Alberta premier Jim Prentice was elected to the province’s highest office by .0075 percent of the electorate.
That is political scientist Bonnie Farries’ calculation based on the votes Prentice received to become Progressive Conservative party leader and premier elect Sept. 7. His 17,963 votes, cast only by party members, is a fraction of Alberta’s 2,387,485 eligible voters.
“This leader does not have a strong mandate and yet he’s acting as though he does,” said Farries in an Oct. 16 speech to the Southern Alberta Council of Public Affairs.
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She said the low number indicates “you are not connecting with the electorate. You are not connecting with your own party.”
Prentice is running in an Oct. 27 byelection to win a seat in the legislature.
Since becoming premier, he has made constant reference to “a new era for Alberta,” which is generally seen as a way to distance himself and the party from former premier Alison Redford.
“What’s new about it,” asked Farries, noting the undercurrent of blame on Redford.
“It’ not just her fault. She had a caucus behind her that supported her.”
Most of that caucus is still in the legislature, although Farries said one of only two PC MLAs elected in southern Alberta in the last provincial election has been dropped from cabinet.
“Removing (Lethbridge West MLA) Greg Weadick from cabinet definitely has consequences,” she said.
Prentice is playing to the Calgary and Edmonton power base and ignoring southern Alberta, she added. The region voted almost entirely Wildrose in the last election.
Prentice has cancelled some of Redford’s more controversial plans, such as closing Red Deer’s Michener Centre and changing the licence plate design.
He also announced plans to sell the provincial planes, the unauthorized use of which caused controversy for Redford and other cabinet ministers last year.
Farries said those moves were predictable, and she was critical of recent PC announcements of plans to build 230 new schools and fix the province’s health-care system without showing a fiscal plan for the former and an organizational plan for the latter.
As well, the cabinet ministers involved in those portfolios were un-elected appointees of the new premier.
Despite that and Prentice’s lack of mandate, Farries said she doesn’t rule out a PC victory in the next election, primarily because of voter apathy and Albertans’ penchant for “serial monogamy” when it comes to government.
