It does not happen often in Canadian politics: two female party leaders going head-to-head for the right to be provincial premier.
With Alison Redford leading the PCs and Danielle Smith leading the Wildrose, the gender issue has been eliminated, which means the race should be decided by other, real issues. And there will be plenty of those, both provincially and in our local ridings.
The challenge facing Redford and the Conservatives is trying to put the spin on enough of the issues to convince voters that they actually have the best interest of Albertans at heart. It won’t be easy because the issues not only have put the PCs in a bad light, but also left many questioning Redford’s trustworthiness.
Education, health care, ambulance service, deficits, energy, land rights, power and golden parachutes will be among the key issues Redford has to face.
Why did she let the Education Act die when she could have delayed the election one week and pushed the bill through? The government’s handling of education issues like secular schooling and school buildings could influence the outcome of the vote in local ridings, especially Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock.
She will have to defend her party’s inability to heal all that ails health care. How can they spend $16 billion and still not have a properly functioning system?
One of the forces to watch in this election is doctors and what role they decide to play, given their unhappy reaction to Redford’s refusal to investigate physician intimidation.
Speaking of intimidation, how do the PCs convince voters they weren’t being bullies when they threatened to boycott an AUMA breakfast over the association’s criticism of the budget, or when one MLA told a local school board to shut up if they hope to get a new school?
Then there’s the question of five straight years of deficit budgets. How can the richest province in Canada not balance its books? The PCs haven’t shown any indication that they know how to, or are even willing to try, to control spending.
Then there’s the lucrative payouts to departing MLAs that Redford refused to address – probably because so many PCs were leaving – and the issue of Conservative MLAs refusing to pay back thousands of dollars each of them received for being on a committee that hasn’t met since 2008, even when opposition MLAs quickly returned their payments.
All the negatives Redford and the PCs have faced in the last month have created cracks in their once-invincible power. Two polls released Monday showed the Wildrose in a virtual dead heat with the PCs.
The Redford honeymoon is over and she now has to prove herself to the electorate of Alberta, not just the party faithful.
What can’t be overlooked is the split in the Conservative party that has been in power for more than 40 years. Like two siblings battling for their parents’ attention, the left wing PCs and right wing Wildrose are heading for a showdown that’s been simmering for years and may lead us to the first minority government in Alberta history.
The rift began in the 1990s under the dictatorial ways of Ralph Klein but he managed to keep it in-house, something his successor Ed Stelmach couldn’t do, leading to the formation of the Wildrose.
Ultimately, that bickering could result in a serious split among the voters and maybe even lead to the first major shift in Alberta politics since Peter Lougheed’s PCs overthrew the Social Credit in 1971. And that would not be a bad thing for Alberta.
