The province’s opposition leaders greeted their new opponent Alison Redford warmly this week, but also argued she has already made some major mistakes.
Wildrose leader Danielle Smith congratulated Redford and said she clearly found support for her vision.
“I think she ran a good campaign and she is a competent communicator and I think her message resonated with a portion of her party.”
Smith said Redford’s victory did show the Tories have moved away from conservative principles and her party will be happy to represent them.
“We are happy to be the only small c conservative voice in the political landscape.”
Smith said the lower turnout in the race — about 78,000 votes compared to 144,000 in 2006 — shows clearly that many people no longer feel at home in the PC fold.
“The fact that half as many people turned out to vote as did in 2006 showed that a large number of people are disaffected with the party. They have left and they are not coming back.”
ND Leader Brian Mason was also congratulatory and said he thought it was a positive sign for the province’s politics.
“Even though I want her job, I am kinda stoked that a woman won the race and I am really looking forward to a productive relationship with her.”
Mason argued that even if she does represent more progressive policy positions, she may not be able to implement as much of her agenda as she wants to because of pressure from within her own party.
“She remains a Conservative and she has to face the Conservative party and she has to keep them satisfied.”
Newly elected Liberal leader Raj Sherman was also congratulatory, but cautioned Redford will have trouble implementing the agenda she has championed.
“The PC track record is this, they always get a liberal leader, but they take a sharp turn to the right. Allison’s biggest threat is her own party,” he said. “Alison will actually need my caucus’ support to get a lot of her agenda [through].”
Redford said on Sunday that she does not plan for a fall session of the legislature, drawing strong criticism from all opposition parties, but on Tuesday, following a meeting with her new caucus she changed her mind and announced there would be a session starting on Oct. 24.
She said the caucus meeting convinced her the party need to return to the legislature and start to work on their agenda.
“We will proceed with the fall session. I wanted to be sure that I had the advice of caucus and that we are ready to go and implement our agenda.”
Redford’s 12-month-long election window still rankled the opposition because she said during the leadership there would be fixed election dates.
“Alison Redford promised fixed election dates and if we are going to have an election date in the spring we should know the date now.”
Smith said Redford promised a change in the way politics is done.
“I think her supporters were promised something different and I think she needs to deliver on that.”
Redford said she won’t be able to attend hearings on the Keystone Pipeline in Washington D.C. on Friday. Smith said the project is really important to the province and Redford should be there to advocate on its behalf.
“This is a pretty important project for Alberta, for our economy, for the country. Her rival Gary Mar had committed to going down to those hearings on Oct. 7 and I think she should too. I think this is a project that needs a final push over the finish line by the premier.”
Redford said Sunday that Alberta is a different place than it has been portrayed and its politics now matches reality.
“Alberta is an incredibly interesting province; it is demographically diverse,” she said. “What we want is for the rest of Canada to see us that way. I feel that a little bit of what happened yesterday is that our politics caught up to who we are.”
Redford emphasized that the party under her direction would still be about fiscal discipline, but that it could be about more than one thing.
“We are a party that has always been able to be progressive and conservative.”
Asked by reporters if she thought she had seceded a lot of ground to the Wildrose, she replied it simply wasn’t a major concern.
“I think that you guys are a lot more concerned about that than I am.”
