Alberta Votes 2015: Accountability top issue for voters

Nearly 20 per cent of Albertans say government accountability is the key issue in the May 5 election, twice the number who chosehealth care, the deficit or government spending as their top concern.

The results are contained in the latest report generated through data collected by CBC Vote Compass.

According to the report, 19.7 per cent of Albertans say government accountability is the most important issue, followed by health care (11 per cent), the budget deficit (10.6 per cent), education (10.2 per cent) and government spending (10 per cent).

The resultappears to contradict a claim by Progressive Conservative Leader Jim Prentice that Albertans had to go to the polls a year earlier than required because he needed a mandate to make changes put forward in the provincial budget.

At an event in Calgary on Monday, Prentice repeated that contention, while claiming he has restored accountability by selling the government planes, taking a wage rollback and reducing the size of cabinet.

"What I hear from Albertans is that they are very concerned about the future of the province, they're concerned about getting the government into balance, they're concerned about front-line services," he said.

Voters offended

But it turns out Albertans aren't as concerned about spending and the deficit as Prentice appears to thinkthey are. Opposition party leaders say the findings come as no surprise to them.

Liberal Leader David Swann said Prentice failed to live up to his vowto put the Alberta government under new management.

Swann pointed tobig funding announcements Prentice madeduring last fall's byelections and in the week leading up to the start of this spring's election campaign.

"That offends people. It undermines the sense of fairness in democracy," Swann said. "He's going to have a lot to answer for in this election."

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the PCs under Prentice have failed to listen to Albertans by introducing a health-care premium and failing to raise corporate taxes, after the government wastold exactly the opposite in a survey.

She said Prentice showed disrespect by overruling an all-party committee after members decided to restore funding to the Alberta auditor general.

"In a very short time, he's demonstrated a tremendous lack of interest in demonstrating accountability and transparency to Albertans," she said.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said in a written statement that the Vote Compass results show that Albertans share his party's priorities.

"Our message and platform is resonating across the province," Jean said. "We are the only party that will shrink government spending, repeal the Prentice tax hikes, improve services in health and education and restore trust in government."

Some observers think the deals that led to former Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith crossing to the PCs with eight other MLAs may turn out to be Prentice's biggest problem.

"Do people trust Jim Prentice or to put it another way,how much trust has Prentice lost and can he regain that trust during an election campaign?" asked David Taras, a political analyst at Mount Royal University.

A note from Vox Pop Labs, maker of CBC Vote Compass, on the methodology:

The findings are based on responses from 11,024 people who used Vote Compass from April 7 to April 12.

The data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample.

Vote Compass data have been weighted by geography, gender, age, educational attainment, occupation, religion, religiosity, and civic engagement to ensure the sample's composition reflects that of the actual population of Alberta, according to census data and other population estimates.