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Voters in Alberta, the epicenter of conservative politics in Canada, will choose a new provincial government on Monday.
Albertans will vote for local representatives in the provincial legislature, and the party that wins the most seats will form the government, with its leader becoming prime minister.
The election took place between the United Conservative Party, led by current Prime Minister Danielle Smith, against a left-wing party, the New Democratic Party, led by lawyer Rachel Notley.
Before the pandemic, the ruling United Conservative Party seemed to have a firm grip on power. But last year, large and furious demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and against vaccine mandates helped unleash a caravan of truckers in the province that eventually spread, crippling Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and blocking vital cross-border crossings.
A small group of social conservatives within the United Conservatives ousted their leader, Jason Kenney, ending his premiership, after the government refused to lift pandemic measures.
The party replaced him with Ms. Smith, a far-right radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to inflammatory comments. She compared people vaccinated against Covid-19 to Hitler’s supporters.
the background
Ms. Smith loves to glorify right-wing politicians in the United States, for example, calling Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican running for president, her hero.
It also floated ideas most Canadians would never support, such as charging for public health care.
Ms. Smith now finds herself, analysts say, on the far right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should have been an almost certain victory for her party into a close race that provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, the left-wing party.
“It wouldn’t be a close race if anyone other than Daniel Smith was leading the UCP,” said Janet Brown, who runs a polling station based in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city.
Ms Notley is seeking to guide the Labor-backed New Democrats to a second surprise victory in the county in recent years.
In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta’s history, thanks in part to the conservative movement splitting into two opposing parties.
The stunning win broke a chain of conservative governments dating back to the Great Depression. But her victory coincided with the collapse of oil prices, which hurt the province’s economy. Ms Notley’s approval ratings plummeted and the United Conservative Party took over in 2019.
Polls show Ms. Smith’s support is based largely in rural areas of the province, while Ms. Notley’s path to victory on Tuesday is likely to be through Alberta’s urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary.
Edmonton, the provincial capital and city with a large union presence, is likely to support the New Democrats.
That could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, especially South Asian immigrants, and Ms. Smith is unpopular with many of those voters because of some of her extremist statements.
why does it matter
If Ms. Smith’s brand of conservatism fails to bring her party back to office in Canada’s most conservative province, Canada’s federal Conservative Party may need to reconsider its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party in the next national election. elections.
The federal Conservatives also replaced the party’s leader during the pandemic with a belligerent right-wing politician, Pierre Poiliver, who welcomed protesters to the truck caravan in the capital, Ottawa, with coffee and cake. Mr. Poiliver shares Mrs. Smith’s penchant for provocative posturing.
Even a narrow win for Smith could actually be a loss, said Duane Pratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, if it means fewer conservative seats in the provincial legislature.
In this scenario, Ms Smith could find her position as prime minister and party leader vulnerable and many of the policies she promotes could be put aside, he said.
He said, “If you lose, you’re gone.” “If she wins, I think she still goes.”
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