AB Today – Election Report April 16, 2019

Quotation of the day

“Get up a little earlier, make your coffee, then go to the window, pull back those curtains and take a nice long look outside and take in that bright orange sunrise.”

NDP Leader Rachel Notley told supporters she is hoping for an “orange sunrise” on election day.

Day 28: Election day

On the schedule Today is election day. Voting begins at 9 a.m. Polls close at 8 p.m. Heading into e-day, CBC’s poll tracker says there is a 99 per cent likelihood the United Conservative Party will win the most seats. The news outlet’s aggregate of public polling data projects the UCP will win between 57 and 70 of the province’s 87 seats; the NDP will win between 17 and 29 seats; and the Alberta Party will scoop one.

The four major parties are splitting their election night events between Edmonton and Calgary.

The NDP will hold its election night party at the Edmonton Convention Centre. Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel won’t be far off — he will watch the results at the Alberta Party HQ in an industrial area of west Edmonton.

The United Conservative Party is preparing for a celebration, setting up shop at the Big Four Roadhouse on the Calgary Stampede Grounds. The event will have a cash bar, refreshments and a live band.

Alberta Liberal Leader David Khan will also be in Calgary at his campaign headquarters.

Voters have three days to put away their election signs.

Notley campaign NDP Leader Rachel Notley began the final day of the campaign with a speech at a fabrication facility in the Calgary—Peigan riding. Clad in a construction helmet, safety glasses and work boots, Notley talked job creation in front of an industrial backdrop and a handful of construction workers in full gear. Her placard read, “Fighting for Calgary.” While the fabricator’s owners did not explicitly endorse the NDP when introducing Notley, they said “the types of priorities we are here for today are exactly the types of priorities that keep the two of us and the hardworking men and women behind [us] employed and working into the future.”

She then travelled north to Edmonton for an afternoon rally at McKay Avenue School in incumbent NDP MLA David Shepherd’s riding of Edmonton—City Centre. Surrounded by her Edmonton team of candidates, Notley used the backdrop of the school, which houses the provincial school system’s museum and archives, to pump her pro-education, pro-infrastructure agenda and to urge people to get out and vote.

The NDP says its “record-breaking” Sunday evening rally in Calgary was the largest in its party’s history and suggested it may beget an “orange sunrise” at the polls today.

Kenney campaign UCP Leader Jason Kenney spent his last day on the campaign trail circling the “doughnut” of suburban ridings surrounding Edmonton. He kicked off the day with a meet and greet in Sherwood Park, grabbed a noon-hour slice of pizza with volunteers, met with refugees, and held an afternoon rally in Morinville—St. Albert.

Kenney was met with chants of “Jason” at his Sherwood Park stop, where supporters booed and hissed at the mention of the Trudeau-Notley alliance and dutifully chimed in on the UCP leader’s “jobs, economy, pipelines” slogan.

Asked by a reporter whether he has spent too much time campaigning against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (and thus boosting the fortunes of CPC Leader Andrew Scheer) rather than focusing on the province of Alberta, Kenney said Notley’s “alliance with Justin Trudeau” has resulted in the province’s jobs crisis, and is therefore “one of the central issues of the campaign.”

In a final jab at Ottawa, Kenney said Albertans will “no longer tolerate politicians and governments benefitting from our hard work and our resource wealth while doing everything they can to block that wealth in and not allow us to achieve our economic potential.”

Ontario CPC MP Dean Allison was in attendance at Kenney’s Monday night rally.

Mandel campaign Despite barely escaping Elections Alberta’s five-year ban on his candidacy for turning in financial forms behind deadline, Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel still seems to have no qualms about waiting until the last minute. Mandel held off until Monday to unveil the Alberta Party’s platform in its entirety for the first time.

He spent the morning holding a coffee chat and doing media interviews, before making a last-minute door-knocking push in his riding of Edmonton—McClung in the afternoon.

Khan campaign On Monday, Alberta Liberal Party Leader David Khan released his party’s justice platform at the Liberal Party HQ in Calgary.

“We will put more cops on the street,” Khan said. “We will address the root causes of crime — poverty and mental health. We will reduce court wait times and push through family law reforms.”

Khan conducted radio interviews, made phone calls from the party headquarters and spent hours door knocking in his highly contested riding of Calgary—Mountain View.

Topics of conversation

● Elections Alberta released a breakdown of how many “vote anywhere” ballots were cast by voters living in each riding. Of the top 10 ridings where advance voters cast their ballot elsewhere, eight of those were in Calgary. ○ For example, 7,397 voters living in Calgary—Foothills cast “vote anywhere” ballots at polling stations in different ridings last week. These ballots will not be counted until Wednesday, which, considering the total number of ballots cast for Calgary—Foothills in 2015 was 12,737, could leave this race, as well as others, too close to call on election night. ○ CBC’s senior producer of election coverage Bob Weiers reminded Albertans the network does not need to see all the results before it makes its projection.

● UCP Leader Jason Kenney took reporters’ questions about the RCMP’s raid on Calgary—East UCP candidate Peter Singh’s auto-repair business — but says all he knows is what he has seen in media reports and admitted he hasn’t talked to the candidate. ○ “As far as I know, he’s not been accused of anything,” Kenney said.

● UCP Leader Jason Kenney is also denying any connection to the fraudulent robo-calls reported by Alberta Leader Stephen Mandel and offered to turn over the list of telephone numbers that received robo-calls from the UCP using ex-prime minister Stephen Harper’s voice. ○ On Sunday, Mandel said he heard from a constituent in the riding of Strathcona—Sherwood Park who received a robo-call from a voice claiming to be Mandel that asked the listener to cast a strategic ballot for the UCP. ○ After that news broke, another voter told Global News she received the same alleged phoney robo-call from a voice claiming to be Mandel’s, but upon playback of the message realized it had actually said it was from Stephen Harper, not Stephen Mandel. ○ The air is not all cleared. A spokesperson for the Alberta Party told AB Today the party received additional reports about the Mandel robo-call and is still asking the RCMP and Elections Alberta to investigate.

● Albertan anger at a Trudeau Liberal government is nothing new. The CBC archives threw back to the 1980s when anger at then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s National Energy Program drew ire from Alberta’s oil and gas sector. ○ In 1982, this resulted in an MLA from the separatist Western Canada Concept Party winning a seat in the Alberta Legislature. Some Albertans also began manufacturing “state of Alberta passports.” ○ As western separatist rhetoric grew louder, then-Alberta NDP leader Grant Notley, father of current NDP Leader Rachel Notley, went on a speaking tour encouraging Albertans to embrace national unity.

● On Twitter, Canada’s favourite political Lego account tweeted out a photo of its Lego versions of NDP Leader Rachel Notley and UCP Leader Jason Kenney with the message, “It’s up to you, Albertans. Pick your premier.”

AB Today is written by Catherine Griwkowsky, reporting from Alberta's legislative press gallery.

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