Alberta Election (23 Apr 12)

[Retired AF Guy]

Well, by this time tomorrow its will be all over but for the crying.

 

[GAP]

Hmmmm....election results live on both Newsworld and CTV

 

[Maxadia]

Just initial ones so far.....PC's leading but it's very early.

 

[Zartan]

Well CBC has declared a PC majority government. I myself was only slightly wrong in thinking a Wildrose minority, at least compared to most of the professional analysts. It seems like the greatest smear was putting the image of a Wildrose government in the vision of voters, where after a few days of reflection, the notion could be headily rejected. Of course, the results are so very typical of this province.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The latest results, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the CBC:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/live/2012/04/alberta-votes-election-night.html

Party Elected Leading Total Vote Share (%)
PC         61       1         62         43.98
WRP     17       0         17         34.51
NDP       4       0           4           9.80
LIB         4       0           4           9.63
AP           0       0           0           1.36

 

[Zartan]

Update: Liberal Darshan Kang has come back to take Calgary-McCall. This gives final results of 61 PC, 17 WR, 5 LIB, 4 NDP. Shares of votes hardly changed from those just posted above.

All in all, I am terribly surprised. Despite losing the vast majority of their voters, the Liberals held on to far more seats than even the greatest optimist was willing to concede them. As an amusing aside, it seems nobody my family voted for won this time. I knew we were good luck!

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is a report on Danielle Smith's assessment of yesterday's vote:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/danielle-smith-blames-controversial-remarks-strategic-voting-for-loss-in-alberta-election/article2411971/

Danielle Smith blames controversial remarks, strategic voting for loss in Alberta election

CARRIE TAIT AND JOSH WINGROVE

HIGH RIVER, ALTA. AND CALGARY— Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Apr. 24, 2012

Danielle Smith, Alberta’s new Opposition Leader, believes two factors kept her upstart Wildrose Party from forming Alberta’s next government -- controversial comments by two of her candidates and strategic voting.

As the four-week provincial election campaign drew to a close, Wildrose candidates Allan Hunsperger and Ron Leech, both pastors, caused a stir with statements that critics called intolerant. Mr. Leech told a radio station he had an advantage in his Calgary riding because he is white. Edmonton’s Mr. Hunsperger, in a year-old blog posting, said gays will spend eternity in a “lake of fire, hell.”

Ms. Smith admits this hurt her party.

“We took some hits in the last week of the campaign that caused people to question whether or not we were ready to form government,” she said after her concession speech in High River, a city south of Calgary. “They decided we weren’t. They decided that we needed a little bit more time.”

While only two candidates were involved, the rookie leader said their words hindered the rest of Wildrose’s slate.

“There were a couple of comments from candidates that caused people to pause and worry about what our other candidates might be like.”

Alison Redford, the Progressive Conservative Leader, ended up with a majority government by employing the same strategy she used during the PC leadership battle, Ms. Smith said.

“Ms. Redford won her [PC] leadership on the basis of getting Liberal and NDP supporters to vote for her at the leadership, and clearly she did the same thing tonight,” Ms. Smith said. “You just have to look at the percentage of the vote for the Liberals and the (New Democrats) to see it was a successful strategy.”

Wildrose is supported by conservative Albertans who feel the PC Party has moved too far to the centre. Wildrose did well in rural Alberta and Ms. Smith said her first priority as Leader of the Opposition will be rural issues.

“I think with the candidates we’ve elected, the rural voice is going to be heard loud and clear in the legislature,” she said as supporters mingled at Wildrose’s election night headquarters.

She’s particularly concerned about property rights, arguing the PCs’ land bills have hurt rural residents.

“Landowners feel like their rights are under threat. They feel like the value of their property is under threat by government regulation. So I look at this as a mandate for us to press forward and try to get the government to address the problems with those bills.”

Earlier, she put a brave face on the fact she is headed to the legislature, but not for the job she wanted.

“Today I stand at the helm of the Official Opposition,” she told supporters in High River, after her upstart Wildrose Party lost the election.

“Am I surprised? Yeah,” she said. “Am I disappointed? Yeah. Am I discouraged? Not a chance.”

While Ms. Smith hopes Wildrose will rally in the next round, this election highlights the power of the PCs.

“It says the PC brand is maybe the strongest brand in Canadian political history,” said Rod Love, who was chief of staff for former conservative premier Ralph Klein. “It can take a ton of hits and body shots, and after 41 years, Albertans still respond to the brand.”

Indeed, 18 prominent Calgarians – ranging from business leaders to arts advocates – threw their support behind Ms. Redford Friday. In an open letter, they cautioned voters against supporting an untested party.

Ms. Smith said she’s ready for hew her job, even if it is a consolation prize.

“I certainly look forward to debating with her in the legislature,” Ms. Smith said of Ms. Redford. “We will work hard to hold this government to account on behalf of all Albertans.”

With a report from Reuters

As an old fashioned, classical liberal, AKA a small government Conservative (i.e. diametrically opposed to e.g. George W Bush), I admit to being a bit sad that Ms. Smith did not prevail; I liked her ideas.

My suspicion is that while monumentally stupid remarks by a couple of Wildrose candidates hurt, the strategic voting was, in fact, a cautious preference for the known vs. the unknown. Canadians, newcomers and native born alike, "know" and even trust big, intrusive governments that provide, however inefficiently and ineffectively, services - and they are afraid of the idea that smaller, more remote governments might actually work better.

 

[Zartan]

From what I gather on the Elections Alberta Website, the only obvious candidate for a Constituency where Strategic Voting (here defined as Liberals and those to the left of them who voted PC) was Calgary-Fort, where Wayne Cao won reelection with roughly 100 votes. From the data, there are perhaps at most three other ridings in Southern Alberta (two in Calgary, and one in  the mountains) and perhaps another three in the far north - both Fort McMurrays and Dunvegan that may have been swayed in this matter. What ultimately mattered was that while hundreds of thousands of Albertans flocked to the Wildrose, they were sufficiently replaced by otherwise apathetic voters and of course, those who voted strategically. On a nice note, it was nice to see voter turnout bounce back, and it did in a big way - something like 350,000 more votes were cast in this election than the previous one. If we pass 50% we'll no longer have the smallest turnouts in the country!

 

[Edward Campbell]

It appears, from the initial report, that the Liberal vote moved, massively, to the PC (to prevent a Wildrose victory?) - going from more than 25% in the last election to less than 10% this time. Maybe I Never Thought I'd Vote PC worked.

 

[larry Strong]

Well, not exactly the results I wanted, though my constituency is now WR. The people have spoken and life goes on.

 

[foresterab]

It's interesting that informal conversations around work here had several people who had never voted PC planning on voting PC just to avoid WR getting in.  The two comments that leaked out really slammed alot of borderline voters and scared them off around here.

Either way...at least there was a choice this time around.

 

[dapaterson]

Vox populi, vox dei.

Two possible translations:  "The voice of the people is the voice of God."  and  "My god! What are the people saying?"

Your choice...

 

[Retired AF Guy]

An American view of yesterday's Alberta election from the Weekly Standard. Reproduced under the usual caveats of the Copyright Act.

How Canada's Tea Party Fared at the Polls
Short answer: badly.
6:14 PM, Apr 24, 2012 • By KELLY JANE TORRANCE

If I ever doubted that reporters crave a good story more than almost anything else, my own reaction to the Alberta election last night would have reminded me of its veracity. Before the polls in the province were even closed, I had begun thinking about how I’d pitch a short piece about it to the bosses: Tea Party-like upstart gains power in one of Canada’s wealthiest provinces just a few years after its founding.

But that’s not what happened yesterday in Alberta, often called the Texas of the North. I wasn’t the only surprised observer, though: Every single public poll, right up until hours before the vote, predicted that the Wildrose Party would form a new, majority government. Instead, the ruling Progressive Conservatives ended up with around 44 percent of the popular vote, and 61 of 87 seats. Wildrose received 34 percent, and 17 seats.

That means 78 percent of Albertans voted for right-wing parties. It’s as if the Tea Party movement here in the U.S. had been more of a real revolt, with tired taxpayers and fiscal conservatives fed up with overspending by Republicans and Democrats alike forming their own party.

That’s not how the Conservatives painted Wildrose, though—and they succeeded in reframing the choice voters faced. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith self-identifies as libertarian-leaning. But the party, of course, had a number of candidates who were social conservative. And so the Conservatives, much like liberals here in the U.S., engaged in fearmongering, calling Wildrose a party of extremists. One ad appealed directly to Liberal and New Democrat voters—the NDP being the next-best thing to socialists—urging them to vote PC, lest a party even further to the right come into power.

And so the Progressive Conservatives of Alberta will soon become Canada’s longest continuously serving government—despite evidence of widespread corruption.

As Maclean’s assistant editor and Alberta correspondent Colby Cosh declared the day before the election,

"Meanwhile, anybody at all who wants to vote PC must be prepared to tolerate the perpetuation of a government that has taken, and aggressively hidden the evidence of, well-documented illegal kickbacks for party purposes from schools, municipalities, and healthcare. Indeed, they must not only tolerate it: they must accept a share of moral responsibility for it, must stand up and applaud it."

Those were fighting words—and ignored by nearly half of Alberta voters.

It wasn’t the only strong statement Cosh made before voters in the mix of urban centers and rural districts hit the polls. Earlier, he wrote:

"Albertans will get the kind of behaviour from their next government that they choose to honour: if they reward the overwhelming sense of entitlement that the PCs have developed after 41 years in power, they will be sending a signal that anything short of murder will go unpunished."

This echoes, of course, the famous pronouncement that people get the government they deserve. And so, strangely enough, the province thought of as Canada’s most conservative keeps as its premier, as Cosh describes Alison Redford, “a lady lawyer who had done loads of international development work and favours Hillary Clinton pantsuits and pearls.” (Rural Alberta might have a ridiculous reputation for harboring being backwards, but the vast majority of votes cast there were for one of two women, Redford or Smith.)

It’s an election to puzzle over long after the concession speeches have been made and a new cabinet named. Canadians are not averse to punishing corruption, even when it goes against tradition, after all: After AdScam, as the scandal surrounding government kickbacks to firms that supported the federal Liberal party was dubbed, the Liberals were voted out of office after ruling Canada for almost three-quarters of the twentieth-century. They’re now the third-place party in the House of Commons.

Smart Democrats might want to do that rare thing—study Canada—for lessons on how to tar (seemingly successfully) a mainstream political party as extremist. And Republicans might want to ponder how they can avoid that fate, and crush a culture of corruption.

Article Link

 

[exabedtech]

Danielle Smith failed not on economic policy, but rather on social policy.  She will have to learn the same lessons the Reform party did... move closer to the centre, drop religion, better screening of candidates and dump them immediately if they comment on issues the gov't has no business in ie anything consenting adults do in their bedroom.

WR came across as homophobic and intolerant in an era where the trend in all things is towards acceptance.  Whether they really were or not is another matter, but in politics, you can never appear to be excluding people.  I know plenty of folks who actively campaigned for no one but AGAINST WR... health care workers, advocates for the poor and womens groups.

In the end, we simply weren't willing as a province to roll back 20 years of social progress.

 

[Kirkhill]

.....screening of candidates and dump them immediately if ....

.....in an era where the trend in all things is towards acceptance....you can never appear to be excluding people. ....

Do I detect a degree of inconsistency there?

As to the 20 years of social progress..... Alison Redford rode your supporters into the PC Leader's chair and then into the Premier's chair.

Essentially the Social Workers, Nurses, Teachers, Human Rights Lawyers etc abandoned their usual banners of the NDP and the Liberal and co-opted the PC party.  The out Tea Partied the Tea Parties.  Which is right enough because the Tea Parties actually took a page out of the Progressives play book whereby they take over low level political organizations like the United Way, Churches, School Boards and Unions. 

A nicely played game. Congratulations.

On the other hand, as the article above suggests the Progressive bent of Alison Redford has left more than one Conservative looking hard at Danielle Smith....and Smith has nothing to apologize for personally when it comes to inclusiveness.

On a different note - the pollsters - the slow death of television and the land line, together with the rise in telemarketers means that the pollsters are going to have to find a new strategy to take the pulse of the populace.  Otherwise they are going to continually over-estimate the conservative vote as they over-represent the grey haired respondents who actually respond to pollsters on the telephone.

 

[Maxadia]

I would suggest that if the Wildrose were not seen as such a threat, as Redford would like to have you believe, then all would have not participated in the fear mongering that took place in the last few weeks of the campaign.


They were a threat.  They were a HUGE threat.  And if the last couple of weeks had not turned into an "anything but Wildrose" party, they'd probably be in.

 

[exabedtech]

Do I detect a degree of inconsistency there?

As to the 20 years of social progress..... Alison Redford rode your supporters into the PC Leader's chair and then into the Premier's chair.

Essentially the Social Workers, Nurses, Teachers, Human Rights Lawyers etc abandoned their usual banners of the NDP and the Liberal and co-opted the PC party.  The out Tea Partied the Tea Parties.  Which is right enough because the Tea Parties actually took a page out of the Progressives play book whereby they take over low level political organizations like the United Way, Churches, School Boards and Unions. 

A nicely played game. Congratulations.

Good post.  That really sums up nicely what happened here.  One grass roots movement led to an opposing movement to which the WR were ill-prepared.  Allison knows she needs to be careful... this could have gone either way very easily despite the appearance of a strong majority.

I see one of two things happening here.  Either the WR looks at where they went wrong, distances themselves from the radicals and works hard to get their story out or they fade away.

On the subject of polling, calling my residential line which is only for fax or my cell which I hang up if you're trying to sell me crap or occupy my time at my expense is a waste of time.  I don't know the solution for the pollsters, but I don't know a lot of people who want to talk to a machine for 10 minutes other than the retired.  I'm guessing that they correctly predicted how the typical WR voter would vote rather than the typical Albertan.

For the record, i'm conservative for the most part.  Being in business, they just usually make more sense for my situation.

 

[Edward Campbell]

One does not have to like the Toronto Star to appreciate that not everyone who works there and contributes to its pages is a fool. Edward Greenspon looks at the challenges facing Alberta in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Toronto S tar:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2013/02/05/bitumen_bubble_gives_alberta_the_vapours_greenspon.html

Bitumen bubble gives Alberta the vapours: Greenspon
Overreliance on one resource and one market has boomeranged on province.

By: Edward Greenspon, Columnist

Published on Tue Feb 05 2013

Alberta Premier Alison Redford brought her sad tale of budgetary woe to Ontario last week. Her province isn’t collecting enough money for its oil. It suffers from overreliance on a single export market. That market is not as needy as it once was. And so Alberta is headed for a $6-billion surge in its deficit. Her finance minister described the situation as a perfect storm.

Cry me a Bitumen Bubble.

Has ever there been a province so lax in its fiscal management and so derelict in its policy duties as Canada’s petro-superpower?

Perfect storms arise from an unusual array of natural forces. What’s happening in Alberta is the predictable outcome of three decades of policy indifference and political pandering. If these were storms, they would go by the names of Don, Ralph and Ed — the province’s three premiers from the mid-1980s till 16 months ago. Will Alison be blown off course, too?

Redford’s so-called bitumen bubble is a familiar phenomenon more commonly known as the price differential. Alberta’s sludgy crude requires extra processing. So it sells at a discount to the benchmark West Texas Intermediate price. The situation is aggravated by swelling U.S. production and plugged pipelines. As a result, the differential has widened to $30-$40 a barrel, more than twice the province’s expectation.

Unfortunate. But at every juncture, Alberta has opted for poor policy choices or no policy choices rather than get in front of its vulnerabilities. The victim card doesn’t play well.

Alberta’s petroleum potentates apparently have only recently discovered they a) rely on the U.S. for virtually all their exports and b) are a landlocked jurisdiction. They had thoroughly convinced themselves they commanded a captive market to the south even though the U.S. fervently spreads its purchases around. It was the supplier was wholly dependent.

A pattern of chronic misjudgment is evident. Decision-makers have long favoured PR over R&D, failed to diversify markets, shown a weak grasp of pipeline politics and promoted a headlong rush on oilsands development without first figuring out how to produce the stuff in a globally acceptable manner.

But the worst policy mistakes have occurred in the fiscal realm. Alberta, though reliant on a non-renewable resource and prone to boom and bust cycles, has inculcated into its political culture a virulent anti-tax mindset alongside drunken spending habits. Rather than smoothing the waves, fiscal policy rides them up and down, with deficits regularly crashing ashore.

In 1976, Premier Peter Lougheed, the father of modern Alberta, created the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Reasoning the energy gift wouldn’t give forever, he aimed to invest in economic diversification, save for future generations and bridge inevitable downturns along the way. Long before sovereign wealth funds became the rage, he set aside 30 per cent of energy royalty revenues a year. Good, prudent, conservative fiscal management from a Conservative government.

When Lougheed left office in 1985, the fund stood at $12 billion, although the 1982 recession was testing resolve. His successors reduced contributions and normalized raids on the kitty. Between 1987 and 2005, no deposits were made. The fund became a device for topping up the budget, in good years and bad.

Today, the heritage fund’s website boasts of $34 billion that has been directed to ongoing priorities. Its value is little more than in 1985. Rather than saving for rainy days, governments conjoined ever higher spending and the lowest taxes in the country, figuring they would secure a superior political return on investment versus the delayed gratification of sharing the wealth with future generations. Oddly, they still called themselves Conservatives.

In 1996, 20 years after Lougheed, the government of Norway, with a population only 1 million greater than Alberta, created its own oil savings fund. As of last September, it was worth $658 billion, more than 40 times the size of Alberta’s.

Just before he died last year, Lougheed wrote presciently in the Calgary Herald that the way things were going, “when a real resource revenue disaster strikes, Albertans will not have the fund as a shield.”

To her credit, a hemmed-in Redford is thinking forward. Following on visits to Ontario and Quebec, she is meeting this week with Premier David Alward of New Brunswick, home to the massive Irving refinery, to discuss a potential east-west solution.

The lesson here: good policy makes possible better outcomes. Bad policy will come back to bite you.

Bitumen bubbles happen. The Norwegians are prepared. Alberta is late to the game it invented.

Edward Greenspon is Vice-President, Strategic Investments, of the Star. He is a former newspaper editor and Ottawa bureau chief. His column will appear monthly. egreenspon@thestar.ca

The problem here is Keynesian economics ~ well, not Keynesian economics, pr se, but, rather, the chronic misapplication of Keynes' theories. Most people grasp what Keynes meant when he said that government should spend, run deficits, etc to spur growth and dampen the worst effects of a recession or depression. Peter Lougheed, almost uniquely amongst Western political leaders, understood that Keynes insisted upon two actions: spend in hard times and save in good times so that you've got some money to spend in the hard times. It's a pity that so few people understand Keynes or Lougheed.

 

[a_majoor]

Or F.A. Hayek, who pointed out that the problems were created during the "boom" times, when money was being poured into projects (especially political projects) without consideration for long term economic return.

We are more familier with this in the blowing and popping of bubbles (the .com bubble, the housing bubble, the "Green" bubble etc.) where malinvestment was chasing the illusion fostered by "short term" gains (like any pyramid scheme, if you are smart or lucky enough to get in and get out early, you indeed profit).

As Edward says, the current Conservative government in Alberta (and indeed previous governments going back to the 80's) have used the Heritage fund as a piggy bank to buy votes, rather than look for long term solutions. This is one of the appeals of the Wild Rose party, they at least understood the spending taps had to be closed; although like most other political parties everywhere, they also have no clear way ahead. BTW, this is probably a systemic failure, the political, demographic and economic landscape is changing globally, so solutions that were valid in the second half of the 20th century no longer apply today. IF I knew what the answers were, I'd already be King.

 

[a_majoor]

Belay the WR has no "clear way ahead", they have come out with an alternative budget plan that addresses the "bubble" issue. Too bad Ontario's politicians don't have that level of vision or political will power:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/13/we-cant-keep-ramping-up-spending-to-record-levels-wildrose-party-announces-10-year-debt-free-capital-plan/

‘We can’t keep ramping up spending to record levels’: Wildrose Party announces 10-year, debt-free capital plan

Jen Gerson | Feb 13, 2013 8:46 PM ET
More from Jen Gerson | @jengerson

ANALYSIS

No one can accuse Alberta’s Official Opposition of being anything other than straightforward. On Wednesday, the Wildrose Party announced a 10-year, debt-free capital plan.

And, to be clear, its hypothetical alternative budget would cut infrastructure funding.

In 2013, Wildrose is proposing $4-billion in capital spending — $1.7-billion less than what the government slated for this year’s budget, although the two numbers aren’t perfect as Wildrose is comparing a calendar year to a fiscal one.

However, it also proposes predictable long-term funding to school boards and municipalities. Wildrose would publish the criteria by which the most needed projects could be evaluated: this would reduce government’s entrenched habit of announcing projects in constituencies containing the most badly needed votes.

    We realize our capital plan will be more modest than the PCs’, and we aren’t afraid to say so

Under Wildrose, it would also take more time to build roads, schools and municipal buildings.

“We realize our capital plan will be more modest than the PCs’, and we aren’t afraid to say so,” said Wildrose leader Danielle Smith. “Our plan is responsible. Their plan is reckless. Ours is open and fair, theirs is political and secretive.”

With per-capita infrastructure spending almost double in Alberta what it is in other provinces, according to Wildrose, it’s hard to argue against the need for change, even despite the fact that the cost of construction and labour is typically higher in Alberta thanks to its still-strong economy and low unemployment rate.

The call for frugality is especially intense as the province faces a $6-billion revenue shortfall brought on by a drop in bitumen prices.

Related

    Attacks on Alberta premier’s ‘absolutely appalling’ performance not personal, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith says
    Wildrose leader Danielle Smith releases her expenses in response to Redford controversy
    Jesse Kline: If Redford can’t manage her own expenses, how can she manage ours?
    Alberta premier Alison Redford holds economic summit amid $6-billion deficit; Budget solutions offered include sales tax
    ‘Bitumen bubble’: Redford warns of austere times to come amid soaring Alberta deficits

“We can’t keep ramping up spending to record levels every time the price of oil or gas spikes, only to send it plunging back to earth just as fast,” Ms. Smith said.

Deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk was quick to strike back, making the obvious point that less money toward infrastructure would result in less infrastructure.

“The Official Opposition continues to play political games with their so-called infrastructure plan,” he said. “The document contains no references to any new infrastructure projects, does not name any projects they would delay, defer or cut.”

Well, it’s difficult to announce which projects the Opposition would cut when the government doesn’t publish a list of infrastructure projects to be built, Wildrose pointed out.

    The Official Opposition continues to play political games

It’s much easier to play government than to be government. Although Wildrose did price an envelope of proposed expenditures, absent an alternative budget it’s difficult to say exactly where it is going to get the money to pay for it. (The party has promised to release just such a budget after the government tables the 2013-14 fiscal plan on March 7.)

For the government’s part, it’s been quite clear as well.

According to the director of communications, Stefan Baranski: “Given the Wildrose’s current plan of paying cash for capital [infrastructure] it would have to come from the operating budget because there is simply not enough revenue to pay for all the operating, a $4-billion capital plan and balance the budget without using a combination of funding methods.”

If anyone is wondering how there can be too little revenue to cover the Wildrose’s $4- billion capital plan, but enough to pay for the government’s $5.7-billion capital plan, Robyn Cochrane, spokesperson for treasury board and finance, said it’s fairly simple. (interpolation: There are some fine bridges in the United States for sale as well....)

The government isn’t going to run a balanced budget for 2012-13. So far, the deficit stands at between $2.3- and $3-billion.

The answer to the rest of the equation is in-year cost savings and debt. The government has already borrowed $1.1-billion to speed the twinning of Highway 63, a perilous stretch that connects the oil sands to Edmonton.

No one seems to believe the borrowing will stop there.

Albertans picked their path in last year’s election, but the parties’ reaction to the shortfall renders their philosophies starkly. There’s bad option number one, and difficult option number two.

Borrow money and bet on the bitumen fairy, or know cuts are coming.

National Post

• Email: jgerson@nationalpost.com | Twitter: jengerson