Alberta Provincial Election 2012: Know Your Candidates

The Candidates

ison Redford .

Alison Redford

Redford, 47, is a one-term Calgary legislative member, former provincial justice minister and human rights lawyer by training, who captured the PC party crown and premiership in October.

She proudly trumpets her progressive values, has long roots in the provincial PC party, as well as the federal Conservatives dating back to Joe Clark’s time in the Prime Minister’s Office.

But Redford has been fighting the provincial PCs’ record, as well as recent political headaches, including revelations that members on a Tory-dominated legislature committee were paid $1,000 a month despite the fact they had not met since 2008.

Redford has since ordered all PC members on the committee to return every penny they were paid for serving on the panel, but not before political damage was done.

Many observers believe the PCs will need to snare progressive voters from the opposition Liberals and NDP, as well as hold on to their bases in Calgary and Edmonton, if they’re to retain power.

Danielle Smith

Smith, 41, is a former small business advocate, journalist and past PC member who captured the leadership in the fall of 2009 of what was then the newly formed Wildrose Alliance party.

Now known simply as Wildrose, the right-of-centre party — with the charismatic Smith at the helm — has attracted disillusioned Progressive Conservatives and poses the most serious threat to the Tories in their 41 years of consecutive majority rule.

Smith is a libertarian and landowners’ rights advocate who’s targeting true-blue conservative voters and appears to have strong support across the province, especially in rural Alberta.

It’s believed a majority of Alberta’s 26 federal Conservative MPs support Wildrose, an organization with many supporters and organizers, whose political roots trace back to the former Reform party.

Results of several polls have Wildrose leading the PCs and on pace to form a majority government on Monday, despite only holding four of 83 seats in the Conservative-dominated legislature heading into the election.

Brian Mason

NDP leader Brian Mason, 58, is a former bus driver and Edmonton city councillor who has been at the helm of his party since 2004. The NDP held only two seats in the provincial legislature heading into the election, though they could be on track to increase that number significantly in Monday’s vote.

Raj Sherman

The Alberta Liberals, the Official Opposition heading into the election, are led by Raj Sherman, a 45-year-old emergency room physician who was punted from the PC caucus in late 2010 for criticizing the government’s handling of the health-care file.

Despite Sherman’s high-profile defection to the Liberals from the PCs, polls suggest the Liberals are well back of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties