Alberta Liberals, NDP rule out merger to beat Progressive Conservatives

While the recent four provincial byelections highlighted a crippling split on Alberta's centre-left, partyleaders say that rift won't be healing anytime soon.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley and the Liberals' Raj Sherman both saythey have a growing base of support to make a breakthrough in the2016 general election and will not be exploring a merger.

Notley said the party's fortunes in recent polls and in fundraising are reflected in candidate Bob Turner's second-placefinish in Edmonton-Whitemud, a riding where the NDP hastraditionally been off the radar.

"Whitemud is the most secure Tory seat in the province and theyran the (former) mayor (Stephen Mandel). And we went from running adistant fourth to a respectable second," said Notley in aninterview.

"If those results were projected across the city, we would belooking at a tremendously successful election in the city ofEdmonton."

Merger 'off the table'

Last week, Premier Jim Prentice and his Progressive Conservativeswon all four byelections -- three in Calgary and one in Edmonton.

The Tories came up the middle in two of them.

Education Minister Gordon Dirks won Calgary-Elbow with just 33per cent of the vote. Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark was second andWildrose candidate John Fletcher was third.

In Edmonton-Whitemud, Mandel, the health minister, won with 42per cent of the vote.

Sherman's party did not target one specific riding to win andfinished well back in all of them.

But Sherman said the fact the Liberals have seats in Calgary andEdmonton, as compared with just Edmonton for the NDP, shows theLiberals are the only true pan-Alberta left-centre option.

He said the Liberals have $230,000 in the bank and didn'tfoolishly double-down on longshots in the byelections by spendingbig in four Tory strongholds.

And given the vote-splitting potential in ridings with Wildrose and the Tories, "There are opportunities that haven't existed forthe Liberals for a long time," he said.

As for a merger, Sherman said, "That's off the table."

Liberals in trouble

Pollster and political analyst Janet Brown said the centre-left,by working at cross purposes, continues to kneecap itself.

"Can we all now agree that vote-splitting is a thing," said Brown in an interview.

"Whenever they come close to electoral victory, that seems to belike a sign for them to splinter.

"They're just like a dysfunctional family."

Both Brown and political scientist Duane Bratt suggest theLiberals may solve the problem for everyone if they continue theirdescent into irrelevance.

The Liberals dropped from 16 seats and 29 per cent of the vote in the 2004 general election to nine seats and 26 per cent of the votein 2008 to five seats and less than 10 per cent of the vote in 2012.

And they're about to lose two seats more.

Calgary MLAs Darshan Kang and Kent Hehr will be running for thefederal Liberals in the upcoming vote. When they go, only Sherman,Laurie Blakeman and David Swann will be left, putting the caucusbehind the four sitting members of the NDP.

Recent polls now show the NDP matching or surpassing the Liberalsin popularity.

Rather than run everywhere and lose, said Brown, the Liberalsneed to build on their traditional geographic base of support inEdmonton, such as the NDP have done in Edmonton.

"You guys have got to till your own garden," she said.

Bratt, with Mount Royal University in Calgary, said the Liberalshave ceased to gain new supporters and are coasting on the personalpopularity of members like Hehr, Swann, and Blakeman.

"The bigger issue is withthe Liberal party," said Bratt.

"They're the party that I think is really in jeopardy. I've beencalling it the 'gradually disappearing' party because its votepercentage and its caucus is getting smaller and smaller."

He said the party is not getting out the message on what itstands for.

"I've referred to it as five people wearing red shirts. It's not really a party, whereas the NDP, you know what it stands for," saidBratt.

Alberta Party 'will figure it out'

Alberta Party strategist Stephen Carter rejects labels of leftand right. With the exception of the NDP, he said, all parties havepolices that span the political spectrum and are in a dogfight forthe centre.

The Alberta Party has yet to elect a member to the legislature.

However it ran 38 candidates in the 2012 campaign and have a leaderwith growing name recognition in Clark.

The byelections, while hailed as Tory victories, showedsubstantial erosion of support for the governing party, said Carter.

"There's certainly some movement available in the next littlewhile," he said.

Carter said voters will be coming around to the Alberta Partybecause they are appealing to a new generation that isn't a slave toideologies and labels.

It's a generation tapping into the broader vision and message of young progressive mayors like Naheed Nenshi in Calgary and DonIveson in Edmonton.

The problem is getting notice for their ideas with no one in legislature, he said.

"We need to construct a model whereby we're seen as an alternative," said Carter.

"We weren't able to construct a narrative (in the byelections) that the Alberta Party is in the race.

"We have to get better at engaging the media in this discussion.

"We will figure it out."