Unite the Right?

I feel like I had to start this blog because I feel isolated. I listen to the radio, I read the newspapers, and nowhere do I see people asking the questions I feel like asking. I don't see people raising the objections I do, or following up with the follow ups I think. So, this is my place to examine the issues from one of those unexamined angles that are hidden, but oh so common in this province of Alberta.

So what are the media discussing these days in the province? Jason Kenney, and the latest attempt to Unite the Right.

So, I feel I must discuss the reasons why I feel all this hot air is not going to equal electoral success.

My wife asked me today if I think the NDP are going to win the election in 2019. Normally, when asked such a question, I hide behind the cliche that "x is a long time in politics," and at least, that's very true. However, this time I had to admit that yes, I thought they would. I saved the cliche for after. Unite the right or not, I don't yet feel the NDP will lose; but that's another story. For now, I must explain why I feel uniting the right will mean bumkiss in 2019.

As a starting point, let's expose the presumption of The Media that it is possible to "unite the right?"

Simply, no.

While The Media may have forgot, Alberta currently has three right wing parties which sit in its legislature: the PCs, the Wildrose, and the Alberta Party. In addition, there remains a Social Credit Party in the countryside which still receives thousands of votes each election, the various separatist parties (which in turn receive hundreds to thousands combined), and lastly, there is the new Reform Party of Alberta. This latter party is designed for Wildrose Party members who find the Wildrose Party just isn't socially conservative enough. The birth of this new party should be a first giant red flag in the quest for a United Right - with or without Jason Kenney.

We also need remember that the PCs and the Wildrose Party exist for good reasons. The PCs were a big tent party that included Progressive and Conservative people, united by political power. Their ability to govern for 40 years was largely the result of their ability to play the centre and the right wings of the province so ably. They did indeed have right wing opposition throughout - the Social Credit party never truly died and even if it stopped electing MLAs, it did receive tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of votes in elections after 1971.

The Wildrose Party was basically the successor to the Social Credit Party that had limped into irrelevance since 1971. It was the home of Social Conservatives whose views most aligned federally with the far right of the Conservative Party/Christian Heritage Party. It would likely have remained a marginal rural fringe party had it not been for an infusion of cash from big business after Ed Stelmach became premier. The empowerment of the WRP turned it into the opposition, and pulled Alberta politics far to the right. Premiers and Stelmach could rightly be considered moderates as individuals, but once in power, necessity drove them both to play right wing to keep the WRP under wraps.

The Wildrose Party sucked away many supporters from the PCs. In 2012 it seemed like they could be the ones to knock the PCs out of government. However, this opportunity did something which I find reported nowhere - it inspired greater voter turnout, and secondly, it inspired many traditional Liberal  voters to vote PC to keep the Wildrose Party out of office. The Liberal Party went from having won 9 seats in 2008 to 5 in 2012, saw its proportion of the popular vote fall from 26% to 10%, and its actual number of votes received plunge from 251,128 to 127,626. Meanwhile, voter turnout across the province soared from the record setting embarrassment of 40.6% in 2008 to a still measly 54% in 2012. All seats lost by the Liberals were picked up by the PCs. This story should also serve as a warning to the "Unite the Right" campaigners. Albertans showed a great willingness to desert the PCs for the WRP in 2012; they were only undone by the willingness of Liberals and the apathetic to show up to keep them out of office.

Today, the PCs and the WRP remain fundamentally different parties. While the Wildrose Party may seem to socially liberal to some, its social conservatism and doctrine of market fundamentalism (a term I hate, but is apt in this situation), differentiates them markedly from the PCs. Jim Prentice, to give him a minimum of credit, at least realised in 2014-2015 that his government would have to raise taxes. It may have been years in the making, this realisation, but it remains one that has eluded the WRP to this day. Further, when it comes to social legislation, the PCs are more on the side of the government (with a handful of exceptions) than they are on the side of the opposition.

So if Jason Kenney were to show up, take over the PCs, and try to "unite the right," what do I see happening?

The Wildrose Party leadership we already know would favour such an opportunity for them. Their electoral success is pretty much dependent upon a future where they are the only conservative option in the province; this they already seem to know. Unfortunately, they mean a takeover like the Alliance did to the federal PCs back in the early 2000s, where the more viable body of the Progressive Conservative Party became the host to Alliance's more extreme ideas and values. They don't wish a merger - they want an annexation and occupation.

However, we have seen that such a situation is incredibly unlikely. We have already seen that disgruntled WRP members are willing to jump ship to new islands of extreme conservatism. We have also seen that conservatives have other small-c options in the province: the Alberta Party and even the Liberal Party.

So what do I envision? At least two exoduses (exodi?).

There is simply little chance that the average PC member will basically just give up for the sake of beating the NDP in 2019. I know many feel they are the best shot to beat the NDP in 2019 already, united right or not. But, why would they wish to stay in a far right party that not merely is unrepresentative of their views and values, but many find embarrassing? Memberships of the Alberta Party are sure to increase, and vote totals too, as that party marches forward.

The United Right party will have to reach out to these people, and they know it. Simply saying that its to beat the NDP will not suffice. This brings the second possible exodus into being, as Wildrose members unhappy with their party's moderation flock to the Reform Party, Social Credit, or the separatist parties.

As you are still reading this, you probably disagree with my conclusion that these people simply can't cooperate to defeat the NDP. You assume that the memberships of these two parties are rational and humble enough to join together. I can assure you the opposite is the case. The memberships are hardly rational (in any party), and there is a great deal of pride to overcome. Why else would Alberta have more parties in its legislature than any other province in Canada, even with 40 years of one-party rule? If the average PC or average Wildroser could work together, they would already have tried. Instead, they are all getting forced to from above.

So, one cannot simply unite the right; at least, not yet.

But, we need to consider the other reasons why I don't think a new Conservative party will have such an easy time winning in 2019. These I can put down to two factors: experience, and demographics.

Regarding experience, the NDP were not an accidental government, and in spite of polling to the contrary, Albertans have very little reason to be upset with the government. Having been elected at the worst possible time, there is literally nothing yet that the opposition parties could use as election fodder in 2019. The NDP are running a pretty tight ship, and unless oil becomes obsolete in the next three years, things should only get better for them as time goes by. The other side of the coin is that the "Alberta Advantage" isn't just thought of as dead, but people seem to have realised that it was a mistake. That mistake was that of the PCs, and the WRP rhetoric that cutting taxes and services will save the province is not an idea that holds water with the majority of the population.

The next issue is the demographic one. Conservative voters generally are older; and conservative ridings are generally rural ones. The issue with the former is simply that many conservative voters are literally dying, and are not likely being replaced by younger people.

The second point is that rural ridings are in danger of dying, too. The NDP government has already hinted that they will redraw the boundaries of the province's constituencies for the next election - as any government had to do. What makes this interesting is that NDP have nothing to lose and much to gain by actually balancing the distribution of seats to urban and rural areas. Throughout the history of the province, rural constituencies were heavily over-represented in the legislature. These rural areas, particularly in the south of the province, are the heartland of the WRP.

As one example "Northern Alberta" has 11 seats currently, whereas Edmonton, with more than double the population of that region, as 21. Another way of looking at it, the Lesser Slave Lake constituency had half as many votes cast within it as any in Edmonton. This is gerrymandering at its simplest, and its elimination is looming. It also doesn't help the conservative parties that courtesy of the economic downturn in the province some entire towns in the countryside, such as Grande Cache, are liable to disappear soon. It may only be a shift of a few seats, but this could have great implications for the 2019 election.

Thank you for reading all of this. Please let me know where I've gone wrong.

Damo