Alberta General Election, 2012

Alberta General Election, 2012

The 2012 Alberta general election, formally the 28th general election of Alberta, Canada, took place April 23, 2012, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. A Senate nominee election was called for the same day.

During the 2011 Progressive Conservative Association leadership election, eventual winner Alison Redford stated that if she became Premier she intended to pass legislation setting a fixed election date. After taking office, her government introduced a bill relating to the timing of elections, which was passed on December 6, 2011. Unlike other fixed election date legislation in Canada, the 2011 Election Amendment Act fixes the election to a three-month period, between March 1 and May 31 in the fourth calendar year. However, like other legislation, this does not affect the powers of the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the Legislature before this period. The writs of elections were dropped March 26, 2012.

Although the Wildrose Party led opinion polls for much of the campaign, on election night the Progressive Conservatives defied expectations to win 61 seats — a net loss of only five — en route to their 12th consecutive majority government. The victory makes Redford the third woman elected in her own right as a provincial premier in Canada, and the first woman elected premier in a province outside Atlantic Canada. If the Tories serve out the full four-year term, they will become the longest-running provincial government in Canadian history.