U of C analyst predicts a UPC majority government
By JEREMY APPEL on April 13, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel A political scientist in the city that could determine which way the election goes Tuesday says the UCP is looking at a likely majority government. According to David Stewart of the University of Calgary, the NDP has dedicated a lot of resources into shoring up Calgary voters, but barring an extraordinary development over the weekend the UCP has a strong advantage there. “The New Democrats have a big uphill right here,” said Stewart. That NDP leader Rachel Notley has spent most of the last week campaigning in Calgary indicates she’s confident her party will hold on to much of Edmonton, he said. UCP leader Jason Kenney has also spent much of this past week in Calgary, culminating in a Thursday appearance with federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer in Alberta’s largest city. “He’s seeing Calgary as critical to getting the majority,” said Stewart. “If he were spending more time in Edmonton, I think he’d be really confident of a huge majority and would just be trying to run the numbers up.” Scheer’s appearance was helpful not just in providing a contrast to Notley’s perceived closeness to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but also in demonstrating unity in the provincial and federal conservative movements, he added. “If you think back to the last couple of elections, the federal Conservative politicians have been sort of reluctant to engage in Alberta elections, because they didn’t want to take sides between the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose,” Stewart said. “This is a way of saying, ‘Yeah, we’re all back on one page again.'” Voters writ large don’t seem particularly interested in allegations that Kenney rigged the UCP leadership race in his favour through signing up members with fake e-mail addresses, which Stewart regards as a “failure in the NDP campaign.” “This is another piece of evidence that falls into their narrative about the UCP not being trustworthy and it just doesn’t seem to have resonated as much as they wanted it to,” he said, adding that voters seem more concerned with economic issues than Kenney’s character. Notley made a stop in southern Alberta on Thursday to stump for the two NDP candidates in Lethbridge – outgoing environment and parks minister Shannon Phillips, and Maria Fitzpatrick. University of Lethbridge political scientist Geoffrey Hale says both are going to be close races, unlike the rest of the region. “I would say both ridings are up in the air right now … particularly Lethbridge West,” he said. “A lot with Lethbridge depends on whether you assume an Edmonton-style swing or something that’s a little more like southern Alberta.” Lethbridge is an outlier in this region because of its abundance of residents who work in the public sector, which tends to favour the NDP. “All the polling data tells us that there’s a huge split between public and private sector voters when it comes to re-elect the government or not,” said Hale. The UCP has consistently been ahead of the NDP in polls for the past couple years, but polls have been wildly inaccurate in previous Alberta elections – the polls for the 2012 election Allison Redford’s PCs won had Wildrose leader Danielle Smith ahead, while surveys for the 2017 Calgary municipal election showed Mayor Naheed Nenshi behind challenger Bill Smith by double digits. But Hale says these are likely exceptions, since there are more polls being conducted this time around and their numbers are more consistent. “If there are outliers, they show up a lot faster when there are a lot of polls,” he said. “There’s a certain logic behind the numbers.” Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, Stewart says Alberta appears to be entering a more polarized political environment, especially compared with the 44 years of uninterrupted PC rule. “The antipathy between the two major parties is pretty strong,” he said. “I think we are moving more into a two-party system. It doesn’t mean the UCP isn’t capable of winning two or three elections in a row.” He cited the examples of other western provinces that have moved in a similar trajectory – with the NDP and PCs in Manitoba, the Saskatchewan Party and NDP in the province directly to the east, and the Liberals and NDP in B.C. “I do think we’re starting to look more like those provinces in it really being just a two-party race, with at least the prospect of the second party forming the government,” said Stewart. 25-24
