Tomb

Ed Stelmach has led the Progressive Conservatives to an unexpected landslide victory and an 11th consecutive majority after only 41 per cent of Albertans bothered to vote, setting an all-time low for voter turnout in the province.

Stelmach’s election victory March 3 effectively halved the number of opposition seats in the legislature from 22 to 11. The Liberals’ seats have been reduced from 16 to nine, and the NDP lost two of its four seats. Paul Hinman’s Wildrose Alliance also lost its one and only seat.

The Conservatives, who took 53 per cent of the popular vote compared to 47 in 2004, won 72 of the legislature’s 83 seats. “We worked hard to earn the trust of Albertans,” Stelmach told supporters in Calgary as early results came in showing his party in the lead. “We’ve shown once again that we’re in tune with Albertans’ values, we’re in tune with Albertans’ priorities.” As Stelmach spoke, the crowd erupted into loud cheers of “Ed! Ed! Ed!”

Meanwhile, in Edmonton, a dejected-looking Kevin Taft told supporters that “all of us should hold our heads high for fighting for democracy.” “I believe we fought the best campaign we could fight,” said the Liberal leader, adding the new Liberal caucus will be a “small but mighty” team. “We’ll stand proud in the legislature, ready to hold this government to account and to stick up for the best interests of Albertans,” he said. “There will be no free ride, I can tell that to the government.” Afterwards, he told reporters that he would decide in the “near future” about whether he’ll stay on as the party’s leader.

While the Liberals lost eight of their 11 seats in the party’s traditional stronghold of Edmonton, the party lost one seat and gained two in Calgary, bringing the number of Calgary Liberal MLAs from four to five. Incumbents David Swann, Dave Taylor and Harry Chase all solidly beat their Conservative challengers. Calgary-Buffalo and Calgary-McCall also went Liberal, as lawyer Kent Hehr beat police officer Sean Chu in the inner-city Buffalo riding by almost 1,000 votes (the riding was previously held by now-retired PC Harvey Cenaiko), and realtor Darshan Kang barely beat longtime Tory MLA Shiraz Shariff in northeast McCall by 98 votes. “It was an overwhelming result [in Buffalo], but we worked hard,” says Hehr, 38. “That Progressive Conservative party brand is very, very difficult to overcome.”

Calgary-Elbow incumbent Craig Cheffins, however, couldn’t hang on to Ralph Klein’s old seat, losing by over 400 votes to PC Alison Redford. (Cheffins took the seat from the Conservatives in last June’s byelection after Klein retired.)

In Edmonton, former NDP leader Ray Martin lost his seat to the Tories, as did fellow NDPer David Eggen. However, party leader Brian Mason easily kept his seat in Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood. Mason will be joined in the legislature by labour lawyer Rachel Notley, the daughter of former NDP leader Grant Notley. Notley easily won in outgoing NDPer Raj Pannu’s riding of Edmonton-Strathcona.

With significantly fewer MLAs in their ranks, both the Liberals and NDP have a difficult term ahead. “They’re going to be stretched trying to cover so many different portfolios,” says Bill Moore-Kilgannon, executive director of Public Interest Alberta. “It’s going to be very hard for them to be on top of all those critical issues. And having a weak opposition really limits the overall quality of the government.”

Moore-Kilgannon says the low voter turnout is disturbing. “It certainly raises questions around the first-past-the-post system that we have,” he says. “[Forty-one per cent] is phenomenally low, and we need to take a hard look of why that is. I don’t just think it’s a question of apathy. I think we need to look at some of the more systemic reasons why we get such low voter turnout.” In the 2004 election, voter turnout was 44 per cent.

VOTER TROUBLE ON ELECTION DAY

Many voters had trouble casting their ballots on March 3, as parts of Elections Alberta’s website were inaccessible when people went online to find out where to vote. “A lot of that was due to the number of hits that we were getting on the website,” says Elections Alberta spokesperson Teresa Atterbury. “In one half hour period, we had 30,000 hits. And then later on in the day, between 4 and 6 [p.m.], we had over 100,000 hits.”

Elections Alberta’s phone lines were also jammed with calls, and many voters complained they couldn’t get the information they needed to vote. “No matter how you staff for something, it’s an unknown as to how many people are going to call or log in all at the same time,” says Atterbury.

Other voters, like Jessica Pegg, were shuffled back and forth from poll to poll. Pegg, who moved to Calgary from Winnipeg about a year and a half ago, wasn’t on the voters list and spent nearly an hour driving around trying to vote. “I find it weird that I wasn’t registered, because I share a house with someone and they got a voter registration card — and we both moved here at the same time,” she says.

When Pegg, 24, arrived at the polling station, she was told to go to another station. She did, and was told to go back to the first station. Then she was told to go to yet another school. By the time she arrived at the third place, she’d had it. “I [said], ‘I’m voting here whether this is the right place or not.’” Then she was able to vote.