We have four major parties that come into play during an election and three fringe parties. The four major parties are Progressive Conservative(PC), Liberal, Wild Rose and NDP.
The Progressive Conservatives were the incumbents. They had been in government for forty-four years. They also had 73 out of 87 seats when the election was called. They looked too powerful to put out of office.
However, there were issues that made the voters very unhappy with the PCs
Alberta is an oil rich province . We have the ugly tar sands. We have all kinds of revenue from oil resources. However, the keep taxes down lobby has influenced the government. Resource revenues have been used for yearly operations. Taxes have been kept low. So when resource revenues dry up we don't have money to pay for operating the government.
Alberta has a cycle of boom and busts. These are deep lows and very high ups. These are frustrating patterns for taxpayers and businesses. So as a result, for the present year we have a deficit of 7 billion dollars.
So on Tuesday the wildest thing happened. The PCs with 73 seats were reduced to ten seats and the NDP which had 4 sets was elected with 53 seats.
I was happy to see the bums thrown out. People were unhappy with the bums and voted with their anger.
I know that this is a local story and that people who do not live in Canada will not be able to understand some of the issues.
But I just had to tell somebody. When we're unhappy with politicians we can do something about it.
