Left-Wing Victory in Canada’s Alberta Carries National Implications

Left-Wing Victory in Canada’s Alberta Carries National Implications
Rachel Notley at an Alberta NDP rally, Edmonton, Canada, June 16, 2014 (photo by Flickr user daveberta licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).

Canadian politics rarely draws international interest, unless a certain colorful former Toronto mayor is involved. But a snap election in the energy-rich province of Alberta this week shocked Canada and made headlines around the world. The Progressive Conservative (PC) party, which has held continuous control of the province since 1971, lost in a stunning upset to the left-of-center Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP). NDP leader Rachel Notley is set to be the premier—the equivalent of governor—of the heartland of Canadian conservatism and the home province of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose ruling Conservative Party faces tough federal elections this fall.

“I don’t know if anyone outside of Canada can appreciate how shocking an NDP victory in Alberta would be,” Jeet Heer, a Canadian journalist, wrote on Twitter the evening of the vote, adding that it would be as if liberal MSNBC host Chris Hayes, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren took power in conservative Texas and Mississippi.

“Few expected this outcome when the campaign began,” says David McLaughlin, who was chief of staff to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, himself of the PC party, and is now sustainability adviser to the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. “Toppling a PC dynasty is one thing, plowing it under with a massive majority NDP government is quite another.”

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review