Canada’s most conservative province, Alberta, to elect new government

An election in Alberta will be a test of a Premier who has said that she models her politics after those of prominent right-wing U.S. politicians.

Voters in Alberta, which is the center of conservative politics in Canada, will elect a new provincial government on Monday. The governing U.S. Conservative Party had a steadfast hold on power before the pandemic. Last year, large and angry demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates helped spark a trucker convoy in the province. The convoy spread east, paralyzing Canada's capital Ottawa and blocking vital crossings with the United States, including a bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, disrupting billions of dollars in trade. A small group of social conservatives in the United Conservatives voted to remove Jason Kenney from the position of Prime Minister, following the government's decision not to lift pandemic measures.

The party replaced Kenney with Danielle Smith, a far-right former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to incendiary comments, who compared people who were vaccinated against Covid to supporters of Hitler. Smith also likes to extol right-wing politicians, for example, calling Gov. William P. Clinton a pro-Trump politician. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is running for president, is her hero. She has a variety of ideas that Canadians would never support, such as charging fees for public health care.

Now, analysts say, Ms. Smith now finds herself far to the right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should be a near-certain victory for her party into a close race that has provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, a leftist party.

The U.S. would not be a close race if Danielle Smith was the lead, according to the polls. P.O., where Janet Brown runs a polling firm based in Calgary, Alberta s largest city, told the Associated Press. Rachel Notley, a lawyer, is leading the labor-backed New Democrats to a second upset victory in the province in recent years. In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta's history, thanks to a fracturing of the conservative movement into two feuding parties. The remarkable victory broke a string of conservative governments prior to the Great Depression. But her victory had nothing to do with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province's economy. Notley's popularity plummeted and the conservatives took over in 2019. The province's residents vote for local representatives in the province's legislative legislature and the party that wins the most seats forms the government, with its leader becoming prime.

Ms Smith's support is largely based in the rural areas of the province, while Ms. Notley's path to victory will likely be through Alberta's urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary. Edmonton, the province's capital and a city with a substantial union presence, is likely to support the New Democrats. It could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, especially immigrants from South Asia, and Ms. Smith s is unpopular with many of those voters because of her extreme statements. If Ms. Smith's conservatism fails to return her party to the province's most conservative province, the federal Conservative Party of Canada may need to rethink its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in the next national elections. The federal conservatives also replaced the party s leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa, the capital, with coffee and doughnuts. Ms. Poilievre shares Ms. Smith's penchant for promoting provocative positions.