Edmonton - If the early polls were to be believed, Alberta was in for political upheaval unlike anything the province had seen in four decades.
Once the ballots were counted, however, the political picture was pretty much the same: theProgressive Conservative dynasty is intactunder Premier Alison Redford.
Sure, Danielle Smith and the upstart Wildrose party had increased their presence in the legislature fourfold — from four to 17 seats — but predictions it would form the next government fell way off the mark.
"It was a stunner. It really was," says Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. "Even the Tories I think were really surprised with what transpired."
Monday's election result caught many off guard, but observers say issues like questionable polling and strategic voting, as well as concerns about social conservatism and controversial statements from Wildrose candidates, help explain the 61-seat PC majority.
“Fear won out over anger,” Paul McLoughlin, who writes the Alberta Scan newsletter, told the CBC Radio show Calgary Eyeopener Tuesday morning, referring to “bozo eruptions” from two Wildrose candidates as well as Smith’s waffling on the reasons for climate change.
Bratt says there are questions for pollsters in the wake of the results, but he suggests the election result makes a bigger statement about the nature of the province.
'Not a socially conservative province'
"I think beyond the polls, though, it showed that while Alberta may be a fiscally conservative province, it is not a socially conservative province," he said.
Pollster Bruce Cameron looked to the final week of the campaign as key to Monday's result.
“Let me clarify: I did not get it wrong,” Cameron told Calgary Eyeopener, claiming he saw the PC wave coming back. “I did not measure the size of the wave. The size of the wave that broke on Monday was immense.”
“Most of the pollsters that got it completely wrong were from out of this province," said Cameron, referring specifically to pollsters used by the Sun Media chain, including Montreal-based Leger Marketing and Ottawa-based Abacus Data.
“If the election had been held a week earlier, it would have been a Wildrose majority,” said Cameron.
The final days of the campaign, when voters would be looking to solidify their choice, saw the emergence of controversial statements from two Wildrose candidates.
Anti-gay comments posted in a blog a year ago by Edmonton South West candidate Allan Hunsperger surfaced last week and provoked a backlash against the party.
Meanwhile, Calgary Greenway candidate Ron Leech apologized after suggesting in a radio interview that he would be the best choice to communicate with residents in his riding because he is white.
"In the last week and a half, the whole issue of social conservatism and the issue of trying to represent an entire population when one has either intolerant or even bigoted views became quite an issue," says Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University.
Wildrose leader Danielle Smith said the candidates were entitled to speak their minds, and Williams says it is "absolutely appropriate" to defend freedom of speech.
"But when you are running to represent an entire riding or province, and you are speaking in ways that suggest insensitivity at best or intolerance or bigotry at worst, that you're proposing, as in the case of one of the candidates, that the public education system should not teach that it's wrong to bully gays, you're not going to get support in a province like Alberta," Williams says.
Strategic voting a factor
Strategic voting may have also come into play, with people in some cases choosing to vote against the Wildrose party rather than for a particular party.
"A lot of people said they were voting as they never imagined they would," says Williams.
"Some of them were Progressive Conservative that weren't voting Progressive Conservative. Some of them were Liberals and NDP voters who were moving their vote to the Conservatives.
Some described it as holding their nose and voting for the Conservatives despite their disagreement with some of the record or their policies."
Bratt says there's a need for some number-crunching to determine the potential impact of strategic voting, something both he and Williams see at play in Calgary, but not in Edmonton.
Some polls suggested the number of undecided voters actually rose in the final days of the campaign. Bratt says he thinks the undecided voters clearly swung to the Conservatives.
Cameron cast some doubt on the accuracy of online polling and the automated phone-polling strategy known as interactive voice response (IVR).
“If you do those IVR calls, you press one for Danielle Smith and two for Alison Redford. They’re very inexpensive, you can do a thousand or two thousand a night,” Cameron said.
“If you actually use that technology, and use a simple question, it’s not as accurate as [personally] phoning.”
As for online polls that predicted a Wildrose win, Cameron said, “The online [pollsters] are going to have to ask, How deep and diverse were their panels?"
Readers' Comments
Llahim There are many more reasons for Wildrose defeat beside controversial comments by their candidates. Albertans do not want private healh care. Klien tried his best to expand it including blowing up of a newly renovated hospital and failed. Gary Mar was leading the leadership race until he endorsed private health care. I know several people who went to the polls to register their disapproval and fear of private heath care. They voted PC because Redford made it clear that further expansion of private will not be allowed. I am a liberal. Heath care forced me to vote PC in my riding.
Davkar I saw a poll that was 100% accurate in predicting the results. These Alberta pollsters developed an algorithm to measure the common sense of Albertan voters (something that pollsters in Eastern Canada had never been able to do).
This poll ignored smoke screen issues like strategic voting, negative ad campaigns, personal attacks and individual blunders by candidates that did not reflect what the party stood for.
This poll focused on the real issue - the party in power had 40 years of experience. The Wild Rose party had almost none. Albertans voted with their heads, not their hearts.
This poll, The Hindsight Poll, was conducted by ordinary Albertans over coffee the day after the election. The responses suggest that NO party should have a religious leader as a candidate. The responses also suggest that, given that the Wild Rose party now has 17 seats, it will have 17 experienced MPs ready by the time of the next Provincial election and the Wild Rose may become the common sense choice next time. Or not!
The responses also suggest that many Albertans, when contacted by an Eastern Canada polling company, (or a robocall) feel insulted by the patronizing tone of the questions, manipulated by the answer choices, angered by the lack of neutrality the pollsters portray and amused by the opportunity to "stick it to them."
Well we sure stuck it to them this time - all voting is strategic voting!
JamesMcphearson Polls should be illegal for an election. They absolutely influence the way people vote, and that by itself is wrong. There is also the strong possibility that they are actually used to change outcomes. They tell people that their party can't win so people don't even bother to vote. I'd like to see an election where nobody has any idea who is ahead in the race...then you'd see some of the "fringe" parties gain more votes as nobody had told them they can't win yet...hence assuring that the people who would vote for these parties will not waste their time. Why should Liberals, NDP, Green, and the like be voting for a party they otherwise wouldn't ever vote for...it's because of the polls nothing else.
Courtesy: CBC News
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