All posts tagged Alberta Party

Two polls show how, and maybe why, Alberta’s Tory coalition is crumbling

by David Climenhaga on March 5, 2013 in Alberta Politics, Polling with 7 Comments

Weakened but still standing: The mighty Tory edifice. Don’t panic. This is a metaphor! Below: Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

It’s interesting to juxtapose the results of two new polls on related but different topics that were released yesterday – a Think HQ poll of Alberta voter intentions and an Environics poll of Albertans attitudes about taxes and public services.

The results of the former were published in the afternoon by CTV; the results of latter were released in the morning by the Alberta Federation of Labour, for which the survey was done.

If you believe them, the Think HQ numbers show support for Premier Alison Redford and her party alike falling through the floor.

Environics’ results show extremely strong support among Albertans for a return to a progressive income tax, higher corporate and wealth taxes, and higher petroleum royalties.

Looking at the polls in more detail, the Think HQ survey indicates support for the far-right Wildrose Party has shot up to 38 per cent, leaving the Tories of Premier Alison Redford in the dust with the support of committed voters at only 26 per cent.

That would be a drop of 18 per cent since the PCs won a 61-seat majority on April 23.

The poll indicated the NDP had the support of 16 per cent of respondents, and the Alberta Liberals that of 13 per cent. (NDP support was concentrated in Edmonton, where it sat at 26 per cent, in a statistical tie with the Wildrose at 27.) The seatless Alberta Party posted 3-per-cent support.

According to Think HQ’s analysis of the numbers, the PC election coalition that saved Ms. Redford’s bacon in April is eroding from both ends of the political spectrum.

It tells something about the state of political reporting in this province that neither CTV nor the Globe and Mail bothered to report the NDP or Alberta Liberal provincial numbers in their first runs at this story.

The poll was even harsher on Premier Redford’s personal popularity, indicating 58 per cent of respondents disapprove of her performance and 33 per cent approve.

By contrast, the spreads of other leaders’ ratings were much closer: Danielle Smith, Wildrose, 43 per cent disapprove, 46 per cent approve; Raj Sherman,  Alberta Liberals, 40 per cent disapprove, 37 per cent approve; Brian Mason, NDP, 35 per cent disapprove, 40 per cent approve.

Think HQ’s conclusions were based on a survey of 1,214 self-selected members of an “online research panel” between Feb. 12 and Feb. 16. The company says the poll has a margin or error of plus or minus 2.8 per cent.

Turning to the Environics numbers, 72 per cent of respondents said they favour returning to a progressive income tax and abandoning Alberta’s so-called flat tax, a relic of the Ralph Klein era that is not flat at all, but blatantly favours the wealthy.

Environics said 78 of the poll’s respondents favoured higher taxes on corporate taxes and taxes on high-income earners. The pollster also said 71 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Albertans are not getting their fair share of royalty revenue.

Respondents identified several spending priorities, including creating a provincial strategy for long-term care for seniors (70 per cent in favour) and protecting publicly funded health care against for-profit health care (57 per cent).

Environics used a telephone survey of 1,014 adult Albertans from Feb. 14-24 and says the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Now, anyone who has read this blog for long will know that I am not a fan of Think HQ’s methodology and that I have more time for the polling methods used by Environics.

Since the on-line panels like Think HQ’s tend to be drawn from the politically hyper-engaged, I don’t entirely trust this one’s conclusions. That is to say, I think it highlights an undeniable trend, but I seriously doubt Wildrose support has reached 38 per cent, or that Redford Tory support has plummeted to 26 per cent – just yet, anyway.

If I were to guess, I’d put the support for both parties in a dead heat, probably in the low 30s. Who knows, support for the NDP might be even higher – you have to be an eternal optimist to be an Alberta Knee-Dipper like me.

But whatever you think of Think HQ’s methods, the direction it has identified is clear – and real.

The high level of support for public services, public programs and the taxes needed to pay for them identified by Environics are also real – as anyone who talks to living and breathing Albertans knows.

It is said here these attitudes explain a lot about why Ms. Redford’s winning coalition from last April is crumbling, at least on the left-hand side.

Both polls strongly suggest that Albertans aren’t buying what Alison Redford is trying to sell. Both polls strongly suggest that plenty of Albertans are not happy about the fact she’s not keeping her promises.

Given the political position most often taken by Alberta Diary, some readers will find this conclusion tendentious. Fair enough, I guess. Indeed, some non-Albertans may also find these two polls’ conclusions contradictory.

Moreover, there’s still plenty of time for the Redford Tories to pull their fat out of the fire again. Even the way her government handles this week’s upcoming budget on Thursday could make a big difference.

Still, it’s said here that taken together the polls show the Wildrose Party’s departed strategic guru, Tom Flanagan, got it right. To wit: If voters on the left abandon the Progressive Conservatives and return to their traditional political homes, the Wildrose Party has a chance to grasp the brass ring.

It’s almost a shame that Dr. Flanagan, who celebrates his 69th birthday today, is not longer with his party to have his prescience acclaimed.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Welcome to Wildrose Alberta! What do you mean they didn’t win?

by David Climenhaga on February 19, 2013 in Alberta Economy, Alberta Liberals, Alberta New Democrats, Alberta Party, Alberta Politics, Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose Party with 11 Comments

OK, the National Post got a little overheated with this election-day photo of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. But, really, what’s the difference? Below: Premier Ernest Manning and Premier Alison Redford, bookends in Alberta’s endless conservative governing dynasty.

In April 2012, spooked by the dangers posed by a far-right Wildrose government, progressive voters in Alberta abandoned the parties they supported by the thousands to vote for Premier Alison Redford’s Conservatives.

What they got when they walked away from the New Democrats, the Alberta Liberals and the Alberta Party, it turns out, was a Wildrose government.

By this, of course, I don’t mean a government headed by Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. No, Alberta was spared the embarrassment of having a glib Fraser Institute intern occupying the premier’s office. Rather, I mean they got a government in which the far-right, highly ideological Wildrose Party drives the locomotive.

This isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Readers will recall that a lot of commentary after the election suggested Premier Redford was practically a New Democrat – indeed, I suppose we can expect Wildrose enthusiasts, understandably enough, to stick with that line as well as their corruption and broken promises memes, for which there is more justification, as the next election approaches.

Certainly Ms. Redford mostly said the right things during her leadership campaign and in the lead-up to the April 23 election. Wasn’t there even an Alberta Party supporter who speculated that this renamed version of Alberta Liberal 2.0 wasn’t really needed any more, seeing as the perfect centrist premier was now in power?

For their part, the Redford Tories dropped hints they were building a broad new coalition of the centre – in which teachers, public sector employees and defenders of progressive values could all feel welcome.

It was all pish-posh, it turns out, as the convenient arrival of the “Bitumen Bubble” clearly illustrates.

As we await next month’s budget and the ones after that, the new policy options being considered by Ms. Redford’s PC Government all seem to be along the lines of a regressive sales tax (possibly replacing Alberta’s barely progressive income tax), a wage freeze imposed on teachers, shortened school weeks from cash-strapped school boards, massive rollbacks of our promised “sustainable and predictable” health care funding, and closings and cutbacks in post-secondary education. All of this is accompanied by the tiresome yammering for “austerity” by a chorus of the usual business and academic suspects.

Meanwhile, the same old drive to privatize seniors’ care and reliance on expensive and inefficient P3s continue unabated.

Austerity is the only road still open, we are told in the hectoring tones of Margaret Thatcher, because in the face of fluctuating petroleum prices There Is No Alternative.

In other words, with the possible exception of the sales tax, the Redford Conservatives have moved to the Wildrose position on virtually every issue.

The centrist coalition, of course, is still on offer, as long as centrist voters don’t mind half-hidden Tory smirks and Wildrose Party policies.

There are two reasons, it is said here, for this policy direction:

First, there is the practical matter that the Redford Conservatives are more concerned by the threat posed by the right-wing Wildrose Party than by that from the disunited and lately ineffective parties of Alberta’s centre.

This does not reflect what Albertans tell pollsters they would like for policies, but, based on solid behavioural evidence, the PCs must be certain progressive voters are suckers who can be persuaded to vote for them with the mere nod in the direction of the Wildrose boogeyman. (Pastor Allan Hunsperger, c’mon down!)

Second, the Conservatives and the Wildrose Party are essentially the same people.

Remember where the bulk of the Wildrose MLAs came from – they were long-time Tory backers, in some cases actual Tory MLAs, dissatisfied with the centrist compromises made by Ed Stelmach, the former premier.

Likewise, both parties are backed by the same people – the same corporate donations flow into their coffers, for the same self-interested reasons. And that reason, pretty obviously, is that both parties believe in the same thing.

Finally, given the weird Alberta political habit of being members of more than one political party at the same time, in the case of both parties’ rank and file they are often literally the same people, conveniently members of two far-right political parties as they strategize on how best to maximize their right-wing influence to get the right-wing policies they favour.

So for all the naïve hopes we could have social progressivism from Alberta Progressive Conservatives, all we really got is the same old same old, stretching back in an unbroken line through 41 years of PC government and well beyond to the day in 1943 Ernest Manning assumed the helm of the Social Credit League eight days after premier William Aberhart’s unexpected death at his daughter’s home in British Columbia.

Welcome back to the future. Welcome to Wildrose Alberta!

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Khan, Cusanelli canned: Alberta premier sacks two rookie ministers in wake of poll

by David Climenhaga on February 5, 2013 in Alberta Legislature, Alberta Politics, Uncategorized with 2 Comments

Steve Khan, eyed suspiciously by a fox. Below: Richard Starke, Christine Cusanelli, Richard III and Thomas Lukaszuk.

Right on the heels of a new poll suggesting a decline in support for the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta, Premier Alison Redford announced a mini-shuffle of her cabinet yesterday, sacking a couple of rookie ministers who for different reasons had turned out to be liabilities.

Coincidence? I think not.

The telephone survey of Alberta public opinion conducted from Jan. 14 to 20 by Leger Marketing was covered by most media and commentators as if it were good news for Ms. Redford’s PCs. “Tories are basically holding their own,” said one of the usual suspects you can depend on the mainstream media to quote in such situations.

Indeed, Leger’s own commentary interpreted the numbers pretty much this way. But buried in the results, and more obvious from the government’s actions, are strong hints this may not be so.

Leastways, compared with the April 23 election results and an earlier survey, the Leger poll suggests the Redford Tories were trending downward by mid-January.

And that was before the premier’s “State of the Province” TV address on Jan. 24, which was widely panned, the latest damning Elections Alberta revelations in the province’s ongoing political donations scandal and now a completely unexpected cabinet shuffle. The government’s March 7 budget – bringing austerity, Alberta style – is yet to come.

Yesterday’s sudden cabinet shuffle, it is said here, suggests the Tories are looking at polls of their own that indicate their support is slipping even more.

The Leger poll published yesterday showed the PCs with the committed support of 40 per cent of decided voters, while the farther-to-the-right Wildrose Party led by Danielle Smith had that of 28 per cent.

The survey of 900 Albertans put the New Democrats under Brian Mason in third place, with 13 per cent, and the Liberals under Raj Sherman on their heels at 12 per cent.

This represents a bigger decline for the Wildrose Party than the Conservatives from election day, when the Tories received 44 per cent of the vote, sufficient to gain a 61-seat majority in the 87-seat House, and the Wildrose Party got 34 per cent and 17 seats. The Liberals had 10 per cent of the vote on April 23, which translated into five seats, and the NDP had 9.8 per cent, which got them four.

So, on the face of it, from the PC perspective, all would seem to be right with the world, with God in his heaven and the Conservatives in power forever more.

Still, the results may suggest a less rosy scenario – or more rosy, depending on the kind of rose you have in mind. For one thing, the Leger poll may indicate Alberta voters are returning to their natural political homes – at least for the time being.

Remember, Wildrose strategist Tom Flanagan has argued the key to his party’s success next time is persuading what he calls left-wing voters to feel it’s OK if they vote for the parties they truly support, whether the NDP, the Alberta Liberals or the remnants of the Alberta Party.

Going by Leger’s numbers – including the large 6 per cent cohort of respondents who indicated they would vote for another party not now in the Legislature and a big bleed to the undecided column, 21 per cent – this may be what is happening.

In October 2012, moreover, a poll by Environics Research showed the PCs still enjoying a small honeymoon bump in support – up a point from their election day numbers to 45 per cent, with the Wildrose trailing at 29, the Liberals at 13 and the NDP at 12.

So in eight months, support for the government appears to have dropped 4 per cent, or maybe 5 per cent, depending on how you look at it.

Naturally, government partisans will argue this is insignificant and to be expected after eight months. It’s said here, however, that it’s at least possible this poll is an early indicator the government should be worried, and universe could be unfolding as the Wildrose Party’s strategists think it should as long as they can hold their vote in areas where they are now strong.

This is especially true in light of the timing of the poll, which was conducted before Ms. Redford’s underwhelming TV message, before the latest brouhaha about illegal donations by public institutions such as municipalities, school boards and universities made to the Conservatives, and before whatever cuts are actually revealed in the March 7 provincial budget.

Will those things make further inroads into Conservative support? Well, that remains to be seen, but it is hard to imagine they won’t.

Which brings us to the matter of Ms. Redford’s cabinet mini-shuffle, also announced yesterday.

Gone is Calgary-Currie MLA Christine Cusanelli, who as Tourism Minister messed up spectacularly by taking her mother and daughter to London for the Olympics on the public tab and by letting her department spend $113,000 on London hotel rooms that sat vacant through the Olympics. She was also known to blunder into press conferences ill prepared to answer even the softball questions lobbed by the Alberta press corps.

It was the family vacation on the public tab that really killed her, though. The former school principal was made to pay back $10,600 in expenses submitted during her first five months on the job as a cabinet minister, including $4,000 for the Olympian jaunt, but the bad odour lingered. With the opposition daily accusing the PCs of corruption and arrogance, the premier had little option but to throw her under the bus.

Ms. Cusanelli will be replaced by Richard Starke, a first-time MLA for Vermilion-Lloydminster.

A strange coincidence will make the blood of many Albertans run cold when they hear this news – and, no, I don’t mean the similarity of Mr. Starke’s name to that of the drummer of the 1960s guitar group knows as the Beatles.

Rather, it’s that the last veterinarian from Vermilion in the cabinet was a fellow named… Steve West, Dr. No himself, premier Ralph Klein’s personal one-man wrecking crew. Dr. West’s name still evokes ghastly shudders and makes small children cry in some corners of Alberta, especially those near government offices in downtown Edmonton.

Gone too as Enterprise and Advanced Education Minister is Steve Khan, the affable MLA for the Edmonton bedroom suburb St. Albert, who like Ms. Cusanelli apparently only learned yesterday the axe was about to fall on his neck.

What sank Mr. Khan is not so obvious, although his replacement by cabinet veteran and Redford loyalist Thomas Lukaszuk, who has been Education Minister before and is also Deputy Premier, is seen by some as a harbinger of deep cuts coming in the budget to post-secondary education.

For his part, the St. Albert businessman is said to have found it impossible to say no to the senior bureaucrats in his department or yes to education stakeholders who wanted a meeting with him. Either tendency could have been a problem in the weeks after the budget, which are bound to be fraught.

Now, at least, he will have plenty of time in the PC backbenches for meetings.

If the speculation here is right that the PC government has been polling since the premier’s message, it’s a certainty they know stuff we don’t about what Albertans are thinking.

If they’re doing something as dramatic as an unannounced a cabinet shuffle on a mild February day, it’s because they have reason to believe the Leger results are just the start of a trend, one they’re highly motivated to try to turn around.

Speaking of difficulties involving wild roses, a body found buried beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England, has been confirmed as that of Richard III, a political figure who left office suddenly in 1485 after experiencing difficulties with a rose of a different colour.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

The Redford Tories’ conundrum: Progressive reason versus Conservative passion

by David Climenhaga on January 17, 2013 in Alberta Politics with 2 Comments

They kissed us once. Will they kiss us again? Alas, in Alberta right now, there’s no way to be cert- cert- certain. Alison Redford chats with a typical Alberta voter last spring – although, Alberta politicians and their supporters may not turn out to be exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Ms. Redford, Finance Minister Doug Horner.

Here in 14 words is the conundrum that faces the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta Premier Alison Redford: you can be progressive, or you can be conservative, but you can’t be both.

So which is it?

The problem that confronts Ms. Redford’s PCs is that they aren’t really sure themselves.

Progressive? Or Conservative? Great taste? Or less filling? Breath mint? Or candy mint?

This, it is said here, is the source of the real pain that shows through the Redford Government’s commentary about how we all need to reduce our expectations for the provincial budget scheduled for introduction on Thursday, March 7.

Yeah, I know, Alberta Tories have a long history of saying things are going to be terrible come budget time, then laughing at us behind their hands when we all heave a huge sigh of relief after things turn out not to be as quite as bad as forecast.

That’s a perfectly plausible explanation for much of the gloom and doom about declining petroleum revenues that is emanating from Ms. Redford’s inner circle nowadays.

It’s also true that Ms. Redford probably promised more than she could sensibly deliver in the desperate final days of the 2012 election campaign, when it looked very much as if the ultra-conservative Wildrose Party might actually win a majority. That was when she told Albertans that thanks to a heaping dosage of political Retsyn ™ her party could be a breath mint and a candy mint!

But neither of those cynical explanations account for the level of genuine angst apparent in the Red Tory Budget Blues that are playing continually in Alberta these days.

After her first 2013 meeting with her PC caucus, Ms. Redford warned that falling petroleum prices – which with metronomic regularity catch Alberta PC governments by complete surprise – mean tough choices, deep cuts, reduced expectations, haircuts all ’round, programs under the microscope, tighter belts, (insert spending-cut metaphor of choice here), yadda yadda.

Finance Minister Doug Horner has also joined this chorus of Gloomy Thursday, a tune so melancholy many listeners that hear it are immediately tempted to jump off a fiscal cliff!

But their real problem is that old habits die hard. The Alberta PCs have been a party of deep fiscal conservatism and knee-jerk austerity for so long that the instinct to cut in a crisis is bred in the bone.

Like a Civil War surgeon presented with a health care problem, the only thing they can think of is a hacksaw and a broom handle for the patient to bite down on while they cut. So they can’t help telling us that if you think that image is painful, just wait for the Budget Speech on March 7 – and they mean it!

After all, that strategy has worked for years for the Alberta Tories, at least once the quasi-NDP government of their founder, Peter Lougheed, came to an end in the mid-80s just as the neoconservative verities of Ronald Reagan, the Fraser Institute and General Augusto Pinochet began to really take root around the globe.

Many believers in that worldview remain influential in Tory ranks.

The trouble is, in the Alberta of the early 21st Century, that territory has been ceded to the Wildrose Party led by former Fraser Institute apparatchik Danielle Smith and abetted by the unprogressive federal Conservatives of Prime Minister Stephen Harper who campaigned tirelessly for the Wildrosers last spring.

And those voters, it now seems clear, are not coming back. To them, Ms. Redford is beyond the political pale, and nothing she says or does will assuage their bitterness at her defeat of former finance minister Ted Morton, the worst premier Alberta never had, and her rejection, however temporary, of their Paleolithic values.

Faced with the grim prospect of defeat at the hands of these unreconstituted market fundamentalists and social conservatives, Ms. Redford’s strategists did a clever and rather courageous thing – on very short notice they cobbled together a new coalition with small-l liberal supporters of the Alberta New Democrats, Liberals and Alberta Party who preferred a soft Tory government to a hard-edged Wildrose premier. If that meant fewer seats for the parties they traditionally supported, well, the Devil take the hindmost!

The Redford Tories built this instant coalition by promising things that were traditionally anathema to many of their party’s core supporters: public services, investment in health care and education, commitment to inclusive values.

Now, facing a temporary decline in resource revenues, their deepest instinct is to backslide – just when what the situation calls for is a modest tax increase, a recommitment to small-l liberal values, a willingness to live with deficits a little longer and the courage to stay the course on health, education and social spending.

If they respond to their the primitive instincts of their political lizard brain, they will likely lose the new and still fragile coalition that saved their bacon in 2012, but they won’t win back the right-wing rump they have already lost to the Wildrose Party.

So reason tells them to stay the course. But passion tells them to abandon it. The resulting pain they feel is real.

To paraphrase the breath mint ad of yore: They kissed us once. Will they kiss us again? Alas, in Alberta right now, there’s no way to be certain until March 7.

Right now, they don’t even know themselves!

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

The Albertaliberals spawn Liberalberta … this is a joke, isn’t it?

by David Climenhaga on October 22, 2012 in Alberta Liberals, Alberta Politics with 1 Comment

Raj Sherman kills at Huckabay’s Comedy Club, which of course doesn’t exist. Actual Alberta comedians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: The re-branded Liberalberta logo; the real Raj Sherman, with his real chief of staff, Jonathan Huckabay; former Alberta NDP Leader Raj Pannu; the Sherman Tank.

THE SCENE: A late fall night in Edmonton, cold. A smoky bar, a comedy club called Huckabay’s. A comedian walks on stage…

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Coff-coff!

COMEDIAN: Hi there. Heard about the Alberta Liberals’ new brand? Raj Sherman, their leader? He’s re-branding them… Ouch!

AUDIENCE: [Feet shuffling, low conversations, sounds of glasses clinking]

COMEDIAN: Cute logo, new colours …  plus he’s renaming the party the …

VOICE: Alberta Party?

COMEDIAN: … Liberalberta Party!

AUDIENCE: [Muffled laughter]

VOICE: Thought they were the Rajbertans now!

SECOND VOICE: Rajtafarians!

THIRD VOICE: We’re livin’ in Rajtopia!

FOURTH VOICE: Geeze, get the hook! This isn’t funny…

COMEDIAN: So, take the Liberalbertans … Please!

DRUMMER: Ba-BAM!

COMEDIAN: If God had wanted us to vote… He wouldn’t have given us the Albertaliberals!

DRUMMER: Ba-da-BING!

AUDIENCE: [More talking, glasses clink, sound of a plate breaking, some applause]

COMEDIAN: So, I hear Raj’s staff took him to the airport last night… His flight leaves on Thursday.

DRUMMER: Ba-BAM!

AUDIENCE: [Voices grow louder]

COMEDIAN: You know that look that people get when they’re going to vote Liberal? Neither does Raj!

DRUMMER: Bim-BAM!

VOICE: Shut up! You stink!

COMEDIAN: Hey, I think we’ve got an Liberalbertan in the crowd! Did ya hear about the Alberta Liberals’ leadership election? Two Liberals walk into a bar! You’d think one of them would have seen it!

DRUMMER: Ba-BOP!

AUDIENCE: [Groans]

COMEDIAN: Hey, a word to the wise ain’t needed. It’s the Liberalbertans who need the advice!

DRUMMER: Ba-DING!

AUDIENCE: [Scattered laughs]

COMEDIAN: So… About Raj … the only guy he listens to is his chief of staff …

AUDIENCE: [Voices grow louder, glasses clinking, a cellphone rings]

COMEDIAN: …Or maybe his chief of staff is the only guy who listens to Raj! … S’cuse me? Drummer?

DRUMMER: Huh? His chief of staff is Jonathan Huckabay. What?… Oh, sorry… Ba-BAM!

AUDIENCE: [More coughing, foot shuffling]

COMEDIAN: The Liberalbertans? Their first slogan was Raj Against the Machine!

DRUMMER: Ba-Ding-BAM!

COMEDIAN: Except it turned out some other Raj owned that one. Anyone remember Raj Pannu? Any Knee-Dippers here tonight?

AUDIENCE: [Scattered cheers]

COMEDIAN: So… they call it re-branding … Ow!

AUDIENCE: [A few laughs]

VOICE: You already said that!

COMEDIAN: It can hurt… Especially if you’re a heifer! Any heifers here tonight?

AUDIENCE: [Scattered cheers]

VOICE: MOO!

COMEDIAN: Or if you’re a Liberal! Last time Rajberta had an idea this bad it was during the election …

DRUMMER: Drrrrrrrrrrrrrr….

COMEDIAN: … When he ran!

DRUMMER: Ba-BAM!

COMEDIAN: No. Seriously… When he had a contest to name his truck!

VOICE: The Crazy Train!

COMEDIAN: I think they decided to call it the Sherman Tank…

DRUMMER: Ba-BOP!

COMEDIAN: You know they used to call Sherman tanks Ronsons? … Because they lit up easily and you couldn’t put out the flame…

VOICE: I don’t get it!

COMEDIAN: Like Raj’s hair!

DRUMMER: Ba-Bop-BAM!

AUDIENCE: [Scattered laughs, another cellphone rings]

COMEDIAN: Hey! How about that email! The one Raj sent when he was still a Progressive Conservalbertan! Who knew that was the day the Liberals would be in trouble?

DRUMMER: CLINK-CLANK!

AUDIENCE: [Glasses tinkle, more voices]

COMEDIAN: Love those cowbells… That new Liberalberta name? I think the idea’s to distract people so they don’t notice … it has the word Liberal in it.

AUDIENCE: [One or two laughs]

DRUMMER: Ba-BAM!

VOICE: This is lame! Go home!

COMEDIAN: Who said that? The manager? Oh, Hi Raj!

AUDIENCE: [Scattered laughs]

COMEDIAN: C’mon, people! It’s hard to get a laugh when the stuff you’re making fun of is already funnier than your gag-writer!

VOICE: Hey, I like the little green flag on the logo…

COMEDIAN: So does the Green Party!

DRUMMER: Ba-DING!

COMEDIAN: Thanks folks. That’s it. Gotta go. Now appearing on the pole to my right, Miss PEARL HARBOR!

VOICE: Gawd! That guy stunk. It’s about time!

COMEDIAN: That you Raj?

VOICE: No, you!

AUDIENCE: [Rising voices, glasses clink, the story dies]

Environics poll shows Tories in full flower, Wildrose withering on the vine

by David Climenhaga on September 7, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Polling with 2 Comments

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith with some of her party’s social conservative supporters, who came home to roost a few days before the April 23 provincial election … and stayed! Alberta politicians and their supporters may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Premier Alison Redford and the real Ms. Smith.

From the perspective of Alberta’s market-fundamentalist Wildrose Party Opposition, yesterday’s Environics Research Group poll of voter support for the province’s political parties did not contain particularly good news.

The survey – the first major Alberta opinion poll to be published since the April 23 provincial election – shows support for Premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative government remains at a commanding level almost identical to where it was on the day of the election.

As for the Wildrose Party, which saw its support peak a few days ahead of the spring election, the Environics numbers indicate the right-wing opposition party’s support is slumping, possibly quite seriously give or take the margin of error. (Note that at least one other poll, which will be published very soon, has produced similar results.)

The two traditionally more moderate opposition parties, meanwhile, have seen their committed voter support grow back closer to the levels seen in the recent past, according to Environics’ results, particularly in the case of the NDP. The Liberals have a little further to go to get to where they once were, but nevertheless their results are much better too.

This suggests – to me, at any rate – that traditional Conservative voters who flirted with the Wildrose Party during last spring’s campaign, when Alberta’s Natural Governing Party seemed to be on the ropes, are returning to their traditional electoral home. NDP and Liberal supporters, meanwhile, who deserted their parties in droves to vote strategically for Ms. Redford’s PCs also appear to be going back to their parties.

It is probably a little early to forecast with much confidence that these results mean the Wildrose Party, led by former broadcaster Danielle Smith, reached its historical high tide of support on about April 19 or 20.

Buoyed by open media support in the weeks before the election, lingering dissatisfaction among voters with the PC government of former premier Ed Stelmach and a series of pre-election polls that turned out either to be highly misleading or to be tracking extreme volatility on the part of the electorate, the Wildrose Party appeared for a few days to be on the cusp of a majority.

But then a series of ill-timed bozo eruptions by candidates from the party’s social conservative wing apparently alerted voters to what they were on the verge of electing. At any rate, that seemed to be the beginning of an influx to Tory ranks of progressive voters motivated by a desire to block at any cost victory by the Wildrose Party, which they viewed as dangerously extreme.

Wildrosers are within their rights to respond by claiming that the conclusions of Environics’ pollsters, who were in the field between Aug. 10 and Aug. 22, were reached before a number of serious public relations embarrassments unfolded for the government. These include most significantly the first-quarter fiscal update in which Finance Minister Doug Horner told Albertans there would be a bigger deficit than was predicted before the election, but also the sudden and apparently politically motivated decision to drop plans for a police college in Fort Macleod, part of a riding that voted Wildrose on April 23.

Wildrose supporters are also entitled to expect that their mostly inexperienced 19-member caucus will grow more effective as it learns on the job over the next couple of years and watches veteran NDP and Liberal Opposition members in action.

Still, given the ferocity of the public response to the Alberta Health Services expense account scandal that broke well before the polling data was collected, the conclusion is hard to avoid that the public does not blame the Redford PCs for a situation that developed under Mr. Stelmach’s leadership. Leastways, Premier Redford and her strategists have the political skills or good luck to be able to weather such storms. Whatever the reason, the effects of that particular controversy rolled off Ms. Redford’s government like water off the proverbial duck’s back.

In detail, the Environics poll of 1,000 respondents throughout Alberta results show support among committed voters for the PC party at 43 per cent, down a statistically insignificant point from 44 per cent on April 23.

Wildrose Party support, however, fell to 26 per cent from 34 per cent. NDP support grew to 13 per cent from 10 per cent and Liberal support grew to 14 per cent from 10 per cent. Support for other parties, whoever they may be (the Alberta Party? Social Credit?), edged upward to 3 per cent from 2 per cent, Environics said. Another 13 per cent of respondents indicated they were undecided or did not answer.

The PCs, moreover, enjoyed strong support in Edmonton, Calgary and Alberta’s larger cities, with the Wildrose managing a much narrower lead only in rural areas. NDP support was significantly stronger in the Capital Region – at 20 per cent, it was effectively tied in the region with the Wildrose at 21 per cent.

There can be few complaints about the methodology used by Environics to conduct this telephone survey of randomly selected Albertans, their numbers weighted by region.

The Redford Tories have taken steps to defuse some of their more serious recent problems, pledging, for example, to enact Canada’s strongest public transparency laws for elected officials and recruiting new issues management and strategy talent to guide them down the long road to the next election.

All this suggests that if the satisfied mood of Alberta’s voters does not change, Ms. Redford and her government have the ability not just to survive but to thrive. Given low expectations, the same can be said about both the Liberals and the NDP.

However, the future of the Wildrose Party is not so clear. It has been argued here that expectations for the party were so high just before the April election that anything but an election victory posed a threat to its survival.

Ms. Smith’s undoubted political talents notwithstanding, Wildrose supporters will continue to drift back to the PCs if the party can’t generate enthusiasm and support like it did in its salad days before April’s election. Rural municipal politicians, used to having their way in Edmonton, will soon grow tired of being left out in the cold.

That would leave the Wildrose Party, thoroughly marginalized, in the hands of its most extreme far-right factions.

In other words, the Wildrose Party cannot expect to survive if it continues to post poll results like those reported by Environics yesterday.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

‘Crowdsourcing our confidence’? Don’t bet on 1CalgaryCentre, whoever’s behind it, having much impact

by David Climenhaga on September 4, 2012 in Alberta Politics, Calgary Centre By-election, Canadian Politics with 4 Comments

A crowd: They have wine and balloons, and they’re all dressed in white. Does this make them progressives? Have they been crowdsourced? Alberta Diary is not certain and you shouldn’t be either. Below: Calgary pollster Brian Singh, Calgary Centre Conservative candidate Joan Crockatt.

“Crowdsourcing our confidence” will get a progressive candidate elected in Calgary Centre? Just asking…

A few days ago a website appeared called 1CalgaryCentre.ca that asks voters in the central Calgary federal riding where there will soon be a by-election to take part in an “innovative and evolutionary approach to democracy.”

The by-election, whenever Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets around to calling it, is widely expected to be a coronation of Conservative nominee Joan Crockatt, the former journalist and right-wing commentator who is anything but progressive. Ms. Crockatt beat five other candidates on Aug. 24 for the federal Conservative nomination to replace department MP Lee Richardson, who quit in May to become Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary.

The goal of 1CalgaryCentre.ca, according to the man behind the website, is to select and then elect a progressive Member of Parliament for the riding, thereby changing the face of Calgary.

Well, so far, so good, but progressive voters – and especially those progressive voters who support the New Democratic Party – have good reasons to be suspicious of this effort, which is almost certain to end up with the endorsement of a non-New Democrat candidate as the “progressive choice” for Calgary Centre.

1CalgaryCentre.ca is saturated with the vague, feel-good rhetoric of several recent political efforts of varying success associated with the mooshy middle of Alberta politics – Re-Boot Alberta, the failed Alberta Party that grew out of the Re-Boot and Renew Alberta conferences, and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s successful 2010 campaign.

From this it would be reasonable to assume the same group of people involved in all those efforts may have something to do with this one. However, that’s quite hard to say for sure after talking with Brian Singh, the Calgary pollster whose company Zinc Research was associated with the Nenshi campaign and whose name is one of only two that actually appears on the website. (The other name belongs to the guy who developed the website, which makes sense because the site is pretty good.)

For his part, Mr. Singh isn’t saying who, other than himself, is involved in 1CalgaryCentre, other than to promise that, eventually, more will be revealed. (If you think this sounds a lot like the pre-election Alberta Party policy dance of the thousand veils, you’d be right.)

Mr. Singh sees himself, I have been told, as something of a political provocateur and social media guru, so it’s possible he’s doing this to be provocative and generate some media coverage.

“I know it sounds cryptic,” he told me, somewhat apologetically, “but as they come forward we’ll be putting them up on the website.” Whoever they are, he added, there are is core of about eight people currently involved in this effort at this point, but there has been input from many more, including supporters of all political parties.

Other than that, though, we are on our own for the time being – although there is plenty of speculation about who these people may be among the politically obsessed.

It’s safe to state categorically, for starters, that this effort has nothing to do with the Democratic Renewal Project, Athabasca University history professor Alvin Finkel’s longstanding campaign to get progressive Albertans to vote strategically against this province’s conservative juggernaut.

And it’s also reasonably safe to conclude that not much will come from it, since, Mr. Singh’s wide circle of friends notwithstanding, no one in any of the major political parties likely to run a candidate seems very interested in 1CalgaryCentre.ca.

From the New Democrat and Green perspectives in particular, I think it’s safe to conclude that whomever those parties nominate, their candidates will not be the choice of the participants in the 1CalgaryCentre process, whatever it may be and whoever they may be.

It is predicted here that 1CalgaryCentre will ultimately endorse someone with ties to Alberta Party/federal Liberal/Nenshi campaign circles – say, Calgary lawyer Chima Nkemdirim, Mayor Nenshi’s chief of staff and still a potential Liberal contender despite his best efforts to avoid that fate, or former Alberta Liberal/Independent/Alberta Party MLA Dave Taylor.

Beyond that, at least as things appear from here, it seems quite unlikely 1CalgaryCentre will have much impact at all on the outcome of the Calgary Centre by-election.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Glen Taylor quits as leader – Alberta Party ponders the Big Goodbye

by David Climenhaga on July 31, 2012 in Alberta Party, Alberta Politics with 4 Comments

Your blogger in happier times with departing Alberta Party Leader Glenn Taylor. Below: Party luminaries Michael Walters and Sue Huff.

Get ready for the Big Re-Think. Or the Long Goodbye. Or something…

Alberta Party Leader Glenn Taylor has resigned, the world learned yesterday. He’ll step from the provincial political stage on Sept. 22, when the party holds its annual general meeting.

Not that the former mayor of Hinton had much choice, having failed to gain the toehold of even a single seat in the Legislature for the bold experiment in doing politics differently in Alberta.

Always a party inclined to break the mould – even if breaking it didn’t work particularly well – the Alberta Party started with a series of kitchen meetings across the province it called the Big Listen. Party adherents saw their party as a bold experiment in centrist policy making, conceived in hope and steeped in coffee, and careful to take its time to listen to everyone.

Unfortunately – and I mean that, because the party had good ideas and good people supporting it – it turned out that Albertans weren’t really paying attention. On election day, facing the prospect of choosing between a victory by the far-right Wildrose Party or the seemingly moderate Progressive Conservatives of Premier Alison Redford, voters gave the Alberta Party the Big Cold Shoulder. Its tally in the Legislature was a Big Zero.

Now party officials say it’s not even a sure thing they’ll have a leadership race to replace Mr. Taylor at the AGM. First thing, anyway, they’ll appoint an interim leader to decide what to do next – Sue Huff again, maybe?

But even before party members decide whether or not to choose another leader to permanently replace Mr. Taylor, who was elected back in May 2011, they say they’re going to think about such options as just shutting down, becoming a think tank or merging with the Alberta Liberals.

Joining the Liberals is the option favoured by Michael Walters, who was the party’s unsuccessful candidate in Edmonton Rutherford. “I personally think the Alberta Party and the Liberal Party should merge and elect a new leader that has the ability to run a truly authentic centrist party that can provide some competition to the Progressive Conservatives,” he told the Edmonton Journal yesterday.

I’d be prepared to bet you, though, that having hung onto his own seat and a presence in the Legislature by the skin of his political teeth, Liberal Leader Raj Sherman wouldn’t share that sentiment. You know, the party’s name is good – but it’s not that good!

Mr. Walters is said to be considering a city council run in Edmonton.

The party did have an MLA in the last session of the Legislature for a spell in the person of former Alberta Liberal leadership candidate Dave Taylor (no relation to Glenn Taylor), who quit the Liberals in a scrap with their leader and sat as an Independent for a while first. But that Mr. Taylor, who always possessed the ability to do the math despite his occasional impetuosity, chose not to run in the last election. Presumably, he read the handwriting on the wall.

From Day 1 of his leadership, Glenn Taylor seemed strangely disengaged. The former New Democratic Party candidate and union official didn’t even give up his day job as Hinton Mayor until January 2012. When the election finally came in April, he couldn’t carry the huge but sparsely populated riding in which Hinton is the principal town.

Before that, in October 2010, the party also lost its most promising and engaging potential leaders when Naheed Nenshi was elected mayor of Calgary. In addition to Mr. Nenshi himself, identified as an early supporter of the party, it cost the party Calgary lawyer Chima Nkemdirim, who instead of running for leader as many had hoped, left to become Mr. Nenshi’s chief of staff.

Ms. Huff, who was the party’s previous interim leader before the choice of Mr. Taylor, told the Journal yesterday she’s kind of OK with the think tank idea.

Perhaps it’s not such a bad thought. The Alberta Party always staked its claim on the notion it could do politics differently. Turned out voters expected to do them the same old way. The think-tank option might enable the party to turn the Big Goodbye into the Long Goodbye, and do some good for Alberta yet.

Mr. Taylor has a job in Hinton. What do you want to bet he runs for mayor again?

+ + +

NOTE: Since yesterday’s post about the lead-up to the Calgary Centre by-election went online, Conservative nomination candidate Jon Lord has responded to a query sent earlier about the role of Craig Chandler in his campaign. “Craig is one of many people working on the campaign, all of whom have many diverse opinions on all sides of the issues,” Mr. Lord said in part. “I take great pride in my ability to work with people of all backgrounds and opinions towards a common good – indeed, that is the hallmark of my political career.” Read the entire response here. Mr. Lord’s slyly entertaining suggestion that I am helping out with Ms. Crockatt’s campaign is, of course, incorrect.

One additional candidate remains in the Conservative nomination race, Richard Billington, a Calgary lawyer and member of the Conservative Party’s National Policy Commission. My apologies to Mr. Billington for missing him yesterday, although his interest was noted in my original post on the by-election. He is a serious candidate, but his campaign seems low key and directed at party insiders.

Tomorrow, unless news breaks out again, I’ll return to the Calgary Centre by-election.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Forum poll revealed: With an iPhone and a blog, we can now predict poll results before they’re published!

by David Climenhaga on February 11, 2012 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments
Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith with the voice of Forum Research Inc. She’s smiling because she likes his answers. Alberta pollsters and politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Dave, about to hang up on another poll.

ForumPoll3 by djclimenhaga

Forum Research Inc. of Toronto was back in the field yesterday doing another Friday night poll of Alberta voter intentions.

The questions asked by the poll, the weird way it asked them and their timing may all provide some insights into why Forum’s surveys have consistently produced better results for the Wildrose Party than other public opinion polls by other pollsters.

First of all, as you can hear from this recording of last night’s demon-dialer phone-button poll from the Toronto-based polling company, it uses a faintly creepy electronically generated voice that’s mildly off-putting, and possibly scary if you’ve been getting too much science fiction. (“Just what do you think you’re doing Dave? Dave? I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question…”)

Actually, it sounded to me like The Voice was generated at Xtranormal.com – which tells potential users, “If you can type, you can make movies.” Apparently if you can type you can make polls too. The thing is, I kept expecting a mean joke about the Alberta Party.

My guess is there’s a simple explanation for this: Cheap as voice talent may be, a type-and-talk voice generator has got to be cheaper.

As for the timing, it’s well known that Friday night is the worst time possible to run a public opinion poll. Who’s going to bother answering oddly enunciated questions like these on a Friday night? Only the politically committed and losers with nothing better to do than record poll questions on their iPhones. (Not to name names, of course.)

This may be part of the reason why the Forum polls seem to have been boosting Wildrose support while underestimating Progressive Conservative voters compared with other polls that rely on interaction between real human beings. The last one, on Jan. 17, had the Wildrose brushing 30 per cent and the Conservatives close to a 40-year low, at 38 per cent.

That makes for a nice tight horserace story, but consider Martha and Henry, those fictitious Albertans trotted out by former premier Ralph Klein to explain things to the public. Martha and Henry don’t think about politics on Friday nights. If they’re under 50 in this province, they’re probably thinking about getting a babysitter and going out for a well-deserved drink!

Are Martha and Henry going to hang on the line listening to this tedious robotic voice drone on about politics? Not very likely! They’ll be bored, and they’ll have better things to do. So they’ll do what any sensible person would do under the circumstances: hang up.

Instead of hanging up, committed supporters of parties like the Wildrose Party are much more likely to hang in there. But we need to remember that despite the fact they’ve headed out for the bar, young Martha and Henry may think Premier Alison Redford and her reconstituted Progressive Conservatives are doing just fine.

This could be a particular problem if, as Forum seems to have been doing, you also do your polls over only one night.

Then there are Forum’s questions, about which plenty can be said:

First, if you’re going to ask voters to rate the performance of Premier Redford, Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith and Alberta Liberal Leader Raj Sherman, why the heck wouldn’t you ask them their thoughts on the performance of New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason? After all, Mr. Mason’s party may well have more seats after the next election than Dr. Sherman’s or even Ms. Smith’s.

What’s more, just including the Alberta Party arguably exaggerates its support – as we may also have seen in other recent Forum polls – because the party will be lucky to find candidates in more than a couple of dozen ridings while its wistful coffee-party supporters press the phone buttons for it in plenty of communities without a candidate.

Those questions about the pipelines should make a good news hit on Monday, but what about that scary query about a pay freeze for all provincial public sector employees? Is Ms. Redford actually proposing this? Or off-loading “all provincial services possible” to volunteers or the private sector? Both these questions significantly overstate what the premier has proposed, bad as that may be.

And why conduct a roboticized poll on a Friday night? Well, I’m just speculating, but if the brain trust at Forum listened to Thursday’s Alberta budget, cobbled together a poll in a hurry and now can get it out to the newspapers before anyone else publishes a poll, that’s pretty darn good publicity for the firm’s services.

It’s not exactly free, but it’s cheaper than some of the options. If this speculation is right, look for the results of this poll to be published quickly by Forum – possibly as soon as tomorrow or Monday.

And look for it to have a higher percentage of voters shown supporting the Wildrose Party in particular than show up in other polls.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Another sleazy push poll takes aim at high-riding Redford Tories

by David Climenhaga on February 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 8 Comments
Is this the party for which you are voting? Pollsters’ representatives call Albertans. Below: Naughty push-pollsters work from their basement boiler room in Calgary. Actual robo-callers may not actually exist as illustrated. ROI’s Bruce Cameron.

WRP-PP by djclimenhaga

Another squalid American-style push poll, which has all the hallmarks of a Wildrose Party operation, had telephones dingling in Alberta yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, yet another legitimate poll, this one released Thursday by Return on Insight, shows the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford continue to hold a commanding lead among decided voters.

Quite possibly the results of the ROI poll and others like it explain the tactics being used in the push poll.

A push poll, as previously noted in this space, is a political campaigning technique in which a political party or interest group attempts to change the opinions of the people whom they contact by pretending to conduct a poll.

A robo-call push poll first reported on Alberta Diary in late October 2010 used a recorded voice to ask two questions designed to push “respondents” (that is, the message audience) toward a negative view just-selected Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford. One question tried to tie Premier Redford’s policies to former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion, the other to financial difficulties experienced by a company owned by her chief of staff, Stephen Carter. There were also questions of the standard “who’s-winning-the-horserace” variety.

A robo-questioner, with a weird Marilyn Monroe-like baby doll voice, asked listeners to respond by pushing numbers on their telephone.

After a few days, when the story caught the attention of mainstream media and became controversial, the Wildrose Party fessed up to being behind the push poll, opting to brazen it out and claim their robo-call survey used a completely legitimate polling technique.

The latest demon-dialed push poll, while apparently done by another research company that employs a robo-interlocutor with a more professional voice, uses exactly the same technique. While there is no formal acknowledgement the Wildrose Party is behind the poll, the inference is unavoidable.

In addition to the expected questions about voting intentions and demographics, it asks three questions designed to steer voters away from supporting Premier Redford and toward supporting Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith:

The first asks: “Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative government has announced it is planning on balancing the budget by increasing revenues through some form of taxation. Which kind of new tax would you prefer?”

It then gives respondents the following choices: “Press 1 for a provincial sales tax; press 2 for an increase to personal income taxes; press 3 for an increase in business taxes; press 4 for a $1,000 per-family health tax; press 5 for an increase in alcohol and cigarette taxes; press 6 for no tax increases; press 7 if you’re not sure; or press 9 to repeat the question.”

It’s pretty obvious where this is going!

The inclusion of the item about a $1,000 per-family health tax is interesting. Is the question designed to imply Ms. Redford’s Conservatives are considering such a measure, which has not been part of the pre-election debate to date, or is the Wildrose Party testing the water for this idea?

The next question asks: “Premier Redford’s Progressive Conservative Government just passed a new impaired driving law that will seize the vehicles and suspend the licenses of people who blow under the point oh-eight legal blood-alcohol limit. The Wildrose Party has stated it will repeal this new law and instead increase check-stop enforcement and penalties for those over the legal point oh-eight limit. Which approach do you prefer?”

Finally, the third question of a type we used to call a Russian ballot back in the day wonders: “As reported in the media, Elections Alberta is currently investigating the Progressive Conservatives for soliciting and accepting tens of thousands in illegal donations from taxpayer funded entities such as municipalities, universities, school boards and Alberta Health Services. How will this affect your vote in the next provincial election?”

Possible responses include, “Press 3 if it will make you less likely to vote PC,” and “press 4 if it will make you more likely to vote PC.” One wonders how many Albertans will press 4.

Each of these questions sails close to the wind on technical accuracy – I don’t recall Ms. Redford promising to raise taxes, for example, and the third question overstates both the magnitude and nature of the illegal donations. But all are fair enough in terms of political debate.

Whether or not they constitute an honest or legitimate polling technique is another matter entirely.

Regardless, voters should get used to this kind of thing because the Wildrose Party – which obviously faces an existential crisis if it cannot overcome the vast Conservative lead – seems likely to pull out all the stops to remain in the game.

What’s more, if negative Wildrose advertising starts to bite and the Tory lead shrinks, you can bet that the deep-pocketed Redford Conservatives will respond in kind.

The Americanization of Alberta politics was probably inevitable no matter who was buying the ads and commissioning the polls, because these techniques are known to work. Regardless, it is with us now and is unlikely to go away no matter what any politician tells you.

This latest push poll originated with a Southern Alberta number – 403-910-3758. If you call that number, a voice will identify the line as belonging to “Chase Research,” or something that sounds like that. If you do that, you may be called back in a few minutes and asked to complete the survey.

All of which brings us back to the completely legitimate ROI poll published by the CBC on Thursday. This poll of 803 Albertans conducted between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31 gave Ms. Redford’s Conservatives a strong lead of 46 per cent among decided voters.

Its sound methodology puts it among the “good polls” that have tended to show stronger support for the Conservatives than a cluster of polls using on-line panels or demon dialers that have given better numbers to the Wildrose Party.

The ROI poll does, however, show upward movement in Wildrose support from earlier polls using similar methodology – 24 per cent province wide, compared to 14 per cent for the NDP and 12 per cent for the Alberta Liberals.

Interestingly, CBC quoted ROI pollster Bruce Cameron suggesting that the Alberta Liberal vote “is collapsing and it’s benefiting the PCs somewhat and the NDP secondarily.” This is an important point when one considers how many political commentators assume the Liberals are a party of the “left,” and erroneously assert that Liberal and NDP voters are essentially the same people.

The ROI poll showed the Alberta Party at 4 per cent among decided voters, better than in recent polls by other pollsters. It put the undecided vote at 20 per cent.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

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