If there is one thing that has occurred to Jim Prentice and his Progressive Conservative party in the last couple of weeks it's that Albertans are not at all happy with his decision to call an election a full year ahead of when it was legislatively mandated.
The decision to go to the polls early in one's tenure has a perilous history in this country. Yes, there have been instances where it has worked out marvellously for the governing party, even in Alberta. Peter Lougheed went to the people in 1982, three years after winning a massive majority. He did so largely to catch the upstart rival Western Canada Concept party off-guard. It worked. The Tories took 75 of the 79 seats up for grabs – one more than in the previous election.
Jean Chrétien made the same decision three years after his Liberals had won a majority in the snap election he engineered in 1997. In 2000, he did so in an attempt to prevent the fledgling Canadian Alliance party from expanding beyond its western base. The strategy succeeded in increasing the Liberals' majority.
But for all the victories on record, there are as many (or more) failures.
In Quebec, Robert Bourassa tried it in 1976 and forfeited power to René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois. In 1984, John Turner went a year ahead of schedule and gave Canada the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney. The NDP's Dave Barrett tried it in 1975 after just three years as premier and succeeded in returning B.C. to Social Credit rule under Bill Bennett.
Perhaps the most noted example in recent memory is David Peterson in Ontario, who won a huge Liberal majority in 1987 and then three years later got greedy trying to capitalize on positive internal polling. Backlash to the early election resulted in the first and only NDP government in the province's history. The public never responds well to being played for uninformed rubes.
This brings us back to present day Alberta.
Mr. Prentice said he was going to the polls to get a mandate for a March budget he vowed would usher in generational change. It certainly did introduce tax changes (and hikes) that were overdue and no doubt needed, but in many respects it looked like any budget you'd expect in a province that had taken the kind of financial hit Alberta has in recent months. And yet, despite all the dire warnings from the Premier about the harsh medicine that was on the way, there was still a $5-billion deficit with which to be reckoned. Judged against his pre-budget rhetoric, it seemed like Mr. Prentice had chickened out at the last minute.
And once he got on the campaign trail, he backed off further from some of the more unpopular aspects of his economic blueprint. Now there are probably even more Albertans wondering what the point of this exercise was anyway.
Polling numbers that have consistently shown the Progressive Conservatives heading for defeat may be wrong, or may be partly right, but assuredly reflect anger over a range of issues. But if the Tories do go down to defeat after nearly 44 years in power, part of the reason will be the decision to go to the polls early in a bid to take advantage of an organizationally vulnerable opposition. If that cynical tactic wasn't abundantly clear before the vote was called, it became glaringly obvious as the campaign proceeded and the absence of that big, important issue that can sometimes justify an early election call became even more noticeable.
Mr. Prentice's gamble may now have unintended consequences.
That big, important issue may have emerged in the form of the question: Is it finally time for a regime change? The province has appeared on the precipice of making this move before, only to back off in favour of the devil it knows. It's impossible to say if this time will be different; if the public has indeed reached Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point.
If it has, Mr. Prentice and his party will have only themselves to blame. Early election calls are risky. And as they say in Vegas, the only sure thing about luck is eventually you run out of it.
@garymasonglobe
Gary Mason