Conservative Calgary under siege By James Stevenson 2008-02-29

CALGARY — The Progressive Conservative stronghold of Calgary is under siege and the battle promises to be among the most fierce in Alberta as the provincial election campaign heads into its final weekend.

Predictions of how Monday’s election will play out among grumpy voters in Canada’s oilpatch headquarters are all over the map.

Overloaded hospitals, roads and schools along with the soaring cost of living have soured many Calgarians on the seemingly never-ending energy boom. And thousands of new citizens could potentially change traditionally staid voting patterns.

Tory Premier Ed Stelmach and Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft both plan to spend as much time glad-handing in the southern Alberta city as they can in the coming days, trying to sway some of the large undecided vote.

Perhaps the best way to gauge the heart of the electorate is to look at the elbow.

Not too long ago, the riding of Calgary Elbow bled only Tory blue and orange. Conservatives had won every election in its 36-year history and in recent years voters came out in droves to support their man — an affable guy and former mayor by the name of Ralph Klein.

But when Klein retired after 14 years of governing Alberta with four straight election landslides under his belt, the strangest thing happened. Liberal Craig Cheffins won Calgary Elbow in a June byelection.

From countless hours of door-knocking for that campaign, Cheffins got the sense that people were tired of the Tories, who have governed for nearly 37 consecutive years.

“I think that people feel that though the Tories have a new leader, it’s like a new quarterback with the same old playbook.”

Cheffins became the fourth member of the Official Opposition’s fledgling Calgary caucus and gave the Liberals reason to believe that they could expand their power base south of Edmonton and possibly take the majority of seats in Alberta’s two largest cities.

Back on the hustings just seven months after his first win, Cheffins says the desire for change is blowing around Calgary like the chinooks that swirl off the nearby Rocky Mountains.

“What I’m hearing is that people are genuinely pleased to be able to have a choice this time and are really taking a long look at what their options are,” he says.

“There are a fair number of people who are not satisfied that the province is doing as well as it should be.”

Political scientist David Taras says the Liberals are hoping the “Elbow template” can be replicated anywhere that dissatisfaction seems to be growing — primarily in Alberta’s urban corridor of Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary and south to Lethbridge.

Taras said that while Klein was often credited for the upside of the economic boom, his successor Stelmach is “getting clobbered“ by all the negatives.

“You look at hospitals, you look at electricity, you look at housing, you look at the disparities between rich and poor. Everywhere you look, the province looks like it has to play a desperate game of catch-up and every week there are new fires to put out.”

Another thing about “King Ralph,” Taras believes, is that he alone was good for about 1,500 votes in each of Calgary’s 23 ridings. No more Ralph means no more automatic free rides for any of the city’s Tory candidates.

Stelmach has had an image problem in Calgary right from the moment he beat out Jim Dinning, a local businessman and assumed heir-apparent for the premier’s office, for the party leadership in late 2006.

A high-profile spat with Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier over much needed infrastructure funding last year didn’t help either, even though the premier eventually paid up and the mayor went quietly away.

Stelmach’s decision to raise royalty rates for the oil and gas sector has also met with high-level anger in Calgary, where the vast majority of oilpatch companies are headquartered.

Another headache pained the campaign when Jack Davis, the city’s health region president and a longtime Tory, announced that an immediate $115-million infusion was needed to open up more hospital beds so that patients didn’t have to line the hallways on stretchers for hours awaiting medical attention.

A massive influx of new Albertans over the last decade also remains a wild card in the election — there are nearly half a million more voters than there were in 2004. Calgary alone has grown by more than 120,000 since 2000.

John Mutikani, a nursing professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal College, moved to Calgary last year after having spent time in Ontario, Colorado, Ohio and Zimbabwe. Like other newcomers, he has no attachment to the status quo.

“I don’t believe any one particular leader should be leading the region or a city for a long time because it’s the same old things that go on,” he said. “And it’s not everything that is positive.”

Harry Hiller, a University of Calgary sociology professor and director of the Alberta in-migration study, says that since 2005, there has been a dramatic shift into a situation where the pressures of growth have made life difficult for new arrivals.

“People who came here since 2005 are much less enamoured with Conservative thinking, and even if they are, they realize that somehow the government of the day is not being able to handle the pressures created by the growth,” said Hiller.

“Rapid growth, when it leads to boom conditions, produces alienation.”

Back in Calgary Elbow, another issue that could loom large on Monday is vote splintering. Not only is there a Conservative, Liberal and New Democrat candidate, but there’s also the Green party, the right-leaning Wildrose Alliance and an Independent.

Independent candidate Barry Erskine says constituents are even more angry at the Tories than they were last summer when they voted in Cheffins “as a protest vote.”

“I think what’s going to happen is that they’re going to vote for anyone but (the Conservatives), because do you vote for the person who’s hurt your ability to make money, to raise your family?”

“You either won’t show up or you’ll vote for anyone but.”