The Alberta Party Was Doomed from the Start
Built on a faulty premise, it seems ripe to be taken over by former Progressive Conservatives
The Alberta Party was having a good run: picking up a floor-crosser in the legislature and doubling the size of its caucus. They had also successfully argued that the Party should receive additional legislative funding, in order to hire more research staff. They had also been granted additional opportunities to question the Government, during Question Period in the legislature.
Then, apropos of nothing, Greg Clark, the party’s leader and sole MLA elected under its banner, resigned his leadership.
Why did he suddenly attempt to lit his (non-existent) hair on fire?
Is he running for the leadership again or is he ‘stepping back?’ What’s going on with the members and executive of the Alberta Party?
What prompted this inexplicable set of decisions?
It seems a lot of homeless former members of the Progressive Conservative Party have decided that the Alberta Party will be their new vehicle.
And perhaps this was always going to be the party’s inevitable destiny.
The entire project of the Alberta Party is doomed and not simply because it was overtaken by the sweeping political realignment Alberta has experienced.
An Obvious Problem
The 2008 General Election ended the illusion that Alberta had anything resembling a competitive political system.
The Alberta Liberal Party, the largest opposition party, was unable to provide a credible alternative to the governing Progressive Conservatives and this had been the case for a long time but many pretended otherwise.
This pretence of parliamentary democracy was destroyed by the massive victory of the Ed Stelmach PCs, winning 72 of 83 seats.
Stelmach, successor to Ralph Klein, ran what was considered a poorly organized and uninspiring campaign. He lacked charisma and was widely compared to the last Social Credit Premier, Harry Strom.
Harry Strom had led the last governing dynasty to its end and many expected Ed Stelmach was about to do the same thing.
The 37-year-old Progressive Conservative government seemed invincible.
For those of us out volunteering with the hapless Alberta Liberals, there was a surprising amount of interest, but a common refrain kept coming up:
‘What about the name?” or “Going to get a new name?” or “I don’t like name.”
The Alberta Liberal brand was tainted by sharing its name with the Federal Liberals, long disliked by many Albertans, particularly in southern Alberta.
The Alberta Liberals, long separated from the federal party, stubbornly held onto the name despite its unpopularity. Many long time members insisted on it, citing the fact that the Liberals had been Alberta’s first government.
To date, no defeated governing party in Alberta has ever returned to government. The Liberals came close in 1993 but floundered afterwards.
If the Liberals wouldn’t rebrand, then create a new party to replace them.
The Alberta Party was doomed to fail at its goal from the very beginning. The ‘Liberal brand’ was not the primary obstacle to having a second big-tent, centrist, technocratic party ensuring competitive elections and effective Opposition.
It Makes Sense on Paper
Most ‘regular voters’ don’t have an ideology.
Regular voters are the majority of the voting public. They do their civic duty once every 4 years but don’t follow politics closely the rest of the time.
Ideologies are usually only adopted by a minority of people, those who are politically active (such as myself) as activists, politicians or pundits. We are unusual, interpreting the world through a coherent political worldview.
Regular voters, however, do not have this mental scaffolding shaping their worldview. They have opinions and preferences in politics.
However, their opinions on issues may be contradictory and esoteric.
Regular voters do demonstrate high levels of voter loyalty, but unlike ideological voters, they are more likely to follow party leadership.
Whereas the ideological amongst us are more likely to leave a political party when it begins to shift away from our ideology, regular voters show a greater degree of flexibility.
Vox: For elites, politics is driven by ideology. For voters, it’s not.
*This article is about American voters & Donald Trump’s impact on them. However, I believe it’s broadly portable to most democratic societies.
The most common complaints of Canadians about their politicians are frequently about the tone of debate and lack of civility in politics.
Its an unsurprising complaint, especially given that most voters, outside of an election, only ever see their political leaders in Question Period clips. Naturally the antics of QP do little to improve confidence in democracy.
Aside from not wanting to see politicians acting badly, most voters would like to see more bipartisanship and less confrontation and conflict.
Voters will also want more compromise and moderation in politics.
A collection of centrist and progressive activist groups successfully took control of the Alberta Party after the 2008 election.
The party was moribund after its conservative members left for Wildrose.
The new membership re-founded the party, building it upon the idea of a Liberal-like party, but with a new and untainted brand and identity.
Built from the ground as a small-l liberal party, the Alberta Party’s creation, its platform, and approach to politics, were centred on this basic idea. The new brand would emphasize the big-tent, open to all Albertans
The party’s marketing and social media would further emphasize the party’s centrist and technocratic approach to policy.
The party would also present itself as non-ideological and flexible.
The Alberta Party’s current incarnation began in 2009 and it would be 2 general elections (plus a by-election) before Greg Clark would be its first elected MLA in 2015.
Before that would happen, in 2012 the upstart right-wing Wildrose Party would displace the Liberals as Official Opposition.
As John Soroski was quoted by the CBC, on the occasion of Wildrose leader Danielle Smith’s December 2014 floor crossing to the PCs:
“Here we had an opposition that was arguably the best opposition that we’ve had in Alberta for 30 or 40 years largely now decimated as a result of these decisions that have been made.” Source: CBC Article
Wildrose’s distinct conservative/libertarian worldview was the basis of the Party’s (as Official Opposition) critique of then-Premier Allison Redford.
They were able to not simply hold the Government to account on the basis of management questions but also provide alternative policies, standing in sharp contrast to the progressive-leaning Redford led PC administration.
The Alberta Party’s fatal flaw is that it is based upon an incorrect premise. The incorrect premise mistakes an effect for the cause and the cause for the effect.
In Defence of Polarization
Polarization has developed a bad reputation of late. It can be blamed for, at a minimum:
- the rise of the Donald Trumps & Roy Moores in the United States.
- making the United States ungovernable, as both parties must compromise to pass legislation usually.
- its why everyone yells at each other on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and street corners.
- its also why we can’t have Thanksgiving dinners without antagonizing whomever is the political outside in the family.
- its also forcing Albertans to choose between 2 parties at distinctly different points on the political spectrum rather than having 1 (or maybe 2, but why?) centrist party.
The Progressive Conservatives didn’t start out as party with a wide range of ideological viewpoints inside it.
They also didn’t stay in power because they were a big-tent party.
They became a big-tent party, with a wide differences between members and a centrist, technocratic style as a result of being in power for decades.
The Progressive Conservatives challenged the Social Credit government from the progressive side of Alberta’s political spectrum in 1971. They defeated the 36-year-old SoCred dynasty by polarizing the electorate.
As with previous changes of government, the defeated party struggled going into opposition, and was unable to become a credible alternative again.
By 1982 there were no more Social Credit MLAs in Alberta.
This institutional failure of a major political party, would leave the PCs with an effective lock on the government for decades.
Without competitive elections, Albertans wishing to participate in politics would find the most effective way to do so, regardless of their political viewpoint, would be to join the governing Progressive Conservatives.
Polarization is a key feature of democracy, a necessity for meaningful choice.
Polarization has given Albertans a clear choice between 2 or more distinct political visions in 2019, ensuring competitive elections going forward.
The Alberta Party is a solution to a problem that no longer exists.
In the post-2015 political culture of the province, the Alberta Party seems likely to drift into the hands of former Progressive Conservative operatives who are alienated from the United Conservative Party.
In the old days, disgruntled PCs would migrate to the Liberal Party.
For former PCs adrift, the migration as shifted towards the Alberta Party. As a centrist, big-tent party, with few fixed moorings and excellent marketing, the party is a natural destination for these operatives.
Ironically, the Alberta Party seems likely to end up in the hands of the people it was intended to defeat.
Parliamentary democracy at its most basic operates on a simple heuristic: if things seem to be going well, vote in the same team. If things seem to be going badly, then its time for a change.
The subjective experience voters have of the economy and their own lives is usually what this judgement is based upon.
Regular voters may themselves not be ideological voters.
But regular voters do want to be able to exercise a meaningful choice when they vote. They want to have distinct choices.
To do that, they need parties that are ideological (but also be able to operate in practical matter) that offer contrasting options. When voters want change, they want their vote to have a direct impact on how the government operates.
Voters say they want more compromise and bipartisanship in politics. They want parties to work together and to embrace good ideas from all sides.
Yet, voters rarely punish parties for failing to compromise or work together.
Ultimately, compromise, bipartisanship, etc are platitudes that can be social goods but are not necessarily governing principles.
The Alberta Party was designed for a different era, under the assumption that two broad-tent, centrist and technocratic parties represented the choices that Albertans wanted.
The Alberta Party assumed the Progressive Conservatives would, unlike any previous defeated governing party, would survive to contest power again
In 2009 it was conceived as a party for a different future than the one we got.
Now, moored only to an ill-defined centrism and with its many new former Conservative members, the party seems likely to drift rightward.
Should the party somehow experience wild and unexpected success with its ‘radical non-ideology’ they will succeed in returning a large number of former PCs to positions of power in Alberta, a deeply ironic result should it happen.
The Alberta Party was never going to achieve its original mission, but the mission of electing a progressive government has been completed.
Many Albertans worked hard to see a change, under many different banners.
For those progressive Albertans disappointed their own party did not take power, never forget this: the conservative Forever Government is gone.
Progressives must carefully consider if we want to risk a return to right-wing government in the pursuit of a noble, but failed, political concept. The Alberta Party is a political vehicle designed for another era.
The Alberta Party is a vehicle that, should it manage to take off in our new political culture, is set in reverse. 2015 changed politics forever.
The Alberta Party may manage (with or without its new found former PC membership) to refashion itself as a centrist party on the province’s new more polarized (and more normal) political spectrum.
Given the history of centrist parties (with certain exceptions*) in much of the world, this is a pathway to a permanent third-party status.
Voters, even when calling for moderation and centrism, do not reward it at the ballot box, particularly when they have a more sharply contrasted choice and that these ideological parties maintain their streak of pragmatism.
The 2009 Alberta Party experiment is over, and like any experiment, it is not a failure if we learn from it. Marketing and modest differences are not enough.
Change needs meaningful choice. That was never offered by the Alberta Party.
*Postscript: yes, I know everyone is going to say: “But what about the Liberal Party of Canada, they’ve a hugely successful centrist party.” To which I will say that they are a part of the unique context of our bilingual country and that they are also despite appearances to the contrary, are an ideological party.
They just happen to have an atypical ideology that is not on the traditional left-right economic and social axises.
Image Credits
Image №1
Ara Shimoon via Flickr.com: July 15, 2015. Calgary, AB. ‘Sunnyside365_Day25.’ Image has been cropped from original. Used under Creative Commons License. Link to original image on Flickr.
Image №2
US Embassy Canada via Flickr.com: April 27, 2006. Edmonton, AB. ‘Ambassador Jacobson visits Edmonton.’ Image has been cropped from original. Used under Creative Commons License. Link to original image on Flickr.
Image №3
2015 Alberta Election Leader Silhouettes: May 13, 2015. Calgary, AB. ‘Greg Clark, Alberta Party Leader.’ Used with permission. Link to image via Flickr.
Image №4
Jack Hope: August 26, 2015. Calgary, AB. ‘Calgary-Foothills By-election Campaign Signs.’ © All rights reserved.
