Is Alberta the "Canary in a Coal Mine" for the Federal Tories?

Are serious fractures appearing in the big blue machine out west?

Alberta has long been a stronghold of Tory support and the region that saw the birth of reform. The party that eventually spawned our latest Prime Minister. Today some conservatives there are scratching their heads in wonder over what appears to be the beginnings of a major collapse in support.

Federal Tory support in Atlantic Canada is already shot to hell thanks to the PM's broken promises and fractured contracts. The party is all but dead in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Nova Scotia not only is the federal party on the ropes but thanks to his dithering and lack of viable spinal fluid, provincial Tory Premier Rodney MacDonald is showing signs of needing life support.

A recent poll showed the Nova Scotia premier at just 29% support in his home province. Unfortunately for the Premier, that poll was conducted before Bill Casey’s exodus from the federal caucus and the stoking of anti-conservative flames that had been smoldering for months. In the post Casey era some are speculating that MacDonald’s numbers, along with those of the two remaining Tory MPs in that province, are about to go into free fall.

For Mr. Harper the picture isn't any brighter in Central Canada. In Ontario the Tories hoped to make inroads with their ill fated equalization plan and in Quebec through buying votes with equalizatin funding snatched from resource dependent provinces. Neither of those decisions has had the desired effect and the limited bump they provided in the polls has been short lived. The Tories are still a long way from any kind of solid support in either of Canada’s two vote rich provinces.

With three provincial premiers already on the attack (not to mention a sweet little old war widow toting yet another signed and broken promise by the PM) and new information surfacing today that New Brunswick and PEI are also on the losing end of the new equalization forumla, Harper’s poll numbers are expected to slip even lower and his party may be on the verge of collapse across the Country.

The most recent polls show the federal Conservatives trailing the Liberals by 3 percentage points. With two more provinces now likely to go on the attack this could be a long hot summer for Mr. Harper and his caucus.

Adding to the PM’s woes this morning, is an unwanted surprise from deep within his normally strong western base.

With Saskatchewan already on the war path and 7 Tory seats there up for grabs, a provincial by-election in Alberta yesterday produced results which could signal that the once mighty provincial Tories have become victims of ill will and mistrust aimed at their federal counterparts.

The possibility exists that provincial Tories in Alberta are the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to how the electorate plans to vote in the next federal election. Its a swing Stephen Harper may not want to deal with right now.

After more than thirty years of uninterupted majority governments in Alberta the PC party there is feeling the heat. Last night the party lost a key by-election in, of all places, Ralph Klein’s old Tory stronghold. A riding that has seen nothing but Tory blue since its inception in the early 1970’s is flying Liberal red today.

Alan Hallman, a Klein organizer was quoted in the National Post today as saying, "If we're not careful, I think the Liberals can form the next government. You've seen the history of this province. Once we turn, we turn en masse."

Political scientist, Duane Bratt, from Calgary’s Mount Royal College noted, "It's not the by-election I would put as much stock into. It's the trend line. There's been a series of little steps, all going down."

The most recent provincial polls in Alberta show Calgary area conservatives down nearly 20% since January and the trend downward is showing no signs of abating.

Granted the provincial and federal Tories are in reality two separate entities, but if, after nearly three and a half decades of unquestioned support in Alberta the tide is turning, from Tory blue to Grit red, it may signal a reality shift the Prime Minister and his party will have to deal with when the next federal election rolls around.