Experts give their say what happened on historic election day
Posted May 6, 2015 12:02 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
History in Alberta Tuesday, after 28 days of campaigning, Alberta elected Rachel Notley as the new premier of Alberta.
David Stewart, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, thinks more young people came out to vote.
“I was thinking today that no one under the age of 67 had ever voted in an election that wasn’t won by the conservatives, so you sort of get a feeling in this province that conservative victories are inevitable, and then something like this happens and everything changes politically in almost 20 minutes,” he explained.
Obviously, this was not what the Progressive Conservatives were hoping for, but Ted Morton, senior fellow school public policy professor at the University of Calgary, said it was a miscalculation by the PC party to call an early election.
“I think it was seen as unnecessary and it made prentice look cynical and power hungry,” Morton said. “I think most Albertans saw the main reason he called the early election was because two of the three opposition parties were virtually leaderless.”
Morton added, the new premier has an opportunity to work with the oil and gas sector to protect jobs and job creation. However, he’s just hoping she won’t fight against them.
