On Monday, Albertans will go to the polls to change political dynasties. But it won't matter much because in Alberta voters don't leave parties. Instead, parties leave voters. Albertans know what they want, stick to it, and only change parties in order not to change policies.
That's what makes Alberta politics unique. Sure, they're more right-wing. But the really weird thing is parties there hold power for long periods but only once. Albertans have only changed administrations four times since becoming a province in 1905, but every party that was "in" and then got voted out was voted out for good because Alberta voters don't like being jilted.
Other provinces, and other democratic countries, have political "dynasties" in the sense of parties that hold power often, for long periods, and are always a threat to recover it while in opposition if the public mood swings back their way. But only Alberta has dynasties that cannot lose ... and then cannot win.
From 1905 through 1921 it was the Liberals. Surprising? But they were Canada's free enterprise party well into the 1950s. In 1921 the United Farmers of Alberta rode a populist wave into power and held on for 14 years. Surprising? Not compared to their Ontario counterparts with the regrettable initials UFO. But in any case, a huge early influx of midwestern Americans brought Alberta populist conservative views on politics as well as culture. (Thus the province has flirted more with local direct democracy than other parts of Canada.)
In 1935 the UFA were swept away by Social Credit, who dominated politics until 1971. Surprising? In one sense it's surprising that anyone anywhere would vote for a party whose intellectual origins lay in funny money tinged with anti-Semitism. But in Alberta, the pervasive populist tone of politics coupled with the natural conservatism of the populace meant after a brief flirtation with exotic banking practices and bankruptcy, Social Credit turned socially and fiscally conservative.
In 1971, out of gas after the long premiership (1943-68) of Preston Manning's father Ernest, Social Credit was replaced by the Progressive Conservatives who have since occupied the Treasury benches for an uninterrupted run of 41 years now menaced by the Wildrose Alliance Party.
It looks exciting. But there's less here than meets the eye. Alberta changes parties but not electorates or administrations; ruling parties simply get stale, hollow, complacent and "establishment" and voters replace them with ... a new suit that looks like the old one did when they first bought it.
In their heyday the PCs were the most conservative party in power anywhere in Canada. But after gambling on rookie leader Alison Redford, a left-wing, snobby elitist public-sector-union-backed lawyer who worked for Joe Clark, the European Union, the Commonwealth, the Canadian government and the UN, they are likely to be sent away by the latest most conservative party in Canada.
If they are, it is highly improbable they will ever be heard from again. Alberta's Liberals have struggled into double digits on the opposition benches only five times since 1921 and were blanked four straight times from 1971 to 1982. (Incidentally the NDP, which never held power but reached double digits twice in the 1980s, hasn't cracked five since.)
Social Credit went from 55 in Manning's last campaign in 1967 to 25, four and then four, and (paralleling the party's federal collapse) hasn't been heard from since 1979. As for the UFA, after vanishing politically in 1935 they gave up electing MLAs and turned into a successful agricultural supply cooperative; some days the provincial Liberals must be tempted.
Where most provinces alternate centrist parties - B.C. alternates fairly ideologically firm ones and Quebec alternates separatists and federalists - Alberta politics is distinctly monolithic. Parties there win big or not at all, last long, and then vanish. It's also true federally, where it has given at least 3/4 of its seats to one party in 24 of 31 elections since joining Confederation, including every single contest since 1953, and always the most conservative-populist on offer.
So if the provincial PCs vanish on Monday night, it will be the sort of political upheaval the province sees every couple of generations, a breathtaking drama in which nothing important changes.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/04/19/alberta-voters-change-suits-but-not-politics
