EDMONTON - Hey, Alberta, you might not be feeling particularly attractive these days with early winter storms felling trees and creating traffic gridlock.
But, believe me, you're looking mighty good. Just ask federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. He and every federal NDP MP have come a-courtin' this week to Alberta. They're holding three days of caucus meetings in Edmonton in a display of political affection for Alberta — in the hopes that maybe the province is finally ready to reciprocate.
After years of being viewed as Conservative-supporting sheep by both the Conservatives and the opposition, Albertans are suddenly more interesting and unpredictable.
Mulcair is not expecting Albertans to fall head over heels for the NDP but he is hoping that, since the province will have six more seats up for grabs in next year's election, the party might be able to woo one or two into the NDP tent to sit alongside the party's sole Alberta MP, Linda Duncan from Edmonton-Strathcona.
The party has high hopes for candidate Janis Irwin in Edmonton-Griesbach now that Conservative MP Peter Goldring has announced he's retiring. They still have hopes for Edmonton-Centre even though their star candidate, Lewis Cardinal, had to step down for health reasons.
That's about it for the NDP. They have no hope of any breakthrough in Calgary or rural Alberta. It's all about Edmonton where they have had some electoral success in the past but they have never held more than one seat at a time.
Mulcair is gamely hoping that's about to change even though it's not clear why he expects to do better.
Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason did offer a few clues when he addressed the federal caucus on Wednesday morning, pointing out that (then-premier) Alison Redford won over Albertans in the 2012 provincial by promising a "progressive" program of full-day kindergarten, new health clinics, new schools and end to child poverty. He said she destroyed her own credibility and undermined her party by breaking those promises. Consequently, he thinks there are "hundreds of thousands" of progressive Albertans now ready to embrace the NDP.
While public opinion polls do indicate the NDP is gaining strength in Edmonton, that's a phenomenon mainly at the provincial level. A strong showing for the NDP provincially has never translated well in Edmonton for the NDP federally.
One of the problems for the federal NDP is that it is seen as being anti-oilsands and anti-pipeline in a province filled with workers who anywhere else would be card-carrying NDP members, but here are afraid an NDP government in Ottawa would slow down the pace of energy development and put them out of work.
Mulcair says he will soon be unveiling concrete proposals on child care, infrastructure investment and health care funding that will appeal to all Canadians, including Albertans. But those promises likely won't be enough to convince Albertans that Mulcair is not a threat to their livelihood.
Mulcair, though, is an optimist.
He chose Edmonton to unveil the party's new pre-election slogan on Wednesday: "Change that's ready."
It's supposed to indicate that not only is the NDP a welcome difference from Stephen Harper's Conservatives but that Mulcair is more experienced and capable than the neophyte Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau. But "change that's ready" is also an oddly clunky jingle that sounds like something you'd give to a panhandler.
Speaking of Trudeau, he is trying to woo Albertans, too. Last month, the federal Liberals held their summer caucus in Edmonton for the same reasons the NDP is here this week. Given the province's electoral history, the Liberals have a much better chance of winning more seats in Alberta than the NDP.
But we're still talking two or three, tops. And all of them in Edmonton. The fact remains that if Albertans vote the same way next election that they did in the 2011 federal election, all six of the new seats under redistribution will go to the Conservatives.
And speaking of Conservatives, Alberta's new premier-designate will be spending the next 18 months madly courting Albertans, trying to entice them back inside the Tories' big tent. But rather than selling himself as a progressive, Jim Prentice is emphasizing a conservative platform that includes balancing the budget, being more supportive of business growth, and less supportive of environmental initiatives such as carbon capture and storage.
Albertans are about to be wooed by politicians tugging them in wildly different directions for the next year and more. It sounds like a long and painful ordeal.
But at least it's better than being taken for granted.
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