Why Alberta’s Change in Politics Should Matter More to Canadians

Just a few weeks ago, the Wild Rose Alliance (WRA) was in turmoil, but still offered to be a real threat against the provincial Conservatives.

They rose from nothing very quickly and they have faded to nothing almost as fast.

There’s a very important reason why:  our benevolent dictator wanted it that way.

The Wild Rose Party was (and still may be) a thorn in Harper’s side.

As it grew in popularity, it threatened the Conservatives at the local level, but also started to show signs of going national, or at least federal on a local level.  Alberta currently has 28 seats, with 10 new seats allocated in 2011, for a total of 38, or nearly 11.5% of the total seats available.  Prior to 2011, Alberta represented a slightly smaller portion, at 10%.

Fracturing any of that vote on the national level eliminates an important margin of error for the federal Cons, who rely on very small percentages to win majorities.  The CPC won 53% of available seats with just 39.6% of the popular vote.

Losing just a small handful of seats in Alberta to the Wild Rose party would end the Conservative majority.

To quell any possibility of majority upset at the national level, the provincial ‘rebellion’ had to be crushed, hence the ‘appointment’ of Jim Prentice (a competitor to Stephen Harper for the CPC crown) to ‘King of Alberta’.  He swooped in, decimated the reputation of the Wild Rosers (although they seemed to be doing a very good job of this themselves), brought the CPC ‘Big Tent’ approach to politics to Alberta, and that, as they say, was that.

Soon, Alison Redford crawled across the floor, shamefully turning on those that brought her and her new party to power.  This act of ‘crossing the floor’ is one of the most disgusting outcomes I can imagine for a politician because it proves all they are interested in is protecting themselves and not any greater vision that they might have stood for.  (For the record, this is very different than what I would love to see more of, which is negotiation among parties running our governments as minorities.)

To repeat, the end of the Wild Rose Party ensures 38 seats for the Cons, protecting their majority.

With that in mind, I don’t Canadians realize just how close the Cons came to losing the 2015 election on account of fractured voting in Alberta.  And as long as the Cons run Canada from a majority position, the longer they will crush and eliminate any institution that Canadians enjoy as Canadians, including democracy.