Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks during the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference in Ottawa on March 23.LARS HAGBERG/Reuters
The United Conservative Party won a clear majority in this week’s election. But the province is far from settling into some kind of serene political state.
Many Albertans are still uneasy about what they regard as a gap between the priorities of Danielle Smith’s UCP and their own, according to a Navigator Ltd. poll of 1,000 Albertans surveyed the day after the election.
Albertans are especially worried about issues such as improving the health care system and the cost of living. But they view this UCP government as prioritizing battles with Ottawa and privatizing some aspects of that same health care system. Voters don’t see those UCP priorities as their priorities.
“The government will need to reflect on their agenda, or risk alienating a portion of the electorate that supported them, particularly in the urban centres,” said Randy Dawson, a long-time conservative strategist and managing principal at Navigator.
After the close, rough-and-tumble election between the UCP and Alberta NDP, 40 per cent are also concerned that a divided electorate could mean more political gridlock in the years ahead. “Albertans know that they’re divided, and they really don’t like it,” added Mr. Dawson, whose communications firm specializes in public-opinion research and crisis management.
The Navigator poll also shows that the UCP push for a stand-alone Alberta pension plan and police force are not what people want. Ms. Smith wasn’t clear about whether, or how quickly, she would move on these pet UCP issues. Still, the UCP government said early this year that Albertans could face a referendum by 2024 on withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan.
Overall, 46 per cent of those surveyed feel that the government will be effective in dealing with immediate priorities, while 37 per cent believe it will be ineffective. In fitting with results that saw the province’s capital vote overwhelmingly for Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party, Edmonton residents are less likely to expect the newly elected UCP government to be effective.
André Turcotte, a Navigator principal and Carleton University communications professor, said the poll also speaks to the turmoil in the minds of “defectors” – Albertans who voted for the UCP in the 2019 election but struggle with supporting the party in its current state. In many cases, they were torn between their negative perception of the leader versus their affinity for the party, he said.
In October, 14 per cent of Albertans who voted for the UCP in the 2019 election said they wouldn’t again, according to Navigator. But some did end up going back to the UCP by the time the May election rolled around. He believes it’s because regardless of which party Albertans vote for from one election to the next, many still identify with the UCP.
“They took as much time as they could grappling with that internally,” Prof. Turcot. And then at the end, enough of them went back home to the UCP to make a difference.”
The poll found that 72 per cent of UCP supporters said they voted for the party, while 22 per cent voted for the leader. In contrast, for the NDP, 49 per cent of supporters voted for the party while 44 per cent voted for Ms. Notley.
Ms. Smith still faces problems when it comes to her personal approval numbers, but they have improved a bit since last fall, when she won the UCP leadership contest. In October, 51 per cent of Albertans had a negative impression of the UCP Leader, with 22 per cent having a positive impression. Now, the negative number is virtually the same, according to Navigator, but the positive impression is up to 31 per cent.
A few things might have helped. For one, the UCP Leader was praised for a steady, calm performance in the May 18 leaders’ debate.
I would add this: Beyond the inclination for many to vote conservative, especially in Calgary and rural areas, and slightly more positive impressions of Ms. Smith, the NDP campaign was not as strong as it might have been.
Ms. Notley could have better defended her record as premier against UCP attacks, and the party could have left a discussion of their promise to increase corporate taxes to a later date, not in the heart of the campaign.
As of right now, some Albertans are feeling too concerned about the fragility of the economic recovery to vote for a tax increase, even if the province would have still had the lowest rate in Canada under the NDP plan.
The Navigator survey was conducted online with 1,008 adult residents in Alberta on May 30. Mr. Turcotte said quotas and weighting were applied to ensure the proportionate representation of the province’s adult population. The margin of error for a corresponding sample of this size would be plus or minus about three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.