Maybe things are not always supposed to be the way things are supposed to be.
Such thoughts cross one’s mind as one ponders the still-inconceivable phrase: Alberta NDP government.
It goes beyond the fact that even folks as old me have really never known really seen oil-rich Alberta as anything other than Progressive Conservative blue.
For Albertans whose average is 36.5 years — a full four years younger than the national average of 40.6 years — the win by the Rachel Notley-led NDP ends that 44-year PC dynasty.
But it was really the magnitude of the Notley/NDP win that has rocked the world.
At last count, the NDP were leading or ahead in 53 of the province’s 87 seats with the left-for-dead Wildrose Party in second with 20 seats. Premier Jim Prentice’s PCs were a distant third at 12 seats and the Liberals and Alberta Party at one seat each. One Calgary seat was a tie between the PCs and NDP.
That Prentice would even resign his leadership and even is seat (a classless move) says much about the the perceived arrogance of himself and his party.
The pre-election move in which Wildrose Opposition leader Danielle Smith crossed the floor and the decision to cal an unnecessary to wipe out the remaining opposition was all too calculating. Similarly, telling Albertans to “look in a mirror” and then presenting a budget that taxes everyone but large corporations also badly missed the mark.
What should be noted is the NDP’s win did come with remarkable vote-splitting efficiency that might silence the left for some time about their standard complaints of the first-past-the-post system.
With barely 40 per cent of the popular vote, the NDP captured 61 per cent of the seats.
That said, any party that rises from the NDP’s 10 per cent of the popular vote in 2012 Alberta election to 40 per cent has just accomplished something rather astonishing. This is a party that has never been more than third party after-thought.
This was a party that pundits (i.e. idiots like me) thought would waste much of their vote with big wins in Edmonton and little south of Red Deer. This is a party that did just as pollster suggested they would — win big in Edmonton, but win in virtually every other area of the province including Calgary and rural Alberta.
The big losers — as signified by the Prentice’s move — was the PC that got 28 per cent of the vote but only 12 seats and third-party status. They had 70 of the 87 seats at the time of Prentice’s election call.
That left the Wildrose as the Official opposition gaining seats (it elected 17 MLAs in 2012 prior to being decimated by the departure of Smith and others) even though its votes popular vote dropped from 34 per cent in 2012 to 25 per cent in this election.
But the lesson here isn’t the obvious one about vote splitting or the silliness of calling an unnecessary election campaign after a crash in oil prices and a tax-increases.
The lesson is that no one — neither politicians nor the media nor the public — should assume that things will always be a certain way because it seems they have always been a certain way.
Now, this by no means suggests rural Saskatchewan and the rest of the province are about to turf Brad Wall. Or at least, the polls suggest that won’t happen and we should have renewed faith in polling after calling the Alberta vote right.
The lesson here is voters demand honest, good government and politicians. And no matter how long-standing, popular or secure a large majority government is, things can turn on a dime.
Things are not always the way they are supposedly suppose to be.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
