Alison Redford’s victory a plus for Stephen Harper

OTTAWA—Alberta premier Alison Redford’s come-from-behind majority victory is a timely reminder that voters — when faced with what they see as a clear and present danger to their values — will trample party lines to coalesce around the strongest alternative option on offer.
Some issues simply transcend partisan politics.
That has been demonstrated time and again on Quebec’s unity front. In the aftermath of the closely won 1995 referendum, federalist voters on the left and the right rallied to the dominant federal Liberal flag in response to a perceived sovereignist threat.
On Monday in Alberta, the polarization took place along a different but increasingly familiar line in 21st century Canada: the divide that separates progressive voters from red-meat conservatives.
The Alberta Liberals were a casualty of this polarization. As scores of centrist sympathizers deserted the party for Redford’s Tories, its share of the popular vote went down — from 26 per cent four years ago to 10 per cent on Monday.
For some of those centrist voters, it was a second date in less than a year with the Progressive Conservatives. Last fall, the same constituency ensured Redford’s upset leadership victory.
With the party’s former right flank in official opposition under the Wildrose flag, Redford’s Tories have, to all intents and purposes, been re-centered.
As of Monday night, Redford has also become the most influential red Tory in the country and a rare one that Stephen Harper can’t afford to ignore. They share the same home base and Alberta is central to his government.
Almost to a man and a woman, the architects of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith’s failed bid belonged to Harper’s initial team.
While the Prime Minister himself stayed out of the Alberta fray, an overabundance of his past and present associates around the Wildrose party could make for an awkward relationship with Redford’s Tory government — at least initially.
But over the longer term, her victory stands to make Harper’s life easier than the alternative result would have.
Wildrose’s defeat comes at a time when some of the more vocal tenors of the right have become increasingly critical of Harper’s so-called centrist deviations.
Last month, some of the harshest attacks on the federal budget came in the shape of friendly fire from the conservative ranks.
But even in Alberta, winning an election on hard-right ticket did not turn out to be doable. And — more than ever — social conservatism is an electoral poison pill.
While Harper rose to power on the shoulders of those who make up the Wildrose’s strategic infrastructure, he ultimately owes his majority to tens of thousands of middle-of-the-road Ontario voters who routinely divide their allegiances between his Conservatives and Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals.
Overall, the ingredients of the Prime Minister’s majority are not that different from Redford’s and he can’t afford to risk Ontario to please Alberta’s most conservative elements.
A Wildrose challenge to the fiscal arrangements between Ottawa and the provinces, in particular in the matter of equalization, would have had Harper sitting on an uncomfortable Ontario/Alberta picket fence.
From a larger federal perspective, there are other significant side benefits to the Alberta outcome.
Redford wants to play a larger leadership role on the national scene on behalf of Alberta.
That’s a timely development, especially from a unity perspective.
Over the past few weeks, Smith’s pointed barbs at Quebec’s social model and her (over-simplistic) suggestions that it is living off Alberta’s wealth have been front-page news in the province.
At a time when Quebec is already dangerously estranged from the federal government of the day, a Wildrose victory stood to increase its growing alienation from the rest of the federation.
The victory of a premier who is for the first time able to speak for Alberta in French to Quebecers and to do so in a progressive language that they understand is positive news for anyone who believes the national conversation should amount to more than a dialogue of the deaf.