pandemic response but in the waning days of the campaign wouldn’t talk about the issue.

Chaldeans Mensah, a political scientist at MacEwan University, said the move was an effective wedge issue for Premier Justin Trudeau who connected in voters’ minds the way Kenney was handling the pandemic with the way O’Toole would manage as prime minister.

“Mr. Kenney took a low-key approach, didn’t insert himself into the campaign, but his popularity really loomed large,” Mensah said.

“I think it was largely responsible in the urban centres for the uptick in support for the progressive options  — NDP and the Liberals — in the big cities.”

Mount Royal University associate professor of policy studies Lori Williams said O’Toole’s decision to originally stand behind Kenney’s COVID-19 plan hurt him.

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“So part of it, yes, is the mismanagement, flatfootedness, too little too late approach to dealing with the pandemic in Alberta but it was combined with the fact that Erin O’Toole endorsed Jason Kenny’s approach,” she said.

Kenney’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. In an interview on the Roy Green Show Sunday when asked about Trudeau “attacking” him during the campaign, Kenney called the Liberal campaign “divisive.”

“All I can say is, here in Alberta nearly 90 per cent of the MPs that returned are Conservative MPs and people in this province remain, I think rightly, very concerned about the fairly open hostility of Mr. Trudeau’s government … to our largest industries,” he said.

In Alberta’s rural ridings, where Conservatives are largely considered shoo-ins, voters appear to have used their ballot as a protest vote against the Conservatives, said Ken Boessenkool, a past adviser to former prime minister Stephen Harper and other Conservative leaders.

“But I think the critical point, and I think the point most people are missing, is a lot more of that vote went to the NDP than went to the PPC,” he said.

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“And if we’re talking about what the implications are for Alberta politics, I think … Jason Kenney, misread the public mood, waited too long to bring in the vaccine passport and restrictions, and if anything, the signal was the vote swung away from the Conservatives toward the NDP, and not towards some fringe party.”

In Alberta, the federal NDP earned 19.1 per cent of the vote, the Liberals 15.5 per cent and the People’s Party of Canada 7.4 per cent.

“The PPC only got seven per cent in Alberta. That’s a pretty small percentage of people who voted based on being against the additional restrictions and so I think the signal clearly has to go in the other direction, Boessenkool said.

He credits the federal NDP’s jump from 11.6 per cent in 2019 to provincial leader Rachel Notley.

“You would think people would vote for someone who’s going to form government. But no, people are voting NDP and I think it shows that that Rachel Notley has coattails in Alberta.”

Mensah said the Alberta NDP was able to use its popularity to rally support for the federal party.

“It allowed the volunteers of the provincial scene, and all their organizational strength, to be used to pump up different campaigns,” he said pointing particularly to Edmonton Griesbach where Desjarlais won by 1,468 votes.

Boessenkool said he wouldn’t want the Liberals to think their improvement in Alberta was entirely their doing.

“They should send a send a nice Christmas card to Jason Kenney at Christmas this year.”

ajoannou@postmedia.com

twitter.com/ashleyjoannou

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