In a sea of red across the nation, Alberta is an island of blue after the final votes are being tallied in the federal election.
More than 90 per cent of the province decided to remain federally conservative with their vote, electing just three non-conservative representatives out of a possible 34 seats at the last ballot count at 12:30 a.m. according to elections.ca.
With such strong support provincially in May, what has changed Albertans minds? The NDP won by a landslide in the provincial elections just six months ago, and other than raising the minimum wage, I can’t see what the New Democrats have done in that time to change the mind of its residents so significantly.
I strongly suspect it is just my naivety having only lived in Alberta for a few years and if I’m honest, having only paid attention to this federal election, but after asking the question of why all of the blue after all of the orange, I do seem to be getting a lot of laughs and head shaking. This is a blue province, always has and always will be is the answer I get time and time again. Something that must be true as I see the numbers pile in for the Medicine Hat – Cardston-Warner Conservative candidate, Jim Hillyer, the former MP for the Lethbridge riding who was famously titled by local media as, “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”
As the dust settles over the next few days on the Canadian political landscape, it will be interesting to see how Alberta plans to move ahead with this new Liberal majority government.
