More than 50 per cent of Albertans surveyed in early April said they felt dissatisfied with the Progressive Conservative government’s performance on the economy, education and health care, as well as its overall trustworthiness and accountability.
But the handling of the provincial purse strings seemed to particularly rankle respondents, with 77 per cent reporting displeasure with the government’s financial management.
“People are unhappy,” said Ian Large, Leger’s Alberta vice-president. “They’re very unhappy.”
The low satisfaction ratings for Premier Alison Redford’s government comes a month after Finance Minister Doug Horner delivered a contentious budget that irritated Albertans across the board with its combination of borrowing and program cuts.
The online survey of 1,011 eligible voters, commissioned by the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald, shows a major shift from the positive feelings voters appeared to have about Tories in July 2012, when a poll showed more than three-quarters of Albertans believed the government was charting the right course.
It is unusual, Large said, to see such high rates of dissatisfaction just one year after an election. Usually, such feelings of resentment are reserved for governments in the waning days of a mandate.
MacEwan University political scientist Chaldeans Mensah said the poll results — coming just one year after the PCs won 61 of the legislature’s 87 seats — are a “sharp rebuke” of the government.
“The message is, people want the government to revisit the agenda they set out during the campaign, the agenda of change,” Mensah said.
Leger also asked poll participants to name the most important issue facing Alberta.
Health care retained its long-standing spot as the top priority. In April’s poll, 18 per cent of voters surveyed described health care as the most important issue, down from 26 per cent in March 2012.
Government trust and accountability was close behind, with 17 per cent calling that issue the most important, up from 15 per cent last March. A bundle of financial issues — the provincial deficit, its debt and the economy — all increased in significance, with 11 per cent of voters describing each as the most critical.
Calgary residents were more inclined to describe health care and the provincial deficit as critical issues, while more Edmonton residents listed government trust and the economy as top concerns.
Though health care still tops the list of key issues, Large said it is significant that it was nearly pushed aside by accountability and financial matters.
Voters typically list health care and education as priorities when there are no other serious concerns, he said. But right now there are many issues competing for the public’s attention. “There’s a lot of fires that the government needs to be fighting,” Large said.
The government’s financial problems are sparking many of those political fires.
“The challenge for the government budget this year, and the news it’s carrying, is it doesn’t please anyone,” Large said. “If you’re fiscally conservative, then it’s too much spending. If you’re fiscally liberal, there’s not enough spending.”
Mensah said many of the issues, and the public’s unhappiness with how they are being handled, are linked. For example, he said, a lack of confidence in the government’s ability to handle its $40-billion budget ties into an overall mistrust in government.
“Alison Redford’s promise to address accountability issues, I think, propelled her into office with the support of progressives,” Mensah said. “But I think the sustained attack by the Wildrose on some of the ethical failings of past Tory governments has really eroded that calling card of the government.”
Leger’s online survey, conducted April 9 to April 12, does not report a margin of error, but says a probability sample of such size would report a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Though the poll paints a bleak picture for the Tories, both Mensah and Large said it hints at how the government could turn public opinion around.
Mensah noted that more than 40 per cent of voters said they were satisfied with the government’s approach to taxes, oilsands development and the environment.
“There is an indication her diplomatic forays have been positive for her even at home,” Mensah said, pointing to the premier’s lobbying missions to Washington, D.C., on the Keystone XL pipeline. “If she wins this Keystone approval, that could give her a bounce in the polls, but overwhelmingly, across the board from the economy, post-secondary to health care, she’s got a lot of work to do.”
The PCs should be particularly concerned about the fact that 67 per cent of Albertans polled outside of Edmonton and Calgary say they feel the government is headed in the wrong direction, while provincewide the number stands at 63 per cent, Mensah said.
Those rural constituencies are where the Wildrose is most dangerous to the Tory dynasty, and that is where Redford needs to staunch the political bleeding, he said.
“One of the key areas to make this happen is in the finances. I think the people in rural Alberta tend to be very strong fiscal conservatives, and the government hasn’t given them indication that they are in control of that agenda,” Mensah said.
The good news for the Conservatives here is they’ve got three more years to recover, Large said.
“There’s a lot of files where the government can win in the next couple of months even.”
Original Article
Source: edmontonjournal.com
Author: Sarah O'Donnell
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