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If an election was held today, who would you vote for?

  • UCP

    Votes: 6 11.1%

  • NDP

    Votes: 42 77.8%

  • Liberal

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Alberta Party

    Votes: 3 5.6%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 3 5.6%
  • Total voters
    54
Someone on Twitter dug up a 2021 article and accompanying July 2022 interview in which Danielle Smith lays out her vision to move Albertans off a public healthcare system. She talks about wanting people to fundraise money for their own medical care and denounces AHS for making decisions about where to spend healthcare dollars.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1593669950828597249

What really takes the cake is that not a single UCP leadership candidate brought this up during the election!! That must be considered professional malpractice on the part of the campaign managers.
 
It was brought up and even covered. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/po...-piece-pitched-health-care-fees-for-albertans

You have to consider the purpose of a leadership campaign: selling memberships or converting existing members. It was pretty clear that regular boring conservatives for the most part weren’t particularly interested in signing up, and that the sovereignty act and everything was a significant concern which did help in that regard. The other concerning statements didn’t add more people willing to buy memberships.

Smith’s decades of statements on health didn’t lead even a sliver of the 80,000 unionized AHS staff to sign up. Smiths decades of statements on education didn’t lead to even a sliver of the 65,000 education staff to sign up.

There was lots of social media chatter about how it was inherently wrong to sign up as a centrist as it would save the UCP from itself and would convince the public to not switch from the UCP.
 
That makes some sense. Nonetheless, the fact that Smith eked out a slim majority after 6 ballots, shows that had Travis Toews or someone else simply tired to create more fear around Smith, they might have moved a sufficient number of votes to tip the balance.

I should also note that the spending account should be more concerning to AHS users than to AHS staff. It’s all us who will have to create Gofundme pages for our healthcare.
 
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Mountain Man said:
So Smith is in total "buy Calgary votes" mode now, is Edmonton getting any of the promised spending we are?
Click to expand...

St Albert and Sherwood Park will be pretty competitive seats, so it would be wise for UCP to splash some cash there. Inside the Anthony Henday, I doubt Smith announces a loonie in new infrastructure commitments.
 
darwink said:
Calgary has not had any commitments either.
Click to expand...
Yeah exactly. It’s because talk is cheap, they can say whatever they want, try to win the election, and never follow through on it if they do. I mean, it’ll be their doom, but hey… 4 more years is 4 more years I guess. I wouldn’t - and don’t - trust a word this government says.
 
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UrbanWarrior said:
Yeah exactly. It’s because talk is cheap, they can say whatever they want, try to win the election, and never follow through on it if they do. I mean, it’ll be their doom, but hey… 4 more years is 4 more years I guess. I wouldn’t - and don’t - trust a word this government says.
Click to expand...
We will see what they put in the budget.
 
zagox said:
St Albert and Sherwood Park will be pretty competitive seats, so it would be wise for UCP to splash some cash there.
Click to expand...

NAIT LRT extension to St. Albert?

darwink said:
We will see what they put in the budget.
Click to expand...

That's where the rubber will hit the road.

IMO The UCP can't go crazy with urban commitments in the budget because that could alienate their base and only bring some urbanites on side. I wonder if the UCP will try to buy small-city votes more than big-city votes? The NDP can be pretty direct with their critiques of the budget because they know where their votes are (small-city and big-city). The NDP will also have to sprinkle in some rural stuff that looks good to moderate urbanites who take rural perspective into account but not nearly what the UCP will have to do.

This all assumes that the Sovereignty thing doesn't blow up this government before then.
 
338 Canada update yesterday has NDP ahead 44% to UCPs 42, 47 seats to UCPs 40. Slave Lake, South Red Deer, and Spruce Grove now considered tossups. East Lethbridge with NDP 10 points ahead. Banff Kananaskis considered NDP safe. Only 5 of Calgary’s 26 districts considered UCP safe. Wild.

338canada.com

338Canada Alberta | Poll Analysis & Electoral Projections

338canada.com 338canada.com
 
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UrbanWarrior said:
338 Canada update yesterday has NDP ahead 44% to UCPs 42, 47 seats to UCPs 40. Slave Lake, South Red Deer, and Spruce Grove now considered tossups. East Lethbridge with NDP 10 points ahead. Banff Kananaskis considered NDP safe. Only 5 of Calgary’s 26 districts considered UCP safe. Wild.

338canada.com

338Canada Alberta | Poll Analysis & Electoral Projections

338canada.com 338canada.com
Click to expand...

My bet based on an election held today would be 45-42 NDP, with the adjustments as follows:

338 has Calgary-Elbow as a UCP Likely, essentially because Greg Clark did so well in 2019 for the Alberta Party. Seems like a flaw in the modeling unless Greg Clark is running again. I would rate that NDP Likely - and so would Danielle Smith, given that she doesn't want a by-election there.

338 also has both Red Deer seats going UCP, which seems wrong given the results in the City of Medicine Hat in the by-election - the small cities have clearly moved more NDP than the polling that lumps them in with true rural areas would indicate.

On the other hand, I think the 338 model looks too optimistic to me on the seats at the edges of Edmonton (Strathcona-Sherwood Park, Fort Sask, Morinville-St Albert, Leduc), and Lesser Slave Lake. I would put those in the UCP column, barely.
 
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