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Alberta Politics

it’s crunch time!

In the final days of Alberta’s 2012 General Election, party leaders will be focusing their time and energy in the places that will matter on election day.

Alison Redford Calgary candidates Alberta Election 2012
Premier Alison Redford with Calgary candidates Jason Luan, Teresa Woo-Paw, Sandra Jansen, and Len Webber (photo from Alison4Premier Facebook Page)

Progressive Conservative leader Alison Redford will spend the final day of the campaign making whistle stop appearances with Christine Cusanelli in Calgary-Currie, Alana DeLong in Calgary-Bow, Ken Hughes in Calgary-West, Cecilia Low in Calgary-Mountain View, Moe Amery in Calgary-East, Len Webber in Calgary-Foothills, and Manmeet Bhullar in Calgary-Greenway.

In past elections, most Calgary constituencies would be considered safe territory for the governing PCs. Since the beginning of this election campaign, polls have shown the Wildrose Party in a position to make significant gains across Calgary and Southern Alberta, putting many Tory incumbents and rookie candidates at risk of defeat.

With Wildrose Party candidate Ron Leech drawing fire after making some controversial racial comments, the Tories are undoubtedly hoping this controversy will translate into an advantage for their party in Calgary.

Danielle Smith Linda Carlson Wildrose
Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith with candidate Linda Carlson (photo from Danielle Smith-Wildrose Alliance Party leader Facebook Page)

Also in Calgary tomorrow, Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith will be making appearances at the at campaign offices of David Yager in Calgary-Hawkwood and Chris Challis in Calgary-North West, Richard Jones in Calgary-Acadia and Corrie Adolph in Calgary-Currie, and Dustin Nau in Calgary-Foothills.

Marlin Schmidt Brian Mason Olivia Chow NDP Alberta Election 2012
NDP MP Olivia Chow, candidate Marlin Schmidt, and NDP leader Brian Mason (photo from Marlin Schmidt's Facebook Page)

Toronto New Democrat Member of Parliament Olivia Chow was in Edmonton today campaigning with NDP leader Brian Mason in his Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood constituency, and making stops in Edmonton-RiverviewEdmonton-Manning and Edmonton-Gold Bar. The NDP are hoping candidates Lori SigurdsonCindy Olsen and Marlin Schmidt can make gains in these three constituencies.

The contest in Edmonton-Gold Bar will be very interesting to watch. Unlike the 2008 election, when incumbent Liberal MLA Hugh MacDonald‘s signs dominated front lawns across the constituency, this election’s lack of incumbent  has opened up a three- or four- way competitive contest. Driving through the constituency it appears that Mr. Schmidt is holding his own against Liberal Josipa Petrunic and Progressive Conservative David Dorward.

Alberta Party leader Glenn Taylor will be where he should, campaigning in the Town of Hinton in the West Yellowhead constituency. Mr Taylor served as Mayor of Hinton from 2004 until January 2012. He recently recorded an online message to Albertans about why they should support his party on April 23.

Perhaps not where anyone would expect him to be during the last weekend of the campaign, Liberal Party leader Raj Sherman was scheduled to spend today in the traditionally conservative voting Red Deer, where the Liberals nabbed prominent local historian Michael Dawe as their candidate in Red Deer-North. Despite polls showing Liberal support has collapsed in Central Alberta, I would not be surprised to see Mr. Dawe do well on Election Night.

Dr. Sherman will spend the final day of the campaign in his Edmonton-Meadowlark constituency.

Tomorrow: The coveted daveberta election endorsements.

3 replies on “it’s crunch time!”

Olivia was kind enough to make a stop in Edmonton-Calder as well, we were also pleased to have MP for the Arctic-West Dennis Bevington come in and lend a hand for Dave

Listened to the Glenn Taylor ad, and also to his face-to-face interview with CARNA President Dianne Dyer (four of the five party leaders agreed to this interview with the President of the largest single group of healthcare professionals in Alberta; only Wildrose declined). Well-spoken, well-informed, and articulate, and I can’t really disagree with much of what he and the AP have to say. There is only one problem with the Alberta Party: it is redundant.

Only the kind of hard-core political junkies (like myself) that write, comment on and read these political blogs can really see much distinction between their policies and those of the Liberals and the NDP. Ordinary voters just go “eenie, meenie, minie, moe”. The existence of the Alberta Party dissipates the political energy behind progressive, people-friendly policies, leaving room for right-wing, corporatist politicians to dominate. It would have been better for them to join & become active in one of the two existing so-called progressive parties (although many New Democrats object to characterizing the Liberals as “progressive”, but that is a topic for another day), in order to increase their financial and human resources (i.e. volunteers), and also to influence their policies towards some form of collaboration to bring about electoral reform, so that there would be room for more voices in our political conversation in Alberta.

At a meeting in Calgary yesterday with a number of community and business leaders. Topic of conversation was surrounding Redfords announcement that she could work with the elected representatives of the Nd and Libs, but not WR. Quite an amazing statement for someone to disrespect the democratic process- seems that she will represent only some Albertans.
They were of a sigular mind in questioning the wisdom of a vote for PC ( and yes there were some pc supporters- not so sure now)
Not enough time for this to get legs,but the media would not print anyway. The media has certainly campaigned hard against WR in the past few days – may have an effect. But I think it will drive folks to the Libs and Nd away from the pc

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