Alberta's election starts today
Parties kicked-off the final pre-campaign weekend with big election energy
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Parties kicked-off the final pre-campaign weekend with big election energy
After a weekend of campaign kick-off rallies in Calgary and Edmonton, Premier Danielle Smith is expected to visit Lieutenant Governor Salma Lakhani today to ask that the Legislature be dissolved and a provincial election be held on May 29.
This will be Alberta’s 31st provincial general election since the province was formed in 1905, and it is also expected to be one of the most competitive in recent memory.
Big pre-campaign weekend
The two main party leaders had a busy final weekend before the election officially begins.
Smith spoke in front of large rallies of United Conservative Party supporters in Calgary in the morning and Edmonton in the late afternoon on Saturday.
At the Edmonton rally, Smith shared the stage with Edmonton-Mill Woods Conservative Member of Parliament Tim Uppal, a sign that some federal Conservatives are stepping up to help their provincial cousins in what could be a close election.
Uppal wasn’t the only federal Conservative stumping for the UCP. Calgary-Midnapore MP Stephanie Kusie was spotted door knocking with UCP MLA Tyler Shandro in Calgary-Acadia this weekend.
While the UCP has been in a constant state of internal chaos over the past few years, the federal Conservative Party is seen as a much more stable and stronger political force in Alberta. I won’t be surprised if Conservative MPs soon begin adopting Smith’s talking points about the dreaded Trudeau-Singh-Notley Alliance.
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley kicked off her party’s Edmonton campaign at a rally outside La Cité francophone in Edmonton’s Bonnie Doon neighbourhood. Notley unveiled her party’s campaign bus and official song, Stand Together (For the Better), performed by The Dungarees.
It’s no Strong and Free but it’s much better than Let’s Sing a Song for Jim and Ted Morton is the Man.
Notley then sped down to Calgary, where she is expected to spend a lot of time during this campaign. Notley’s schedule on Sunday included stops at the shared campaign offices of Lizette Tejada (Calgary-Klein) and Kathleen Ganley (Calgary-Mountain View), and Diana Batten (Calgary-Acadia) and Nagwan Al-Guied (Calgary-Glenmore).
NDP campaigns across Alberta, especially in urban areas, have set up shared campaign offices (supporters are calling them “pods” or “hubs”) for two or three candidate campaigns in adjacent ridings. I’m told this has allowed the local campaigns to secure larger rental spaces for the 28-day long campaign and will make sharing volunteer resources easier.
While we’ve seen some campaigns share office space in the past, I can’t recall an election where it has been done on such a province-wide scale. It will be interesting to watch how organizationally effective it is.
Digital Ad buys
With their campaign bank accounts full of donations, the UCP and NDP have a lot of money to spend before May 29. The NDP have already started blanketing the province with outdoor advertising and expect to see a lot more from both campaigns.
But where outdoor billboards and radio ads reach much broader audiences, digital ads allow the parties a greater ability to target their audience. This also means that different Albertans will see different ads from the parties on websites and social media over 28 days.
The UCP and NDP have been making some big digital advertising purchases on the Meta platform, which includes ads that show up on Facebook and Instagram.
According to the Meta Ad Library, the NDP has spent $59,531 on digital ads between April 25 to May 1, and the UCP spent $14,093 in the same period. Both parties are heavily targeting Calgary and while the NDP ads have a broader focus across age demographics, the UCP ads are noticeably set up to target people over the age of 30.
Digital ads from both parties include a mix of positive and negative messages (but mostly negative).
One of the NDP ads uses a roulette table to frame UCP plans to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan as risky, and another features a patient pulling out a credit card as an audio clip of the now famous quote by Smith asking whether the government should really have to pay for a visit to the doctor is played .
And despite Smith claiming she didn’t want provincial funding for a new Calgary Flames arena to become an election issue, some of the UCP’s latest ads attack Notley for questioning the details of the arrangement.
The NDP digital ads also include an light-hearted spoof attack ad against Notley.
A kinder, magenta province
The NDP released their 2023 campaign song last weekend, but one candidate actually performed their own version of an NDP campaign song when they were a teenager.
The Calgary Herald reported on February 24, 1989, that Taneen Fox (now Taneen Rudyk, who is the NDP candidate in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville), performed with her sister at their father’s nomination meeting in the Vegreville riding:
Vegreville New Democrat Derek Fox’s two daughters were a big hit at the MLA’s nomination meeting this week.
First they earned a standing ovation from 250 people for their rendition of the old rock ’n’ roll standard Stand By Me.
Taneen Fox, 15, and sister, Anya, 13, performed the tune on piano, with lyrics rewritten to reflect political realities.
“So darling, darling,” they crooned, “go with the flow, make the choice, and vote for Fox. He’s the best.”
Nor are the two any slouches at slogans.
“Vote New Democrat for a kinder, magenta province,” was their suggestion, playing off the ND campaign colour - and U.S. President George Bush’s favourite line.
(Note: Magenta was the NDP’s campaign colour in the 1989 election. The party didn’t embrace orange as it’s official colour until the 2004 election).