Humiliating loss in Calgary byelection is only more bad news for Alberta NDP

Premier Rachel Notley airily waved off Jason Kenney’s showing, a 71.5 per cent majority, beyond the UCP’s wildest hopes

Don Braid, Calgary Herald

The New Democrats were trampled by the United Conservative Party in the suburban byways of Calgary-Lougheed on Thursday.

Government candidate Phillip van der Merwe polled a dismal 16.8 per cent of the byelection vote. Liberal Leader David Khan had 9.3 per cent.

UCP Leader Jason Kenney scored 71.5 per cent, beyond even the UCP’s wildest hopes.

Premier Rachel Notley airily waves this off, saving you can’t expect any other result when a major party leader is running on his home turf.

That may soothe tender egos, but there’s only bad news here for the NDP.

This is the third Calgary byelection the New Democrats have lost since their 2015 victory in the province at large. They were thumped in both Calgary-Greenway and Calgary-Foothills. And, now, they’re humiliated in Lougheed.

Results showed the NDP is vulnerable on both its progressive and conservative flanks. The Liberals nibble away at the New Democrats’ natural centre-left base, while the UCP corrals virtually all the conservative resentment with NDP economics.

Kenney often says that to predict UCP support, simply add together the votes for the former Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties.

Well, he was wrong. Kenney scored eight per cent higher than the PCs and Wildrose did in 2015, when they got a combined total of 63 per cent in Lougheed riding.

There has to be a bow here to Kenney’s enormous political skills. Thursday marked his fourth victory in the five-step plan for conservative victory he first rolled out in July 2016.

First, Kenney had to win the PC leadership, then propel the PCs and Wildrose toward merger, then win the UCP leadership, then get himself elected to the legislature.

At the start, few people believed he could do any of it, partly because no Canadian politician had ever tried anything like it.

Today, not many doubt he’ll win the fifth and final prize — a provincial election in 2019.

The NDP has spent a lot of time painting the UCP as socially backward and even dangerous to LGBTQ kids. UCP member MLA Jason Nixon didn’t help this week, when it came out that his company fired a single mother of three who had been sexually harassed in the workplace.

full story at http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/braid-humiliation-in-calgary-lougheed-shows-ndp-needs-drastic-changes/wcm/e7d2439a-9448-4c59-b476-7a28b4867986