A political drama, if one can call it that, unfolded last week in Alberta. Two members of the Progressive Conservative Party crossed the floor of the Legislature and joined with their more radical brothers-in-arms, the Wildrose Alliance Party. The rivers of Egypt ran red, and were as blood.

Now, I like to think that when it comes to politics, I keep a fairly open mind. However, it only seems fair to point out the situation in Alberta doesn’t really fit the traditional mold of what one comes to expect in Canadian provincial politics. This province almost always bucks the trend. Take, for instance, this recent defection of Rob Anderson, MLA for Airdrie-Chestermere, and Heather Forsyth, MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek from the ranks of the Conservatives. Did they join with their democratic socialist brethren in the NDP? Did they dance across the floor for a mid-winter cuddle with the slightly left-of-centre Liberals? Nope. Only in Alberta would two well-regarded members of the legislature take a giant step even further to the right.
That brings me back to my point. That’s not usually how it happens anywhere else in this country, even on the rarefied occasions when MLAs or MPs become too disgusted with the mildewing funk of their own party and float away on their umbrellas like Mary Poppins. Generally, politicians cross the floor from Liberal to Conservative, government to opposition, or vice-versa. They don’t usually switch up parties to get a taste of another brand of conservative philosophy — which is more like trying out a new brand of cigarettes: same tar, same lung-blanketing battery of noxious chemicals, but new fresh taste. Welcome to flavour country  — you’ve come a long way, baby.
So what do we call this newfound brand of political disobedience? It’s not like they defected over to the communists, forever banished from respectable politics to become blacklisted street-corner leafleteers barking about the decadence of the property mongers. Nor are they now tramping it up amongst the jaundiced ranks of the Liberals, the traditional arch-nemesis of the Conservatives. And forget the NDP — they’ve been a non-entity in the province since the days of the Bennett buggy. Besides having the party whips frothing at the mouth in indignation, this isn’t what we can call a betrayal in the strictest sense of the word.
Which isn’t to say the phenomenon hasn’t been experienced before in other parts of the world, and in the past. The rise of fascist movements across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s could be considered educational in this context. Often, this phenomenon followed a pattern: a mainstream conservative political entity losing ground and popularity to an extreme conservative movement. While the average Wildrose Alliance Party supporter isn’t about to start heiling a steely blue-eyed demagogue or go Jew-baiting for kicks on a Saturday night, the continuing rise in popularity of a party that for all intents and purposes is farther to the right than the Conservative Party might be worth a single half-raised eyebrow. The post-war economic depressions that swept Europe and especially Germany following WWI would eventually lead to the rise of extreme right-wing movements, like the Nazis in Germany under Hitler, the Fascists in Italy under Mussolini and the Nationalists under Franco in Spain. Fascist movements also festered in most of the nations of Eastern Europe as well as Britain and France. Even Canada had its own brand of right-wing fanatics in the 1930s, which included the Canadian Union of Fascists under Chuck Crate, and the more notorious National Unity Party under Adrien Arcand. Large minorities in these nations were susceptible to the extreme right-wing solutions ultra-conservative movements offered when times became bleak, such as the economic collapse of the early Depression. In short, they turned further to the right.
Here in Canada in the early Depression years, some provinces turned with them. Federally, of course, the Conservatives under R.B. Bennett were defeated soundly by the Liberals under King in 1935, but this had less to do with ideological leanings, and more to do with Bennett’s bellicose personality and a population desperate to assign blame for economic failure. In other provinces, however, Conservative movements were able to tighten their grip. In Quebec, the Union Nationale came to power under Maurice “Le Chef” Duplessis, whose conservative policies and rabid anti-communism led to the passing of the grossly unconstitutional “padlock law.” His reign over the Quebec populace, which ended with his death in 1959, came to be known later as La Grande Noirceur “the Great Darkness,” largely due to rampant corruption and the tragic Duplessis Orphans scandal.
And of course we can’t forget Alberta. Although the proselytizing former school principal William “Bible Bill” Aberhart promised solutions to the Depression through the quirky theories of the early Social Credit Party, it proved to be much harder in practice. Aberhart took over the province from the ashes of the United Farmers of Alberta, a party whose dour uninspired conservative policies left it ill-equipped to deal with the changed economic reality post-1929. Social Credit started out radical enough from an economic point of view, but once Aberhart’s dreams of a Social Credit paradise were dashed by implausible schemes of free money and unconstitutional legislation, the party made an abrupt U-turn in favour of conservative policies that in many ways exceeded the UFA before them.
So a turn from the right even farther to the right isn’t unprecedented. But it isn’t exactly a common occurrence, either. And as I’ve pointed out, in Canada and Europe this shift in political allegiance occurred during the economic upheaval of the Depression. Today, we’re having our own economic troubles. And it appears that politically in Alberta, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Still, this would be an easier pill to swallow if it didn’t involve MLAs crossing the floor. Rob Anderson claims that of the feedback he’s received so far about his move to the Wildrose Alliance, 70 to 80 per cent has been positive. However truthful it might be, I still find this hard to believe. Even if his constituents might support the move, it still comes down to issues of trust. How do you trust someone who might take flight to the nearest political party the moment they dangle a plum? While it could be argued the Wildrose Alliance Party doesn’t have a whole lot of plums to dangle at this point, there are certainly ulterior motives here. A higher profile, for one. With all respect, who ever took notice of Rob Anderson prior to this minor fiasco? Now his name is familiar to anyone who follows politics in the province.
But no matter how you play it, crossing the floor will always have an odour of impropriety about it — unrestrained ambition, opportunism, betrayal. These are not really positive characteristics for an aspiring politician, or leader for that matter, which doesn’t even take into account the feelings of the average voter. In most electoral divisions, at least 50 per cent (and that’s being generous) of the population that actually turns out to cast a ballot isn’t voting for the man — they’re voting for the party. Now they have an MLA who has taken his own personal political views and made them the default views of an entire riding, without their consent.
If these two MLAs believe that sits well with the majority of their constituents, they might be well advised to look again. While the memory of a political fumble is sometimes forgotten in a few weeks, I have a feeling this won’t be forgotten so easily by the voters of those ridings.