Alberta premier Alison Redford made the long-awaited call for an election Monday, starting what is expected to be the most contentious campaign in the province in almost 20 years.
After locking in 41 years of majority governments, the Progressive Conservatives are facing a well-organized, well-funded scrap against the right-leaning Wildrose Party, led by former journalist Danielle Smith.
Smith took over the helm of the rag-tag team of libertarians and fiscal conservatives in 2009, and has since transformed the party into the de facto opposition, although it currently holds only four of the Alberta legislature’s 83 seats — half that of the Alberta Liberal Party.
Yet some poll numbers show the Wildrose may be gaining enough support to form the official opposition, if not topple the ruling PCs altogether.
If that weren’t uncommon enough, this election call comes after several scandal-plagued weeks for the Tories.
Albertans are still railing about the funding that went to MLAs who sat on a committee that rarely met. The chair of the “no meet” panel, Ray Prins, announced he would not seek re-election last Tuesday.
Then there’s the recently released report from Elections Alberta, which announced it had found 23 examples of illegal campaign funding from tax-payer funded institutions — although it refused to disclose to which party the money had gone, or who would be facing sanctions.
Redford defended Elections Alberta’s secrecy when she spoke to Postmedia last week.
Ed Kaiser/Edmonton Journal
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith unveils her new campaign bus last week outside the Legislature in Edmonton.
“The discussion was to avoid exactly these sorts of circumstances where you start to see these sort of McCarthyism approaches to ongoing investigations,” she told reporters
Gary Mar, who was bested by Redford during the PC’s October leadership campaign, remains suspended from his far-flung job as Asian envoy as he faces an investigation into a fundraiser he held in Edmonton earlier in the year.
And the Tories are likely to continue to take flak for their budget, passed last week, that increased government spending, pulls $3.7-billion from the Sustainability Fund, and still relies on an optimistic forecast of oil revenues from a predicted oil price of $105-per barrel.
Amid that turmoil, both the PCs and the Wildrose have launched pointed advertisements at each other; earlier this month, the Tories released a radio spot in Calgary trashing Smith’s opposition to tougher drunk driving laws.
Wildrose responded in kind, launching a video ad that took aim at Redford’s record since taking over the leadership of the PCs in October.
The 28-day campaign will end with voting day slated for April 23.
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