In 2015, Jim Prentice tabled a budget he had spent months preparing Albertans for. The budget involved fiscal prudence and hard choices. Then it landed, and it gave nothing to anyone. Progressives saw cuts. Conservatives saw new revenue. Six weeks later, a 44-year dynasty was gone.
People will tell you that Albertans were tired of the PCs. Maybe. But tired doesn’t explain that result. A budget that left everyone holding the short end does. That’s the pattern, and it has held at every level of government for a decade. Elections are won and lost on the economy; whatever voters tell pollsters matters.
In 2019, the UCP’s central commitment was four words: axe the carbon tax. It wasn’t an environmental argument or an industry one. It was what people felt at the pump and on the utility bill, and it turned the page on a government.
In 2023, the NDP campaigned on moving the corporate rate to 11 per cent. Voters remembered the same party had taken it to 12 per cent once before, and the proposal did the opposition’s work for them. It confirmed the story Albertans had heard for four years. This will cost your business and your household.
Federally, Albertans watched Washington and asked who they trusted in the room. That was the campaign. Voters want one of two things. Someone who gets out of the way and lets the economy work, or someone they trust to steer through a rough stretch. Mostly they want to stop thinking about it, because they believe the economy sorts itself out when nobody micromanages.
Which brings us to the 12 months between now and October 18, 2027.
There will be no shortage of other fights on offer, and the temptation belongs to every party, governing or hoping to. Classrooms, council chambers… a rotating list of Albertans somebody has decided to be upset about. Every hour spent there is an hour not spent on the file that decides the outcome. Affordability and tariffs will undo a small government mandate faster than any wedge can rescue one.
So, watch three things: who proposes to make it easier to build, hire and invest here. Who treats red tape as a file to be worked rather than a line to be delivered. Who is in the room with the people creating jobs, and who is only announcing at them.
Watch the referendum result too. Two weeks on, the ballots are counted and little has moved, which makes right now the part that matters. Our labour shortage did not shrink because we voted. The test is whether the result becomes policy that fills skilled positions or policy that sends the workers we need somewhere else. Immigration is a labour file. It deserves to be argued like one.
Somebody is going to win next October on the economy. Somebody is going to lose on it. Every leader in this province should be building a game plan around that now, because the rest of us will know which is which long before the writ drops.