Suzy Thompson

Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason thinks there's potential in the next vote.

It was a miserably cold week, and the anticipated chinook had scarce effect by Saturday. Nearly half a dozen red-faced New Democrat Party hopefuls mustered around a table in a Beltline coffee house, warming up and chatting about their morning’s efforts collecting signatures for their nomination papers. They’re easy to pick out from the café’s usual crowd, being the only people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Jack Layton’s and Tommy Douglas’s faces.

A patron leans over to ask which party the red-bearded young man talking about the conditions of a fair society is running for.

“NDP.”

“He looks it,” the man remarks.

Looking the part, whatever that implies, isn’t difficult for Alberta’s NDP members. Getting Albertans to associate the NDP image with government always has been.

For the past 20 years, the party has consistently received roughly nine per cent of the popular vote. Due to the questionable way Alberta’s electoral boundaries are drawn, this means two seats in an 83-seat legislature.

As a spring election looks more and more certain, political parties are preparing. NDP leader Brian Mason says his people were aiming to be election-ready by last October in case the Progressive Conservative leadership race was followed by a snap election. That doesn’t mean they have all their ducks in a row, but the party is only 15 candidates short of a full slate.

“We think we’re in an excellent position. I think our popular support is going up. The Wildrose has the potential to split the conservative vote, the Liberals are in decline, so all of those factors taken together mean that we have an opportunity,” Mason says in an interview during his “pre-election swing through southern Alberta.”

The NDP platform is one of specifics. Mason, and later the candidates in the café, talk about the party’s opposition to deregulated electricity rates, corporate campaign donations, low royalty rates, piping unprocessed bitumen, and the government’s insufficient commitment to green technology.

Despite the specifics, Mason says 41 years with a PC-led government is the main reason Alberta’s problems fester.

“You can put a new face on it, but you’re not going to change the basic structure that makes decisions,” says Mason.

He points specifically to the cosy relationship between the government and the oil industry that has developed over four decades.

“I think the public is of two minds. I think they would like to see a good relationship between the government and the oil industry in order to further Alberta’s economy and to further economic development. Where I think they draw the line is where that relationship becomes inappropriate and the government refuses to make the oil companies, or to require new oil companies, to pay their fair share or to act in an environmentally sustainable way,” he says.

Mason believes the federal NDP party’s surge in the May 2011 election will benefit his party in the provincial election. He says they need that kind of help, because the Alberta NDP, with only two elected MLAs, a small budget and historically poor election day results, needs whatever it can get to come across as a viable political alternative.

The Conservative party has “the resources of the whole government, plus they have a massive war chest that’s funded by the oil industry and big business in general that’s not accessible to us. So they outspend us maybe 10-1 in an election,” he says. “It’s an uphill struggle and there’s no way around it.”

Retired teacher-turned-Calgary-West NDP candidate Mary Nokleby also believes the federal surge cast the NDP ideology in a new light.

“I think people realize now that we’re not some kind of a red menace, or red terror. We’re a legitimate party and we do represent an alternative; a real alternative in Alberta,” she says. But it can’t work miracles. She says that in soliciting support for candidates on central Calgary doorsteps, NDP members still face mixed attitudes from the public.

“When we gathered signatures there we found a lot of, shall we call them, Conservative brusqueness,” says Nokleby.

“We’re in a really difficult position in Alberta because so much of our wealth comes from a resource that is non-renewable.... I think people don’t know what to do because they want to continue to live the good life. So it’s a hard sell.”

As a communications consultant for renewable technology firms, Calgary-Buffalo candidate Rebecca Eras is especially interested in what she sees as Alberta’s potential to lead the world in green-energy production. She thinks the NDP plays a role in raising awareness about renewable energy, but admits much of the party’s energy is spent confronting “misinformation” about the NDP platform.

“We’re not against the economy, we are for the economy,” she says. But, Eras contends, “I don’t see why we have to have one without the other: economy or environment. Why can they not be worked on together? ...It’s just a matter of education on what we stand for.”

Calgary-East candidate Robyn Luff says the NDP may have the best chance by bringing its message to Alberta’s youth, who may then take the message home to sway their elders.

“I think a lot of people don’t vote NDP, or don’t vote differently, because they think it won’t have any impact, because the margin is so wide,” says Luff. Convincing the public that other people are working for change may motivate them.

“I don’t think it’s a fair assessment to say that the NDP would tax everyone into the Stone Age. That’s their storyline on us,” adds Calgary-Mountain View nominee Chris McMillan.

In many ways, the NDP has the fewest resources among all the province’s major parties. Mason and his party members face the unenviable challenge of stretching those resources enough to convince voters the party has a legitimate voice.

Still, McMillan, who promises “there will be no concession speech,” concedes to the possibility it may not work. That doesn’t deter him from playing his part in the fight.

“If you’re in politics, there’s something that drives you. And if the only thing that drives you is you want to be in power, that’s not the right thing.”