Alberta election, April 2019

Long story.

Today we took advantage of advance voting in Alberta’s provincial election. It’s our first time voting as Canadians. Yay! Election day is Tuesday, April 16.

About these pictures: These distinctive bubble-window row houses are in our neighborhood. There’s another set of them a few blocks east of these on the same street. They strike me as very 1970s.

While the bubble windows are ignored by most of the people living in these houses, a few of the windows are decorated with Christmas lights in season.

The political race this month is between candidates of two major parties. The current party in power is the New Democratic Party (NDP). In 2015, they won power from the conservative party of the time, the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta. This was a huge upset as the Progressive Conservatives had ruled Alberta since the 1970s. The way I understand it, the loss was due to some particularly visible corruption.

The Progressive Conservatives were beaten so badly, they decided to disband and regroup, joining with a more Tea-Party-ish political party, the Wildrose Party, to form the United Conservative Party (UPC).

Around the time the NDP was voted in, Alberta’s lifeblood — the extraction of oil from the Alberta tar sands (most here call them the “oil sands,” only wild-eyed environmentalists use the “tar sands” term) — became much less profitable because of the global collapse of oil prices. The unemployment numbers have grown and anger against the NDP has grown.

So, the United Conservatives are heavily favored to take control of Alberta in this election.

But, at least here in our neighborhood, the New Democrats are still popular. Hence the bubble-window display shown.

Update: United Conservative Party won.