Liberals, NDP plan to storm Alberta in next federal election

Invading hordes of Liberal and New Democrat MPs will bedoing some reconnaissance in Alberta over the next few weeks astheir parties prepare plans to storm the Conservative bastion in thenext federal election.

Justin Trudeau and his three dozen Liberal MPs will be first offthe mark, gathering Monday for a three-day caucus retreat inEdmonton.

They'll be followed by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and his 97 MPs, whoare, coincidentally, holding their annual summer caucus retreat inthe same city Sept. 9-11.

It's an unusual convergence of politicians from parties whoseovertures have been steadfastly spurned by Albertans. And it's asign that the political tides in the stolidly Conservative provincemay finally be shifting, propelled by the creation of six new primarily urban ridings, redrawn boundaries for existing ridings andthe retirement of a number of Tory incumbents.

The reality is that 60 per cent of Albertansfeel they are on the progressive side, not the Conservative side.- Stephen Carter, political analyst

"People fundamentally misunderstand Alberta politics," saysStephen Carter, who masterminded the winning come-from-behind campaigns of Calgary's superstar mayor, Naheed Nenshi, and formerProgressive Conservative premier Alison Redford by playing up theirmoderate, progressive credentials.

"They assume that we are redneck, right-wing, crazy-assed voters ... The reality is that 60 per cent of Albertans feel they are onthe progressive side, not the Conservative side."

Carter contends that Albertans wind up voting Conservative enmasse not for ideological reasons but because the Liberal partyinvariably "throws us under the bus," pandering to voters incentral Canada, which accounts for 60 per cent of the seats in theHouse of Commons, at the expense of Alberta, which accounts for ameasly 10 per cent.

On that score, Trudeau's father, Pierre, is often fingered as theworst offender, having turned the province into awasteland for the Grits after introducing the reviled national energyprogram in 1980.In reality, the province has been pretty much a Liberal desertalmost from the moment it entered Confederation in 1905.

Not since 1911 have Liberals managed to capture a majority of theprovince's seats. Since then, the best they could muster was sevenof 17 seats -- and that was way back in 1940. In the past 60 years,they've won no more than four Alberta seats and frequently wound upwith none, as they did in 2011.

The NDP's record is even more dismal. It has been entirely shut out in every election but three and has never won more than one seatin the province.

But with 34 seats in play for the next election in 2015 andStephen Harper's Conservative government nearing the 10-year mark typically the best-before date for governments in Canada bothopposition parties sense an opportunity to finally break the Torystranglehold on Alberta.

Breaking the Tory grip on Alberta

The Liberals believe they can win as many as six inner cityridings in Calgary and Edmonton, with an outside chance at snaggingFort McMurray, the oilsands heartland where the party came a strongsecond in a June 30 byelection, running under boundaries that willno longer exist in 2015.

An indication of the party's improved fortunes can be gleanedfrom the high-profile candidates who have stepped forward to carrythe federal Liberal banner in the province, such as popular formerMLAs Kent Hehr and Darshan Kang in Calgary.

Anne McLellan, a former Liberal cabinet minister who held downthe riding of Edmonton Centre from 1993 to 2006, notes that her old riding now boasts more than 800 members, almost 500 of whom turnedout recently for a hotly contested nomination, won byfranco-Albertan entrepreneur Randy Boissonnault.

She credits the creation of new inner-city ridings, fatigue withthe "bullying" style of Harper's government and the appeal ofTrudeau's more sunny approach to politics for the Liberals' newfound optimism.

"When people decide it's time for a change, there's nothing anincumbent party can do about that," she says. "I'm not saying the tipping point is there yet but I think it's getting close."

Edmonton-Strathcona MP Linda Duncan, the NDP's sole representative in the province, is equally bullish on her party'schances.

With Albertans seemingly prepared to jettison the ProgressiveConservative dynasty that has ruled the province for more than fourdecades, Duncan predicts the NDP will emerge as the alternative to the ascendant Wild Rose provincially and that will have a spillovereffect on federal New Democrats in the province.

"In the last federal election, we came second in almost everyriding ... including rural," she says.

The opportunities are "very good," Duncan says, particularly inEdmonton where a recent poll put the provincial NDP at the head ofthe pack. Still, she acknowledges it's "never easy" in Alberta.

Pipeline politics

Carter, who helped out on Martha Hall Findlay's rival bid for theLiberal leadership against Trudeau, scoffs at Duncan's optimism. He believes the NDP can likely hang on to Duncan's seat but won't makeany gains due to the hard line Mulcair has adopted against thepipelines desperately needed to get Alberta's oil sands bitumen tooff-shore markets.

And pipelines could yet kill the Liberals' chances as well,Carter warns.

Trudeau has taken a softer line than Mulcair on pipelines,enthusiastically endorsing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to theU.S. Gulf coast. Like Mulcair, he is adamantly opposed to theproposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, British Columbia, buthe's willing to consider the Kinder Morgan trans-mountain pipelineto Burnaby, B.C., provided it passes environmental muster and getsbuy-in from First Nations and other affected communities.

Trudeau's mushy, mixed message on pipelines amounts, in Carter'sview, to little more than "lip service" to the importance ofgetting Alberta's oil and gas to market.

If Liberals want to win the half-dozen seats Carter believes areripe for the picking, he says they'll "have to try and find a way to run a national campaign without disadvantaging Alberta." Giventheir past history, he's skeptical.

However, Duncan, an environmental lawyer before jumping intopolitics who has championed the need for a strong federal role inenvironmental reviews of energy projects, disputes the notion that aparty's fate in Alberta depends on its position on pipelines. Thatis not all Albertans care about, she insists. They also care aboutdeveloping the oilsands in an environmentally sustainable way andabout the impact of pipelines on their communities.

"If that were not the case, I would not have been elected (in2008) and re-elected with a substantially larger margin (in 2011)."