Battle of Alberta - Political Leanings

Political Leanings

The origins of and effects of the political leanings of the two cities are intertwined with and as old as the rivalry itself. When the CPR shifted its route southward, Canada was governed by the Conservatives who had generously supported the railway – this helped entrench a loyalty to the Tories in Calgary that persisted even during the early days of Confederation when most of Western Canada was solidly Liberal. However, when the Liberals gained power they championed not one but two more transcontinental railways, both of which passed through Edmonton. The result was boom times and massive immigration in and around Edmonton, which quickly displaced Calgary as Alberta's largest city and became solidly Liberal. It is widely believed that as a direct result of these leanings, the Liberal government in Ottawa designated Edmonton the provincial capital in 1905.

The different political leanings at first influenced and then, in turn, became influenced by the ethnic makeup of Edmonton and Northern Alberta, compared to Calgary and Southern Alberta. Whereas the Conservatives had taken steps to limit immigration from the United States and block immigration from virtually anywhere else besides the British Isles, the Liberals encouraged immigration from much of Europe. Although the largest single ethnic group in Edmonton and the north remained British, and although immigration by non-Caucasians remained actively discouraged and heavily restricted, many Canadians of British origin decried what they perceived as the "mongrelization" of the Dominion. Not surprisingly, this opposition became centred around the much more exclusively British city of Calgary, which increasingly looked down on the "mongrelized" north. In that context, especially considering the level of superiority those of British extraction viewed their own culture, the decision to place the university in Strathcona was particularly insulting to the British elite based in Calgary.

Relations between Calgary and the provincial government in Edmonton hit an all-time low following the 1913 general election, in which the provincial Liberals under Arthur Sifton won a large majority – the size of which they owed in no small part to a blatant gerrymandering of the electoral districts which in particular left Calgary badly under-represented in the legislature. Such was the level of hostility by this time that a serious movement commenced to petition the federal government, by then back in Conservative hands, to admit Calgary and southern Alberta to Confederation as a separate province. At the time, the British North America Act would theoretically have allowed the creation of one province from the territory of another even without the consent of the government of the province concerned. With a sympathetic government in Ottawa the movement to create a separate province might have had some chance of success, had it not been for the outbreak of World War I which naturally diverted the attention of both the government and the public.

The political rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton cooled after the 1921 general election, in which Conservative support collapsed throughout the province including Calgary, and in which the Liberals were swept from power by the rural-based United Farmers of Alberta. For the next fifty years, provincial politics was split more or less on an urban-rural basis, with rural voters consistently and overwhelmingly supporting UFA and then Social Credit governments while the Conservatives and Liberals made intermittent efforts at electoral co-operation in an attempt to maintain a foothold at least in the two major cities.

Nevertheless, the political leanings of the two cities have persisted over the years to the present. Although Calgary's last two mayors have been known to be Liberals, Calgary has long been considered to be the most conservative major city in Canada. Only three Liberals have ever been elected to the House of Commons from Calgary-based ridings, and none for more than one term. Although the Labour Party of Canada and Social Credit made inroads in the 1920s and 1930s, it was the Progressive Conservatives who dominated federal elections in Calgary, with few exceptions, until the Reform Party swept the federal Tories out of Alberta in 1993. Reform and its successor, the Canadian Alliance continued to dominate in Calgary (and Alberta) until merging with the PCs to form the Conservative Party of Canada, which continues to dominate in Calgary's eight ridings. One of these ridings (Calgary-Southwest) is held by the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

Meanwhile, the stronger government, university, greater ethnic heterogeneity and labour class presence in Edmonton has helped to keep the city on the political left by Albertan standards. In federal politics, Edmonton remained friendly to the Liberals in early decades, although in recent decades Edmonton's federal ridings have tended to follow the trend set by the rest of Alberta, usually electing Social Credit, PC, Reform, Alliance and finally Conservative MPs although usually by much reduced pluralities than those found in Calgary. However, the federal New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) won Edmonton East in 1988 for one term. The Liberals then achieved their first real success in Edmonton in decades in 1993 when four Liberals were elected compared to three Reformers. Two of these Liberals, Anne McLellan (who was Deputy Prime Minister in the early 2000s) and David Kilgour managed to win re-election in Edmonton three times each before being defeated and retiring, respectively in the face of the Tory sweep of Alberta in 2006. In 2008 New Democrat Linda Duncan won Edmonton—Strathcona, the only opposition seat in the province. In the 2011 election, Duncan held her seat, and the Tories held all of theirs, both in Edmonton and in the rest of Alberta.

In provincial politics, the political differences are more noticeable. The Social Credit Party of Alberta dominated most of Alberta's ridings, including Edmonton and Calgary, for most of the time it governed from 1935 until 1971. When the Progressive Conservatives under Calgarian Peter Lougheed won election in 1971, they would go on to dominate nearly all Albertan ridings themselves until 1986, when the Alberta New Democrats and Alberta Liberal Party made a breakthrough in Edmonton. Since then, the provincial Tories have continued to win a majority of seats in every election both province-wide and in Calgary but gained a majority of Edmonton's seats only once (in 2001) while the party had a Calgarian as leader. Lougheed retired in 1985 and was succeeded by Edmontonian and former Eskimos quarterback Don Getty. In 1989, Getty was defeated in his Edmonton district and forced to run outside the city in a by-election. Getty's successor, Ralph Klein was a former mayor of Calgary who defeated a former mayor of Edmonton, Liberal Laurence Decore in the 1993 election. The previous Liberal Leaders of the Opposition tended to represent an Edmonton district while the provincial NDP leader Brian Mason is a former Edmonton city councillor. During the 2006 Progressive Conservative leadership race Calgary-based candidates Ted Morton and Jim Dinning both fared poorly in Edmonton, which contributed to the victory of Ed Stelmach. Stelmach's victory continues a pattern under which since Lougheed assumed the premiership in 1971 in which successive Tory leaders (and premiers) have alternated between Calgary and Edmonton-area ridings (Stelmach represented Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville which borders Edmonton's eastern city limits). Stelmach was able to make gains in Edmonton at the expense of both the Liberals and NDP during the 2008 election, while the Liberals made gains in Calgary. From 2008 to 2012 the Official Opposition had an even number of members from both cities, with the leader Raj Sherman representing Edmonton-Meadowlark. On the other hand Stelmach, like Don Getty before him, had a relatively short tenure as premier – he resigned in 2011, and was replaced by Calgarian Alison Redford.

During the 2012 provincial election, the trends in both cities were broadly similar, but with noticeable distinctions. Both cities voted over 40% for the centrist or centre-right PCs led by Redford. The second placed right-wing Wildrose Party, led by Calgarian Danielle Smith, was much stronger in Calgary (36.41%) than in Edmonton (18.8%). The centrist or centre-left Liberals were slightly stronger in Edmonton (16.13%) than in Calgary (12.16%), and the centre-left New Democrats were much stronger in Edmonton (21.56%) than in Calgary (4.9%), as were the upstart Alberta Party (2.46% in Edmonton, compared to less than one percent in Calgary). It is notable to mention that the media speculated that the overall province-wide Liberal vote collapsed as a result of Liberal voters voting PC in tactical-voting, presumably to stop a Wildrose victory.

Moreover, the 2012 election further demonstrated an extension of the north-south political divide into rural Alberta, with Wildrose winning every rural seat except one south of the 53rd parallel, as well as both seats in Medicine Hat, while winning only one seat north of the 53rd parallel, with all other rural seats being held by the Progressive Conservative.