Rachel Notley, Alberta New Democratic Party riding to victory in massive, historic upset

Some­thing that can only be described as mon­u­men­tal, unprece­dent­ed, and incred­i­ble is hap­pen­ing right now in the greater Pacif­ic North­west: The New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, the most pro­gres­sive of Canada’s major polit­i­cal par­ties, is rid­ing to a mas­sive, his­toric vic­to­ry in Alber­ta, often described as the coun­try’s most con­ser­v­a­tive province.

Cana­di­an news net­works are pro­ject­ing that the NDP, under charis­mat­ic Leader Rachel Not­ley of Edmon­ton, will form gov­ern­ment for the first time ever.

And it will be a major­i­ty gov­ern­ment, to boot.

As of 8:05 Pacif­ic Time (9:05 PM Moun­tain Time), the CBC tal­ly showed that the NDP was lead­ing for 56 seats, while the Wil­drose Par­ty (one of two major right wing par­ties in the province) was lead­ing for twen­ty seats. The incum­bent Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives (the oth­er major right wing par­ty… and yes, that’s actu­al­ly what they call them­selves) lead for only nine seats.

The num­bers con­tin­ue to shift as returns come in, but it’s def­i­nite­ly safe to say that the NDP has bro­ken through and won a vic­to­ry of unprece­dent­ed pro­por­tions. Alber­ta is like the Texas of Cana­da; as NPI Pres­i­dent Robert Cruick­shank says, “The NDP win­ning in Alber­ta is like Eliz­a­beth War­ren get­ting elect­ed gov­er­nor of Texas — with a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the Legislature.”

“It is an orange wave,” declared a Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion anchor, not­ing that the incum­bent Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives might not even form Her Majesty’s oppo­si­tion. They trail the Wil­drose Par­ty by near­ly a dozen seats.

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s news­pa­per of record, called it “a sign of a seis­mic shift in pol­i­tics in Canada’s most small‑c con­ser­v­a­tive province”.

The NDP was able to do it in part by cap­i­tal­iz­ing on vot­er dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives, who have ruled Alber­ta for four decades.

Years of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment left vot­ers yearn­ing for change, and the NDP offered a pos­i­tive, pro­gres­sive vision for the province (includ­ing a plat­form that calls for rais­ing tax­es on the wealthy) that res­onat­ed with voters.

NDP Leader Rachel Not­ley made his­to­ry by run­ning a com­pelling and error-free cam­paign that was able to deft­ly over­come the attacks and the scare tac­tics of the Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives and their dis­graced leader Jim Prentice.

NDP chal­lengers were able to oust Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive incum­bents in a large num­ber of bat­tle­ground rid­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Cal­gary area. (Cal­gary is Alber­ta’s largest city; a rid­ing is the Cana­di­an equiv­a­lent of a district.)

Not­ley and Pren­tice have yet to speak, but when they do, we’ll update this post.

8:41 PM UPDATE: The cur­rent numbers:

• New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty: 54 seats (will form government)
• Wil­drose Par­ty: 21 seats (will form opposition)
• Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives: 10 seats
• Lib­er­al Par­ty: 1 seat
• Alber­ta Par­ty: 1 seat

The NDP has hov­ered above fifty seats in the tal­ly for over an hour. Forty-four seats are need­ed to form a major­i­ty gov­ern­ment. The NDP has that and then some.

8:50 PM: The Cana­di­an Press has a nice arti­cle which puts the elec­tion in con­text. Here’s an excerpt which talks about the elec­tion from Not­ley’s point of view:

For Not­ley, the vic­to­ry is a vin­di­ca­tion of the pio­neer­ing efforts of her father, Grant Not­ley. He helped found Alber­ta’s NDP and kept the move­ment alive as the sole NDP mem­ber of the leg­is­la­ture in the 1970s. He died in a plane crash in north­ern Alber­ta in 1984, two years before his par­ty made its first big break­through in 1986 and became offi­cial Opposition.

The NDP has nev­er come close to pow­er in Alber­ta since it began con­test­ing votes in 1940. Its pre­vi­ous high-water mark was 16 seats and almost 30 per cent of the pop­u­lar vote in 1986.

Not­ley ran on a pol­i­cy plat­form of social change, promis­ing to invest more in schools and hos­pi­tals, while increas­ing tax­es to cor­po­ra­tions and the wealthy.

9:05 PM: Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive Leader Jim Pren­tice has deliv­ered his con­ces­sion speech in Cal­gary. Pren­tice announced that he has resigned, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, as the par­ty’s leader.

“While I am per­son­al­ly sad­dened by the deci­sion, the vot­ers are always right in our democ­ra­cy,” Pren­tice said, look­ing both sad and grim, but main­tain­ing his com­po­sure. He said that he had spo­ken to Rachel Not­ley of the NDP and con­grat­u­lat­ed her, as well as Bri­an Jean of the Wildrose.

“As the leader of the par­ty, I accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for tonight’s out­come,” he said. He thanked his par­ty’s sup­port­ers for their hard work, adding “Clear­ly, how­ev­er, my con­tri­bu­tion to pub­lic life is now at an end.”

He also announced that he is resign­ing from the Alber­ta Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly seat that he was just elect­ed to, which means there will be a by-elec­tion in his rid­ing not long from now. (A by-elec­tion is the Cana­di­an term for a spe­cial election).

CBC com­men­ta­tor Stephen Carter described the defeat­ed Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives as a rud­der­less, col­lapsed par­ty with no future. That may sound like a harsh char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, but with­out pow­er to hold them togeth­er, can the par­ty sur­vive? They’ve been beat­en tonight not only by the NDP in terms of rid­ings won, but also the Wil­drose Par­ty — though they did man­age to beat the Wil­drose in terms of the over­all share of the vote (28% to 24.7%).

9:21 PM: Here’s a map of the cur­rent results, cour­tesy of Dai­ly Kos Elections.

9:26 PM: The CBC just car­ried Wil­drose Par­ty Leader Bri­an Jean’s speech.

“Wow, what an incred­i­ble elec­tion. What a change in Alber­ta,” he began. “It’s very, very unbe­liev­able. It was just a few months ago that pun­dits said that the Wil­drose Par­ty was dead… Wil­drose proved them wrong.”

“Do you know why? The Wil­drose Par­ty is not about one per­son. It’s not about one MLA. It’s about all Alber­ta. We are a movement.”

“My good­ness gra­cious, we’re the offi­cial oppo­si­tion. We’ve got like twen­ty seats!” he exclaimed lat­er, mar­veling at his par­ty’s elec­toral performance.

“Thir­ty-sev­en days, and we have pros­pered, might­i­ly. We have done amaz­ing things,” Jean declared to cheers and applause. He went on to crit­i­cize the Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives, say­ing they had reaped what they had sown.

“I would like to con­grat­u­late Rachel Not­ley. She ran a very good campaign.”

“It is an NDP major­i­ty gov­ern­ment. We will work to keep them on their toes.”

9:37 PM: Rachel Not­ley is mak­ing her way towards the stage at the NDP par­ty in Edmon­ton to deliv­er her vic­to­ry speech as premier-designate.

Sup­port­ers are loud­ly chant­i­ng “NDP! NDP! NDP!” as Rachel waves to the crowd.

9:56 PM: Wow, what a speech! Some of the highlights:

“Well, my friends.… I think we might have made a lit­tle bit of his­to­ry tonight. Change has final­ly come to Alber­ta. New peo­ple, new ideas, and a fresh start for our great province,” she began. “Now, you know, Alber­tans are a gra­cious peo­ple, and tonight, I want to be gra­cious. I’ve just spo­ken to Pre­mier Jim Pren­tice. He’s served our province in many roles, for many years… and I want to thank the Pre­mier for the enor­mous con­tri­bu­tion he has made to our province.”

“I’ve also just spo­ken to Bri­an Jean, leader of the Wil­drose Par­ty. Bri­an, I want to say: Through your courage in the face of fam­i­ly tragedy, you have earned the respect of every Alber­tan, and I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with you.”

“And let me say to our amaz­ing cam­paign team: Thank you for your extra­or­di­nary efforts. I haven’t done the math yet,” she said, paus­ing as she was inter­rupt­ed by wild, jubi­lant cheers from her sup­port­ers, “but I think we have elect­ed the most women in the his­to­ry of this province.”

“To the peo­ple of Alber­ta, I want to thank you for putting your trust in our par­ty,” she said. “I’m deeply hum­bled, and I want to pledge to you, the peo­ple of Alber­ta, that we will work every day to earn your trust.”

“In this province, we’re opti­mistic, we’re for­ward-look­ing, we’re entre­pre­neur­ial, and we’re care­ful with the fam­i­ly bud­get,” she declared.

“That is the kind of gov­ern­ment that we will work to be.”

“Togeth­er, we need to start down the road to a diver­si­fied econ­o­my,” she added, acknowl­edg­ing Alber­ta’s addic­tion to oil. “We need to end the boom and bust roller coast­er that we have been rid­ing for too long.”

She said she was look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Cana­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er on projects that affect­ed the province. Sup­port­ers booed at the men­tion of Harper’s name, but Not­ley smiled and sim­ply reem­pha­sized her sentiments.

“The weath­er is what it is, but spring has arrived,” she said.

“A new day has begun. You vot­ed for change. For bet­ter health­care. For bet­ter schools. And we will answer your call.”

Beam­ing, she con­clud­ed by remem­ber­ing her moth­er and father, say­ing she was hon­ored to con­tin­ue her father’s life work. “I know how proud he would be of the province we all love,” she said. (Sup­port­ers chant­ed, “Grant! Grant! Grant!”)

Her final words: “Friends, my name is Rachel Not­ley, and I want to thank you for elect­ing me as your next Premier!”