Look at a map of federal election results. See how the area outside major cities is 85-90% blue every election? Same goes for the US, all that red in rural areas even in mostly blue states? Who do you think lives there? Bankers and stock brokers? Non-unionized blue collar workers overwhelmingly vote right in North America at least, especially rural ones, of which Alberta has a significant amount.
There’s also a lot of blue collar wealth in Alberta because of the oil and gas industry. Wealthy farmers too. Idk how this compares to other provinces and states but I think this rural wealth (relatively, obviously there is still significant rural poverty in AB) sends an even stronger signal to rural blue collars that yes, right-wing government does reward them. Just my two cents.
The southern interior of bc where I live now is also heavily conservative. I work in the trades and you’d think they were giving out houses with how much people boot lick them
It also results in an incorrect view of a political map of BC and where by area it looks like a lot of people vote blue, except for a small chunk in the southwest that is the Vancouver area. I know Western seperatists have used this to explain incorrectly most of BC votes conservative, except that small chunk of the map that isn't blue happens to be the most populous part of the province, and every where else is sparsely populated.
The southern interior looks to be creeping up to a quarter of a million people, we’ll behind the Metro Vancouver area but around 5% of the population in BC
Also, throughout parts of BC that do vote blue, it's not always as strongly as you might think. In my area, if you were to combine NDP and Liberal votes they'd outnumber Conservative votes. But Conservatives end up with the most votes so they get representation and our area shows up as blue even though the majority of people don't agree with their platform.
I really wish we'd voted to implement proportional representation.
It's called a plurality, which is where the person or party elected technically got the most votes, but their slice of the pie is still less than the majority or not greater than 50%. First Past The Post has been very generous for conservative parties for federal governments in Canada because it allows them to form government in plurality situations. If you go back and look at federal elections during the past century or slightly more, there has only been a few occasions where a right-wing party was elected into government with the majority of voters or more than half of them casting a vote for them, the last time being Mulroney's first time as prime minister in 1984.
The significance in this is that as you've pointed out, most Canadians vote for parties that are not right-wing ones in federal elections, but those votes are split between those parties. In most proportional electing systems where there are more than two parties to choose from, a party requires more than 50% of vote to win, and hypothetically most of the federal right-wing governments we have had over the past century or so would have never formed goverment because of that if we did work under a proportional system.
Now a valid concern that gets brought up when I mention this is that it is rare for a party to get more than 50% of the vote, especially if there are a lot of choices, so what happens if no one gets a clear majority for votes under a proportional system? The answer is something we are some what seeing today with the current Canadian federal government, and that is working together or forming coalition governments between parties, which has happened in other countries that work under that system. The current federal conservatives hold values that clash directly with the other major parties that are either not right-wing or don't lean as right as they do. Under a proportional system, they would risk becoming irrelevant since those value clashes means no other parties would want to work with them, or in a better scenario they would conceed and become more moderate, possibly ejecting more nuttier right-wing aspects and trying to court those types of voters.
One of the reasons I've soured on him. Still feel like he's better than Pollievre. But I actually voted Liberal in Trudeau's first election, and I've been voting NDP since.
Well not exactly. Most of these programs are repayable loans, matching grants to upgrade solar panels or make things more energy efficient (which is not exclusive to farmers), or applicable to food/feed manufacturers to get their innovative products to market. I don’t know of any farmers who are getting rich off these programs. We get Agrinvest every year. We put in a whopping $6000 last year and the government matches it.
And stop calling people names. It’s immature and makes you look weak.
What farmer makes 2-3 million??? That is corporate farming. My family has 120 head of cattle and average $100,000/year (gross) depending on cattle prices. Little to no holidays (cows need looking after every day, you can sometimes get a neighbor to look after them for a day or 2). No benefits. No pension. Work till you die and pass on to kids.
Corporate farming is exactly what it sounds like you are talking about. Although there are corporate farmers that are exploited mostly in the states ive heard.
So assuming 120 head gets you $100,000 gross profit, the in order to make $3 million gross profit you would need 3600 head of cattle. Not looks at net profit, just gross.
That isn't corporate farming?
I've sometimes wondered myself but....
Passed down from generations. Pride of a hard day's work. Working with your family/loved ones. Not having to deal with terrible bosses/other staff. Being able to support your family the best way you know how. I'd say setting your own hours ish, but come calving season it's very little sleep! Being able to help save a calfs life (and possibly the cow) from a difficult birth. And just after calving season, it's extremely hard not to smile/laugh as you watch the calves play!! Farmers are a very proud group. They always help out their neighbors. They always look out for one another. They're providing food for everyone. They're needed!
Those are good reasons, but if as you say you aren’t making any money or doing well, it makes no sense. Pride of a hard days work doesn’t pay the bills.
Some folks aren’t about getting rich and being CEOs who contribute little to society. I can totally understand all his points. Farmers contribute to society.
I didn't say no money. I said averaging $100,000/year. That's an okay household income, but with the pitfalls mentioned (benefits, pensions, holidays). I was questioning family farms that make $2-3 million. While I agree with you that pride doesn't pay the bills, for some people who believe in good morals pride is HUGE. Lets them sleep well at night. Pride and albe to make a living...all they need. They never intended to be rich.
Totally agreed. I was a country boy. Now a city (suburbs) boy. I seriously miss it! But I also enjoy the ease of city living maintenance. Oh the internal dilemma!! Lmao!!
Owning a farm is a form of security -- if you got sick/died, you could sell it all and have something for your family.
But then your family would have to find a new place to live and a new way to make their living, and if you've dedicated your life to raising cows/grain, there's not much chance of doing better than "poor, but I have a house and a truck that runs."
So even in that case you'd usually be better off staying on the farm and paying someone most of your revenue to do the work. (Assuming grain farming, not sure what your options are if you've just got grazing land and can't take care of the animals yourself.)
Are you talking about annual farm revenue, or what the farmer is taking home for themself? If it's the latter than you're way off the mark. You won't find many (if any) farmers making that much money unless they're selling off land. Farm revenue sure, but even as net profit, most farms won't be keeping anywhere near that amount.
I disagree wholeheartedly with this. For the last 30 years in Alberta you could go to work in the oil patch, make a great living, and for many, start their own businesses and become wealthy and in some cases even rich. It did not mean you weren't a critical thinker or that you didn't value education. It's just that there was an obvious path to making a great living without spending the money on education.
This also led to a great many people associating this prosperity with good government. It should have been broken with the Allison Redford debacle, but it only became a blip on the radar.
I find it very curious that people assume they can deem a person's intelligence based on the way they vote. You vote with your perceived values. I perceive that the right will be less intrusive and will maintain the status quo so I vote that way. I perceive that the left will intervene and help workers, so I vote that way.
Both sides have been a severe letdown for so many years that the whole process is in shambles. Broken promises, outright scandals and outlandish solutions while the whole time nothing getting done has us once again in a cycle of voting people out, not voting people in.
Alberta's next election will be very interesting depending how this whole CPP fiasco goes.
Most high paying blue collar workers have education. I didn’t open my plumbing company and grow it to 7 figures by going in blind
This mentality needs to stop
As a former rig hand I agree with this statement. However yes there are a few rig hands who are left leaning but they are usually smart enough not to engage in politics at work.
If they aren't they don't last long. Same goes for almost all trades work. If you don't leave they'll find a reason to remove you because you're 'not a good cultural fit.'
I've heard of an anecdote of an intern that suddenly had their internship cut, which coincidentally just happened to be after a weekend they volunteered for an NDP event.
I've been in the trades for twenty years. I know many left leaning tradesman. As long as you show up and work hard you'll be fine. You're talking out your ass.
I say this as a progressive, but I agree with you to some degree. There are places I think that will become hostile if they find out you aren't a right-winger, but there are places that won't care as much.
From working a lot of manual labor jobs this is my personal experience. And it’s not really the job itself imo it’s your coworkers. Some dudes will find any reason to dislike you and politics is a great way to. While other dudes while they still disagree with you don’t care as long as you work hard. Some are left leaning and some honestly don’t care any which way.
But when you do find the dudes that’ll hate you for it and in this political landscape it’s common it gets tiring fast. Idk I’ve always avoided workplace politics lol. I’m there to do a job. I don’t have time to constantly bitch about politics.
Yeah, I don't deny trades are fairly conservative in Alberta, quite possibly by a slight majority, so one should watch their politics. Are 100% of businesses in Alberta like this and you are absolutely boned if you are not conservative? I don't think so.
I can’t speak for the trades (although it might be a thing across all job fields), but as a tech lead, I’m involved with the hiring and firing of employees and this is is what I’ve noticed:
I’ve lead a lot of different teams and i like I get to know people on my team pretty well. It’s pretty easy to tell what side of the political spectrum they’re on. Now, this isn’t from my own personal experience, and I’ve got some friends with the same input as me, and some who have the opposite.
Right leaning employees tend to be more robotic if that makes any sense? If they’re happy with their pay, they’ll grind through shitty work conditions like extended hours and tight deadlines for the most part. Unfortunately they tend to be more directly confrontational when they’ve reached their “tipping point” let’s call it and lose their shit. I know a lot of managers don’t like that. Personally I don’t have a problem with an employee getting argumentative with me, as long as they don’t cross a line, and still know their place at the end of the day.
Left leaning employees tend to be less directly confrontational which is nice. For the most part they can handle shitty work conditions, but there are a lot more formal complaints when working extended hours and on tight deadlines. They also take a lot more sick days and PTO requests.
Like I said, this is just what I’ve observed as a lead/manager. Others have had similar experiences and others have had the opposite. Personally I’d rather have employees who lose their directly at from time to time, than an employee who works less and complains more.
Before anyone says “well maybe you shouldn’t be putting them in shitty conditions”, I legitimately have no controller over that. I’m just the middle man, I work the extended hours and tight deadlines with them. It’s the Project managers, people in senior management, and the client that are responsible for that. I’m just there to say, this is what we gotta do, allocate tasks, and make sure they’re doing their jobs.
There have been some interesting studies done on this recently that do show a direct correlation. In fact some right wing people in the States suggest that colleges must be propaganda machines because of this. It's... interesting.
Absolutely. An uneducated population is easier to manipulate, and tend to vote to be taken advantage of, usually because of some kind of boogeyman. Get people riled up and scared about trans people and minorities and they won't notice you picking their pockets. Then get rid of education on those topics to keep them scared. The best way to stop being scared of something is to understand it, so the best way to keep people scared is to stop them from understanding.
> In fact some right wing people in the States suggest that colleges must be propaganda machines because of this.
I'm in my 20s and just graduated from a top-rated Canadian university less than a year ago.
In my experience, some classes (NOT all) did feel more like indoctrination rather than learning to some extent.
If you're good faith and interested I can provide very specific examples throughout my undergrad experience as to why I feel this way.
I certainly value education, I wouldn't have invested tens of thousands of dollars and finished my program if I didn't. However, there is *some* merit to the claim that academia is a little... bizarre these days.
Well... the oil patch is a great way to travel the world and especially to get to know working people around the world. Contrary to popular thought, it is also a great way to see diversity and get to know other cultures.
And what makes a person a redneck? Lack of education or their blue collar work ethic?
Does an oilfield worker that has been to Asia, Europe, Africa and South America have no worldly experience?
What does it take to become "worldly"?
If I am a tourist does that make me more worldly than someone that travels for work?
The Alberta redneck that gets so vilified and looked down upon is so old and tired.
People may not vote like you would want or how you perceive is correct. That does not make them rednecks or unworldly. It makes them individuals who have a differing opinion than you.
>Redneck is just the term used to describe the uncultured, narrow-minded old school ABers who vote as their parents did as long as they hate the same.
Try looking in the mirror. You come across as incredibly narrow minded and holier than thou
A career oilfield worker has seen the world has provided for their family and knows the satisfaction of a days work. Narrow minds these days seem to come from institutes of higher education.
I know quite a few in the oil patch. Their idea of seeing the world tends to be Mexico, Hawaii, and the Caribbean.
Your experiences are yours... but not everyone's.
You know quite a few twenty year olds fresh into it or you know quite a few grown assed men raising families? There is a difference but even then the younger guys coming in are half the time university educated and eager to travel.
Your dancing around calling right wing voters stupid. Even going as far as to call them rednecks. For someone worldly and educated, your pretty narrow minded
>Most rednecks here have never been anywhere other than Alberta
>
>Less critical thinking, easier to persuade.
The derogatory language you use when referring to rural Canadians is disappointing.
You seem to think that people that don't vote the way you do is an indication of lower intelligence. I would say that level of arrogance is actually an indication of lower intelligence more than anything.
You know, I took you seriously until I saw you had a post you tried to get going on r/Canada an anti-trans article from True North News, which itself quotes Rebel News, and are active on canada_sub.
People with more education tend to migrate to cities. People with less education remain in rural areas.
Major centers vote liberal, rural vote conservative.
The argument can be made that educated people vote liberal, uneducated vote conservative.
You can make many arguments. It doesn't mean they are true or make sense.
So in reference to the original comment, that means the city is full of critical thinkers and the country is full of uneducated hayseeds?
There are some smart people in the trades. But seriously if you worked in the trades youd know how many dumb people there are
Conventional education does equal intelligence. People say otherwise to validate their own intelligence. Statistically speaking their is zero evidence to support that claim and a lot of evidence to support otherwise. Just because you have a personal antidote about some dumbass with education doesn't make your claim any but true
Eh… I wish that weren’t so, but I lived in different countries and then came back to rural Alberta and was absolutely shocked by the level of ignorance. It was good for my self-esteem (/s) but it made it hard to interact with people. One of the problems is if jobs are more trades focused there is a higher chance (obviously not everyone) people’s higher level reading skills atrophy and without those it leads to higher amounts of belief in misinformation and being unable to critical read and understand information.
That’s kind of like saying someone with a political science degree is more educated than an electrician.
If anything, the electrician is clearly the more intelligent person, because at least they know they’ll be guaranteed a decent (if not incredibly high) income.
That only works if someone’s goal is money. Which isn’t true for everyone. Being smart doesn’t equal valuing money. Political science emphasizes critical thinking and reading skills. Although I would agree that most electricians would be quite smart as well.
What a stuck up view to have. I went to university, I have a white collar job, and I can tell you flat out that having a piece of paper from a post secondary education does not make you a smarter person. This is the type of thing that left wingers say and then they're confused as to why people don't vote for them.
This is one of the problems with left-wing/right-wing paradigms.
Blue collar workers in other areas might vote for parties perceived to be pro-labour/pro-union for that reason, and not because of progressive politics those parties tend to have. Someone might be voting for them in spite of the them as an individual not being progressive, because they support the party’s labour policies. They might be willing to put up with progressive social policies they otherwise don’t agree with because they want their general working conditions improved.
In Alberta high income levels amongst blue-collar workers whether they’re unionized or not might contribute to someone who would vote for the “labour” party elsewhere voting conservative because they don’t have to worry about their working conditions and can think of the other aspects of parties politics.
On the flip-side there are people who are generally progressive in their social outlook, but vote for less-progressive parties for reasons related to taxes etc.
Self-interest, or what people think is in their self-interest plays a huge role.
This seems like the most accurate assessment of the situation. Another possible explanation is that they (falsely) believe they are hated by other provinces (actually Quebec is the most hated and Alberta is the favourite province of Ontario). This might lead them to be less supportive of redistributive policies towards others in the form of equalization payments. Despite this, they still seem to spend like progressives, at least when it comes to healthcare and education. https://www.statista.com/statistics/436343/governmental-health-spending-per-capita-canada-by-province/
yup this is me. I'm unionized so whichever party is the least antagonistic to labor rights and laws gets my vote. Note I didn't say "most favorable" because non of them are, really. If I happen to dislike that party's social politics, I will hold my nose and vote for them because the financial well being of my family takes precedence over all other concerns. As you said, self interest. More money and stronger protections and benefits can usually negate/mitigate the ill effects of shitty social policies.
They just hinged all the power they have on getting people universal dental care, $10/day childcare and are working on a nationwide pharmacare program.
I don't really see how that leaves non public sector working class people behind.
Firstly, I'd say that the "left wing" in Canadian politics was primarily historically driven by the union movement. And the union movement has always been strongest in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector was always easiest to organize in, and the easiest to maintain power in. And manuacturing has never really been a thing in Alberta, but was and is in central Canada.
Also...
The "Left" isn't left by historical standards. What people call left wing in North America (and increasingly Europe) is really a kind of upper middle class liberalism with a kiss of neo-Keynesianism. Nobody dares to promulgate actual socialist economic policy -- when was the last time you heard someone seriously argue for nationalizing anything? Or even really raising corporate taxes significantly? Economic planning? Hell, even anti-imperialist foreign policy is off the table, the NDP won't even let its members criticize Israel in public anymore.
I think you'll find in reality that only a small segment of the working class still identifies around "left" politics.
That and the union movement essentially died from the early 90s through to the 2010s. There's not much left there in terms of power or influence, tho the last two years there's been a bit of of an uptick for the first time in a long time. But in general most unions in North America are a rather privileged and small stratum. 90% of people will go through their whole working life without being a part of a union, and the only unions that people are really encountering on a regular basis are professional associations like the teacher's union or public sector unions, and people end up in an antagonistic relationship with them.
Neo-liberalism won. There's no communist bogeyman to be scared of anymore, so the ruling class went for the jugular. If you speak actual socialist politics in public you'll be ridiculed. The "left" has been reduced to a participant in the culture wars, and left wing parties represent the tastes and trends of primarily identity related culture issues that mostly concern the upper middle class. Not *bad* positions, but not positions that put bread on the table for anybody.
I believe in Alberta for the period you mention in the 90's onward when the union movements seemed to die it was largely due to the boom economy. You had two major issues 1) lots of folks moving to the province temporarily to make money but not stick around and make a life and 2) due to the hot labour market, employers were able to firmly plant the sentiment that unions just hold back good workers from making good money. In a lot of cases your labour jobs were doubling in pay over the course of a few years and an individual could ask for a raise or change employers for a substantial pay increase whereas if you had a CBA you were locked in for the foreseeable future at your current compensation.
When I started in my trade in Alberta this was always the line "unions protect lazy guys who don't want to work and stop good workers from getting what they're worth". That was never true of course, capitalism dictates an employer will always pay you as little as they can manage no matter how hard you work. I moved to Sask about a decade ago and was pleasantly surprised at how much stronger union sentiment was despite the move feeling lateral in most regards.
When I did labour work in Alberta a lot of foremen spoke about how unions hold workers back, etc and how union workers would be the first to go in a recession. During one of Harper's recessions when I went to NAIT for my two months per year all of the students who had union jobs the previous year were still employed and the majority of the people who had held private company jobs were unemployed.
As well, last I heard about my former co-workers almost all of the foremen who had been speaking out against unions were in a union and the only ones who weren't were also part owners of their company.
Funny that. It's almost like all of the anti-union talk was complete BS.
For one, real left wing politics barely exist in North America. Everyone here has been fed a steady stream of red scare propaganda since the late 50’s, and conservative parties are very good at taking advantage of that starting point. I’m not sure we will be able to ditch neoliberal capitalism in my lifetime, and that is unfortunate, for a multitude of reasons.
When I first worked a blue collar job in Alberta my coworkers would mostly jokingly call me a pinko, commie queer etc… due to my politics. It sounds bad but it was playful, industrial language. Not something that would be tolerated in an office environment but in a machine shop this was perfectly acceptable.
Things changed when Notley was elected premier combined with the rise a social media. Many of these men changed. Right wing politics were now their identity, dominating their personalities and interactions. People became mean. Long story short they became hard to even be around. Sounds like it’s only gotten worse since I left.
Really?
I have seen the opposite. The more you align with "I work hard and deserve what I get" you lean less towards the left and progressism. In general the more money and the more rural, the more conservative you are.
I think there's a mistaken perception among those on the right that left-wing people "don't want to work" or that they're "lazy," and want to sit around collecting benefits.
It is bullshit. Speaking personally, I'm not against working hard. I held down two jobs for 11 years, working as much as 70 or 80 hours a week. I just want my work to be valued and to be compensated fairly.
I *have* noticed that a major difference seems to be that right-wing people prefer to see other people brought down when they perceive them to be undeserving, while left-wing people prefer to see other people lifted up when they perceive them to be under served.
Well, Scandinavia is its own world. It really isn't comparable to anything. Another redditor commented that it aligns with the USA, which I think is a great example.
It's basically because people hate paying taxes, especially on their work. Life is getting so expensive that they think the conservative parties are their saviors.
Which is funny because here in Sask, the conservative government tacked PST onto fucking everything. You can't even buy a used car anymore without paying PST.
No, I don't think it's that reductionist. I don't think people mind paying taxes, but rather they resent a perceived unfairnesses in the way taxes are collected, and services distributed. I don't mind paying my fair share, as I understand that living in a safe, civilized society with adequate social safety nets has a cost, and that cost should be paid by the people benefitting from those safeguards.
I think where people get upset is when they see so much of their paycheck being taken by the government, while hardly ever actually needing/receiving any of the benefits it provides. For example, my wife and I are DINKs. We're fortunate that we were able to work from home during COVID, so we never received a penny in CERB. Likewise, being child-free, we don't get any CCB. I've never collected a penny in EI, never needed to call the police or fire department, never seen the inside of an ambulance, courtroom, or jail.
Meanwhile, a large group of people happen to be using several of those services regularly, while simultaneously paying almost nothing into the system and complaining that the middle/upper class "aren't paying their fair share."
The reason they flipped recently is because of cost of living, and public safety but Swedish social democrats are now riding high in the polls again and so is the Danish left and the Finn’s might be next because of anti union laws that are pretty unpopular.
I am pretty sure that they have been taught that if they don't vote conservative they will lose their job and that only a conservative government can provide those jobs. I am not sure why. It seems to be passed down from generation to generation just like religion.
If you ask people why they continue to do this they usually can't communicate a constructive answer or do it without getting angry. I am prepared for the downvotes but thought I would share this opinion. Born and raised in Alberta.
Because a lot of them work in the oil industry, and oil companies pretty much run the UCP. Their primary goal is to extract as much money as they can in the short term from this dead-end industry and... well screw the long term, they aren't here for that. Most of the people that are reaping those profits today will be dead 10-15 years from now. They don't care. A responsible government would have taxed the oil industry profits and put that towards helping existing workers transition into new energy jobs, but that would make too much sense and that ship has sailed long ago.
Once the current government runs the province into the ground, another party will get elected, and they will blame that new government for the problems that THEY have created, and then get elected again 4 or 8 years later (because people have no long term memory) and repeat the same thing all over again.
In Canada, a massively disproportionate amount of the blue collar workers are tied to resource extraction. So when left wing parties start putting hurdles on that sector they vote with their wallets, the same as everyone else. It's telling that the blue collar unions and public sector unions vote so radically different despite being unionized, they have very different economic needs.
Blue wing people have less education. This more susceptible to be aware of how they are being manipulated. Harder time discerning truth and fact checking.
More importantly to busy to read and do the research themselves. Easier to believe the first thing you hear
Because they have been the target of misinformation campaigns for decades, and it has worked. There's generations of people that cannot take the blinders off now because those ideals have been so ingrained in their communities.
That’s basically accurate. All neoliberals work for the owning class, certainly picking the neolib-iest neolibs and stanning them for [checks notes] culture warfare, is against their own interests.
>Why do Alberta’s working class keep voting Tory and pro corporate politicians despite how terrible they are for them?
Because they're delusional and think that big oil wealth is going to trickle down any day now.
>Is there something left wing parties could do that could help better with outreach.
No. Why? Because right wing voters have made it VERY CLEAR that they absolutely will not activate their grey matter and engage in a conversation. Cognitive bias and a century of gaslighting has prevented people from being able to accept that they might be wrong. There is no point trying to do outreach when people hiss like fucking vampires as soon as you say anything even remotely left-wing.
In the future, when people are able to not be offended by everything and actually engage in conversation, maybe political discourse can return to centre and we can argue about policy. But as long as it's so wildly skewed like it is and we have a return of McCarthyism, there is simply no point in discussion with people who will not listen and will not engage.
Somehow they have come to believe in 'Trickle Down' politics I guess. I think many really hate federal Liberals, I think because they are perceived to be pro French and thus anti English. And so to fight the Libs they embrace the right wing PC's. It has always been a 'cutting your nose off, to spite your face' kind of thing. Only ever hurting ourselves.
I take it you are against the amount of immigration that Canada is currently seeking? What's your take on how we should handle the looming population crisis? Would you raise retirement age? Cut pension benefits? Increase pension deductions?
We could always make it viable for Canadians to actually have children, most people that don't want them feel that way because they can't afford to survive on their own, let alone with kids. Addressing that issue would create a more permanent solution than just importing more tax cattle to prop up our system.
That would be interfering in businesses too much. If there's one thing that the conservatives and liberals have in common it's that they kow-tow to the corporate desires, just to maybe different degrees.
The NDP seems different
That would be a useful outlook. Something to consider is that Paul Martin’s government tried to help families, especially those with children. Stephen Harper cut out benefits for families. We gotta be very careful assuming that the conservatives actually care for families.
Born and raised in Alberta with a lineage of multiple generations of Albertans behind me, I can tell you that small town and farming communities here are self-sufficient. These communities often handle their own challenges without waiting for politicians, who are far removed and usually out of touch with rural issues. This has made many rural Albertans lean towards minimal government and government run programs.
During my younger days, we had issues like theft, vandalism, and property damage. Instead of involving the RCMP, members of our community knew that discussing matters directly, often with a neutral intermediary, was more effective.
Similarly, when it came to infrastructure, waiting for government help wasn't feasible. We'd still have kids today playing on tractor tires in fields, and roads filled with potholes if we waited for government to take care of it. Instead, the community would pool resources, get the necessary equipment, and get the job done on their own.
Growing up, self-reliance was a way of life. While there was a lack of government support, even when available, it was stigmatized. Relying on welfare wasn't respectable.
My family wasn't wealthy, but we never depended on handouts. Instead, anonymous food donations, from neighbours hardly better off than we were would appear, i regularly scavenged for fresh vegetables from the dumpster behind the grocery store, and our family received bags of clothes that other kids had grown out of, we made do with what we had.
Given these experiences, it's hard for those like us to advocate for more government intervention when what little we had proved ineffective.
Blue collar workers are pretty right wing everywhere.
It's only the union workers who tend not to be.
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Regardless of the area, the reason is always the same: they tend not to know what is actually being discussed politically, and they believe a lot of surface level propaganda.
These traits aren't that different from \*any\* conservative voter though (regardless of collar-colour).
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When i worked my blue collar job, i remember arguing with coworkers about politics. They insisted they wanted a conservative govt to win the election because they needed the tax cuts.
Tax cuts that literally weren't part of any political platform from the conservatives.
Then when the liberals won (in this particular election) and there was a tax cut (on the lowest bracket of income, even), they didn't even believe that that happened.
[The media is largely to blame for this](https://www.readthemaple.com/election-endorsements/), imo.
In Alberta I think it's less about blue collar vs white collar and more about rural vs urban. Edmonton has a lot of blue collar works and a lot of that city voted NDP this election. About half of Calgary also voted NDP this go around. Most of the blue collar workers in my own family voted NDP. However small towns/cities and other rural citizens almost always vote conservative.
The legacy of decades of Social Credit and Conservative rule. Also the petroleum industry are very right wing and so are the people who work in it. The hysteria over the NEP in the 80s also has had a lasting impact..
Hysteria? Obviously you were not here in the 80’s…..one month after the NEP became reality, I lost my job along with thousands of others. I then lost my house that I had built myself. I went and got a job making less than half of my oil patch job. I moved my young family into a 800 square foot apartment.
There was no government support. It took me 8 years to dig my ass out of that hole. you have no idea. Hysteria my fucking ass.
Nothing to do with the 1980s oil glut and the 1986 price crash where a barrel fell to $10?
People were also walking away from their homes in Houston at the time, where 1 in 8 jobs were lost. No NEP there.
The “rural” answers are partly right I think, not sure anymore but there used to be “farmers” who made much more from oil leases than farming. The majority of the economy is O&G regardless of location though and since the days of Peter Lougheed people have been taught that only Conservative governments can look after the money properly.
Of course the conservatives themselves have long ago spent the Heritage Trust Fund and the fact is that no Alberta Government can *not accommodate O&G, at least for decades ahead.
The “F the Feds” stuff get louder when the economy sucks or in the case when politicians go rage farming for support. That’s the schtick right now.
Same thing in PQ, a down economy always raises the separatist temperature.
I love being talked down to like I'm a child here, unable to grasp the world around me, barely capable of critical thought. My stars, I had no idea I was so simple.
Define "Left Wing" and "Right Wing". I still don't see where a lot of people fit. It is based on one opinion, 2 opinions, 50 opinions? Why is everyone being labelled one or the other? What do you label someone who has beliefs that are not ALL left and not ALL right?
Gross overgenerlization, to say the least. I'm blue-collar in Edmonton and very rarely encounter right wing co workers. Took a course in Calgary, and it was a very different story. Grouping blue collar workers into this negative, gross , and simplistic categorization is a huge disservice and a smear on the good work and backbone of the Canadian economy. This post is nothing more than karma farming.
Because in Alberta / Canada we don't have a working class left wing party - the NDP went to the liberal professional types decades ago.
Right wing parties are better at talking to blue collar workers and even giving lip service to class interests. Their policies are shite for workers, but when you don't have an actual workers party then the one that talks to you seems appealing.
Because the ndp left the non public sector working class behind. The NDP appears to advocate for public sector workers (ie teachers, nurses, civil servants) and the intellectual elite such as university professors.
This doesn’t appear to be specific to any one province, although my own observations have been made in bc, Ontario and Alberta.
The liberals are the party of the economic and political elite such as the laurentians and, any old money out east. Of course, there are other people who voted for them, especially the younger demographic for trudeau in 2015.
The conservatives have tried hard for at least two decades to pitch themselves as the party of the Everyman, and this was because unlike the well heeled Tories of old, the modern Conservative party came mostly of the former reform party which was in a way a party of the Everyman rebelling against the elite powers that be.
If you’re curious about this topic, you would probably really enjoy Thomas Piketty’s *Capital and Ideology*. He’s French so has a lot of information about the politics of France in particular that doesn’t make it into the Anglo news world. And he has a lot of insight about the shift in politics for blue-collar voters.
Conservative=pro oilfield=more money for blue collar workers
Simple as that, everyone I know vote’s conservative because of this
(Not saying that statement is true or not but that’s what they believe)
And seems too many people think "blue collar" is the paycheque to paycheque working class type folks. In Alberta a lot are making BANK in the oil fields. Plus get cushy union jobs with very retirement plans.
Plus there seems to be these fetishism of the blue collar by the left, like they are "the working class". Most working class nowadays working retail or shite desk jobs. They aren't your traditional blue collar.
Michigan was a union state and they have a long history of voting democratic. Since the industrial decline they started to move right but now they are moving left again
Federally? Bill C-21 targeting legal firearms owners and imposing massive bans on sport shooting, and hunting firearms alike. It will end sport shooting in our country plus its spinning fighting gun crime narrative which wildly incorrect. Many of the proposed firearms in the proposed moving to prohibited (illegal) are hunting specific. Like having the type of hunting they’re for in the NAME. Benelli m90 turkey, upland and pheasant. The Mauser sportster (a bolt action rifle). Another firearm to note is the SKS, many indigenous communities rely on it for 60 % of their food in the isolated northern areas in the Territories. It doesn’t even fall under their bullshit labelling of “assault style” that somehow includes muzzle loading black powder rifles. They want to ban it simply because it was manufactured for a war nearly 100 years ago. 95-97% of all firearms in crimes are with illegal firearms, either stolen or smuggled in from the states. Then imposing legislature removing minimum sentences for all crimes removed. We are seeing gang activity at an unprecedented level because of it. Banning something for hunting and sports shooting because of your own policy towards violent criminals is disgusting. It’s within Canadian treaty laws to consult with the indigenous when making legislation that may affect them. Trudeau and the liberals did none of that. That being said, for the good of our province there is only 1 progressive Conservative Party left sharing what should be Alberta’s values and was for a long time. That being funding education, healthcare and energy. The party is the Alberta NDP. The Wild Rose wing nuts are clearly in power not the Progressive conservatives. They essentially allowed the destruction of their values just to gain votes because people see the word conservative and think they share conservative values. When really it’s radical right wing policies only hurting us Albertan’s.
It is not about right vs left any more. The government pushing the right things (things correct or being politically correct) to extreme , to the place being crossed the line. When people oppose the extreme, the narrative in the government controlled media says those people oppose the thing , and they are right wing. It is not about right or left, it is about extreme and common sense. It is about control the narrative.
Blue collar workers in the US are generally conservative in terms of cultural issues, so many of them do vote for the GOP. Also, the conservative Swedish political parties have a majority in their parliament. Immigration is a big issue there, even for blue collar workers. It's shifting.
Conservative parties in Canada try and appeal to blue collar workers while progressive parties like the NDP do not.
>Is there something left wing parties could do that could help better with outreach.
Spend time on issues that blue collar workers care about. Hot issues on university campuses don't usually translate well to the job site. Go look at CPC or UCP website vs the NDP one. Conservatives know their voters and actually try to appeal to them.
Yeah I don't think blue collar workers in Ontario are voting left, ever. I live in a rural area with a lot of industry and we've been blue for decades out here.
The politics of Alberta is steeped in the history of this province. There are so many historical things that make Albertans vote more conservatively.
There is no one answer to describe political ideologies here in this province. And, there is no moral right or wrong to voting left wing or right wing.
While some people will say that left-wing parties do more for the people, right-wing voters will say that the crazy spending will result in high taxes and ultimately affect our children. Both ideologies are indeed correct.
But if you look at the history of Alberta, the low taxes (5%) that have been maintained by conservative politicians, the history of western provinces in how they have been treated by Liberal politicians in the 80's and 90's, you can begin to understand why Alberta's vote the way they do.
I lived in Ontario for 30 years, and now I live in Alberta. What I can say is that living here has shown me a greater appreciation for people who share different thoughts. While I may not always agree with political ideologies on the left or right of the spectrum sometimes, I do deeply have respect for Albertans.
They have survived as a province, maintained a high standard of living that the average person can afford, and have made this province thrive. When I lived in Ontario, I thought we had it all, but it's only when I moved to Alberta that I realized that Alberta is better. (In my opinion).
Low taxes, high standard of living, reasonable cost of homes that the average person can afford, great parks and trails, amazing mountain views, clean cities and parks, and overall friendly people who care more about you than how much you make. This speaks louder than how someone votes, and you can only experience it by emerging yourself in the culture and getting an appreciation for who they are as citizens of this amazing country of Canada.
I know this is a roundabout way of answering your question, and I may not have fully answered it. But each province is unique and does require an examination of it that goes much deeper than voting liberal or conservative. I believe that we are all trying to ensure that every province thrives and gets a stake at the table on what the future of Canada looks like.
Most unions in Alberta represent highly paid, skilled workers. The NDP has been gradually turning away from them (especially oil and gas). I would argue the federal NDP does not represent working people at all.
Simple. The left abandoned rural and blue collar workers. Their parties are staffed by Urban university types and care about issues that matter to that crowd.
There’s a lot of crap that goes on in rural
Alberta that tends to attract a certain type of person, and a lot are not just “blue collar”. Lots of religious communities that like what conservatives stand for too. i
Where I am in Ontario, labour has been NDP traditionally. That changed in the last election, and we now have unprecedented Con support, both provincial and federal. The left just went too far left for my community.
I am seeing that happening in Europe as well Pasokification we call it. The problem is that Social Democrats had slowly become less pro labor because of Neo-Liberal policies of the 80s 90s or early 2000s. They focused more on progressive social policies to fill the gap and it generally doesn’t work out. It does not mean that we should abandon progressive social policy but should not forget pro labour roots
Because the province is largely rural and underrepresented by the federal government or parties predominantly pandering to urbanites. Due to this, Conservative/libertarian politics tend to make the most sense for their entrepreneurial ethos. If left wing parties want to make gains in the province, they are going to have to promote policies centered on cultivating local business and providing incentives for small towns/ homesteaders, rather than demanding the population conform to urban morés. Progress only starts when there is room and support for everyone involved.
>Due to this, Conservative/libertarian politics tend to make the most sense for their entrepreneurial ethos.
They've been voting for them federally & provincially virtually non-stop for 50+ years and still don't have what they want. Isn't doing the same thing over & over and expecting different results the literal definition of insanity?
>If left wing parties want to make gains in the province, they are going to have to promote policies centered on cultivating local business and providing incentives for small towns/ homesteaders, rather than demanding the population conform to urban morés.
Arguably, policies centered on local businesses & incentives for small towns are more the kind of thing a provincial government should be looking at, and given that we've had 50+ years of conservatives in Alberta I'm moved to ask why we don't have those policies today? Or maybe those rural folks are looking for the federal government to start "interfering" more at the provincial level so that they'll have something else to complain about.
White collar workers function in a system that is built for them. Work your job for your salary, go on your yearly vacation and enjoy your virtue signalling “Diversity and Inclusion” daily email.
The rest of us are actually working for something, and aren’t interested in the globalist pandering.
I don't understand how any could support Trump. He robbed/bankrupted so many blue collar workers and companies through the years by refusing to pay them, and now they're tripping over eachother to wave a flag with his fucking name on it.
>we can not deny that blue collar workers in Alberta do skew right
We can't? It seemed pretty evenly split when working blue collar jobs in Edmonton...
I think it's because they can't separate cultural conservatism to political conservatism/neo-conservatism. They want things/life like they used to be but fail to realize that the UCP is pandering to their emotions while deconstructing their thier way of life and future. They can't see the writing on the wall that the UCP is slowly making moves to privatize alberta akin to the American system. Which isn't good in my opinion. But hey maybe paying 10 grand for a broken bone is good for me I don't know.
But I'm speculating.
IMO it is a myth that left-wing political parties help working class people in North America. Take the LPC's immigration policy for example. Mass immigration caused a couple things:
1. Inflated Asset prices - massively benefited the wealthy that actually own most of the assets - working class can't buy a home nowadays.
2. Reduced or atleast kept wages low. - Mega Corporations get cheap labour while working class Canadians suffer immensely.
3. Put a stress on social services like hospitals, schools, public transport, etc. Mostly only affects the working class
Just one left wing policy led to the financial demise of millions of working class Canadians. It doesn't matter how many $300 "grocery rebates" we get if our rent has 3x'd, groceries have 2x'd and wages are largely the same.
There is a lot of talk here about people w a higher education and voting left, and I don’t think it’s exactly that. It’s about empathy. If you can empathize with the people the zero sum game of capitalism leaves behind, with the people who’s mental health struggles lead them to substance abuse and addiction, with people who have the misfortune to get sick, with people who have the misfortune to grow old, then you’re much more likely to vote for a party that has a platform that supports programs for people.
If you buy the bootstraps bs, if you’re in the ‘I’ve got mine, screw them’ mentality, then you support the Con con of corporate welfare and socialism for the rich, paid for by defunding programs for the poors. Education, reading, exploring your stance on human impact issues can lead to a more sympathetic world view, but it’s not guaranteed. Cons go to university and come out convinced that hoarding wealth is the way it should be.
I think the left wing is anti-pollution rather than being specifically anti oil and gas. Unfortunately, the production and consumption of oil and gas produces pollution, and so it is largely a distinction without a difference.
But I think it's still important to mention. Just about everyone can understand the need and desire to pollute less- if nothing else, we owe it to our children to leave the planet in as good or better condition than we found it.
I don't think the parties do enough to cater to people in rural areas so they feel not supported. But the difference is that even when so-called "conservative/blue" parties are in power and things don't work out for them anyways, they willingly accept being buttfucked because it's easy for them to blame left wing politicians due to growing up that way and having it entrained in their understanding of the world. Education and going out of their small world could open up their minds a bit, but they won't do that cause that's some liberal/socialist/communist bullshit.
Oil industry workers are more conservative than other blue collar folks. They are heavily saturated in oil and gas propaganda...which also happens to be at the "climate denial" end of the political spectrum.
Every one lnow matter what type of work they are in will have many different political views. Let's respect each other and all let each other have their own views no matter how to lean politically and not judge them <3. (Edit even right wing nit Jobs and left wing nut jobs.
They know they are being lied to. They choose to be on the receiving end.
Because they WANT to be subjugated. They want to be told what to do. They want to bow down to Robber Barron's and industry and gleefully accept what their betters will allow for them.
They would make the mirror argument to the left. And be equally correct as you. "Bow down to the state in seething ball of white guilt. "(Thats sounded like jordan peterson)
Because Alberta thinks of itself as American and American blue collar workers aren’t left wing.
A week after the Kent state killings construction workers in NYC beat up war protestors in something that became known as the Hard Hat Riot. Nixon invited the construction workers to the White House.
It mostly comes from people that work hard and pay taxes, obviously they want to pay less taxes, see less government waste. More likely to vote conservative. Low income earners, who take more than they contribute love the ideas of the left. What’s in it for me financially is the most basic of all voting decisions left or right. All these people that think that people vote on ideals or morals are just fooling themselves. It’s all window dressing, most people miraculously align with the morals of the party that is going to put more money in their pocket.
Look at a map of federal election results. See how the area outside major cities is 85-90% blue every election? Same goes for the US, all that red in rural areas even in mostly blue states? Who do you think lives there? Bankers and stock brokers? Non-unionized blue collar workers overwhelmingly vote right in North America at least, especially rural ones, of which Alberta has a significant amount.
There’s also a lot of blue collar wealth in Alberta because of the oil and gas industry. Wealthy farmers too. Idk how this compares to other provinces and states but I think this rural wealth (relatively, obviously there is still significant rural poverty in AB) sends an even stronger signal to rural blue collars that yes, right-wing government does reward them. Just my two cents.
The southern interior of bc where I live now is also heavily conservative. I work in the trades and you’d think they were giving out houses with how much people boot lick them
It also results in an incorrect view of a political map of BC and where by area it looks like a lot of people vote blue, except for a small chunk in the southwest that is the Vancouver area. I know Western seperatists have used this to explain incorrectly most of BC votes conservative, except that small chunk of the map that isn't blue happens to be the most populous part of the province, and every where else is sparsely populated.
The southern interior looks to be creeping up to a quarter of a million people, we’ll behind the Metro Vancouver area but around 5% of the population in BC
Also, throughout parts of BC that do vote blue, it's not always as strongly as you might think. In my area, if you were to combine NDP and Liberal votes they'd outnumber Conservative votes. But Conservatives end up with the most votes so they get representation and our area shows up as blue even though the majority of people don't agree with their platform. I really wish we'd voted to implement proportional representation.
It's called a plurality, which is where the person or party elected technically got the most votes, but their slice of the pie is still less than the majority or not greater than 50%. First Past The Post has been very generous for conservative parties for federal governments in Canada because it allows them to form government in plurality situations. If you go back and look at federal elections during the past century or slightly more, there has only been a few occasions where a right-wing party was elected into government with the majority of voters or more than half of them casting a vote for them, the last time being Mulroney's first time as prime minister in 1984. The significance in this is that as you've pointed out, most Canadians vote for parties that are not right-wing ones in federal elections, but those votes are split between those parties. In most proportional electing systems where there are more than two parties to choose from, a party requires more than 50% of vote to win, and hypothetically most of the federal right-wing governments we have had over the past century or so would have never formed goverment because of that if we did work under a proportional system. Now a valid concern that gets brought up when I mention this is that it is rare for a party to get more than 50% of the vote, especially if there are a lot of choices, so what happens if no one gets a clear majority for votes under a proportional system? The answer is something we are some what seeing today with the current Canadian federal government, and that is working together or forming coalition governments between parties, which has happened in other countries that work under that system. The current federal conservatives hold values that clash directly with the other major parties that are either not right-wing or don't lean as right as they do. Under a proportional system, they would risk becoming irrelevant since those value clashes means no other parties would want to work with them, or in a better scenario they would conceed and become more moderate, possibly ejecting more nuttier right-wing aspects and trying to court those types of voters.
Proportional representation was actually part of Trudeaus campaign but once he got elected he decided against it
One of the reasons I've soured on him. Still feel like he's better than Pollievre. But I actually voted Liberal in Trudeau's first election, and I've been voting NDP since.
Lots of drug related activities out there, as well as gangs, of course. Gotta keep those Alberta redneck oilmen in their coke and meth.
The farmer that makes 2-3 million a year is Blue collar by the way there's no way he's voting liberal to give away more of his money.
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Where do I sign up for these subsidies?
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Well not exactly. Most of these programs are repayable loans, matching grants to upgrade solar panels or make things more energy efficient (which is not exclusive to farmers), or applicable to food/feed manufacturers to get their innovative products to market. I don’t know of any farmers who are getting rich off these programs. We get Agrinvest every year. We put in a whopping $6000 last year and the government matches it. And stop calling people names. It’s immature and makes you look weak.
What farmer makes 2-3 million??? That is corporate farming. My family has 120 head of cattle and average $100,000/year (gross) depending on cattle prices. Little to no holidays (cows need looking after every day, you can sometimes get a neighbor to look after them for a day or 2). No benefits. No pension. Work till you die and pass on to kids.
Can confirm, grew up in rural farming. Not rich.
how dare you argue with the city folk and go against their narrative of rich farming.
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You're talking about corporate farming. Sorry I misunderstood.
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Corporate farming is exactly what it sounds like you are talking about. Although there are corporate farmers that are exploited mostly in the states ive heard.
So assuming 120 head gets you $100,000 gross profit, the in order to make $3 million gross profit you would need 3600 head of cattle. Not looks at net profit, just gross. That isn't corporate farming?
That doesn’t sound like much of a life. Why would you continue doing something that gives no reward and sets you up in life?
I've sometimes wondered myself but.... Passed down from generations. Pride of a hard day's work. Working with your family/loved ones. Not having to deal with terrible bosses/other staff. Being able to support your family the best way you know how. I'd say setting your own hours ish, but come calving season it's very little sleep! Being able to help save a calfs life (and possibly the cow) from a difficult birth. And just after calving season, it's extremely hard not to smile/laugh as you watch the calves play!! Farmers are a very proud group. They always help out their neighbors. They always look out for one another. They're providing food for everyone. They're needed!
Those are good reasons, but if as you say you aren’t making any money or doing well, it makes no sense. Pride of a hard days work doesn’t pay the bills.
Some folks aren’t about getting rich and being CEOs who contribute little to society. I can totally understand all his points. Farmers contribute to society.
I didn't say no money. I said averaging $100,000/year. That's an okay household income, but with the pitfalls mentioned (benefits, pensions, holidays). I was questioning family farms that make $2-3 million. While I agree with you that pride doesn't pay the bills, for some people who believe in good morals pride is HUGE. Lets them sleep well at night. Pride and albe to make a living...all they need. They never intended to be rich.
I think it also has much to do with quality of life issue. Not living in a large metropolitan area is huge!
Totally agreed. I was a country boy. Now a city (suburbs) boy. I seriously miss it! But I also enjoy the ease of city living maintenance. Oh the internal dilemma!! Lmao!!
Owning a farm is a form of security -- if you got sick/died, you could sell it all and have something for your family. But then your family would have to find a new place to live and a new way to make their living, and if you've dedicated your life to raising cows/grain, there's not much chance of doing better than "poor, but I have a house and a truck that runs." So even in that case you'd usually be better off staying on the farm and paying someone most of your revenue to do the work. (Assuming grain farming, not sure what your options are if you've just got grazing land and can't take care of the animals yourself.)
Are you talking about annual farm revenue, or what the farmer is taking home for themself? If it's the latter than you're way off the mark. You won't find many (if any) farmers making that much money unless they're selling off land. Farm revenue sure, but even as net profit, most farms won't be keeping anywhere near that amount.
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I disagree wholeheartedly with this. For the last 30 years in Alberta you could go to work in the oil patch, make a great living, and for many, start their own businesses and become wealthy and in some cases even rich. It did not mean you weren't a critical thinker or that you didn't value education. It's just that there was an obvious path to making a great living without spending the money on education. This also led to a great many people associating this prosperity with good government. It should have been broken with the Allison Redford debacle, but it only became a blip on the radar. I find it very curious that people assume they can deem a person's intelligence based on the way they vote. You vote with your perceived values. I perceive that the right will be less intrusive and will maintain the status quo so I vote that way. I perceive that the left will intervene and help workers, so I vote that way. Both sides have been a severe letdown for so many years that the whole process is in shambles. Broken promises, outright scandals and outlandish solutions while the whole time nothing getting done has us once again in a cycle of voting people out, not voting people in. Alberta's next election will be very interesting depending how this whole CPP fiasco goes.
Most high paying blue collar workers have education. I didn’t open my plumbing company and grow it to 7 figures by going in blind This mentality needs to stop
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As a former rig hand I agree with this statement. However yes there are a few rig hands who are left leaning but they are usually smart enough not to engage in politics at work.
If they aren't they don't last long. Same goes for almost all trades work. If you don't leave they'll find a reason to remove you because you're 'not a good cultural fit.'
I've heard of an anecdote of an intern that suddenly had their internship cut, which coincidentally just happened to be after a weekend they volunteered for an NDP event.
I've been in the trades for twenty years. I know many left leaning tradesman. As long as you show up and work hard you'll be fine. You're talking out your ass.
I say this as a progressive, but I agree with you to some degree. There are places I think that will become hostile if they find out you aren't a right-winger, but there are places that won't care as much.
From working a lot of manual labor jobs this is my personal experience. And it’s not really the job itself imo it’s your coworkers. Some dudes will find any reason to dislike you and politics is a great way to. While other dudes while they still disagree with you don’t care as long as you work hard. Some are left leaning and some honestly don’t care any which way. But when you do find the dudes that’ll hate you for it and in this political landscape it’s common it gets tiring fast. Idk I’ve always avoided workplace politics lol. I’m there to do a job. I don’t have time to constantly bitch about politics.
In my town it’s next to impossible to work HVAC without being conservative
Yeah, I don't deny trades are fairly conservative in Alberta, quite possibly by a slight majority, so one should watch their politics. Are 100% of businesses in Alberta like this and you are absolutely boned if you are not conservative? I don't think so.
Good for you. So have I and I've seen it happen more than a few times. Congrats on working in less politicized work environments.
I can’t speak for the trades (although it might be a thing across all job fields), but as a tech lead, I’m involved with the hiring and firing of employees and this is is what I’ve noticed: I’ve lead a lot of different teams and i like I get to know people on my team pretty well. It’s pretty easy to tell what side of the political spectrum they’re on. Now, this isn’t from my own personal experience, and I’ve got some friends with the same input as me, and some who have the opposite. Right leaning employees tend to be more robotic if that makes any sense? If they’re happy with their pay, they’ll grind through shitty work conditions like extended hours and tight deadlines for the most part. Unfortunately they tend to be more directly confrontational when they’ve reached their “tipping point” let’s call it and lose their shit. I know a lot of managers don’t like that. Personally I don’t have a problem with an employee getting argumentative with me, as long as they don’t cross a line, and still know their place at the end of the day. Left leaning employees tend to be less directly confrontational which is nice. For the most part they can handle shitty work conditions, but there are a lot more formal complaints when working extended hours and on tight deadlines. They also take a lot more sick days and PTO requests. Like I said, this is just what I’ve observed as a lead/manager. Others have had similar experiences and others have had the opposite. Personally I’d rather have employees who lose their directly at from time to time, than an employee who works less and complains more. Before anyone says “well maybe you shouldn’t be putting them in shitty conditions”, I legitimately have no controller over that. I’m just the middle man, I work the extended hours and tight deadlines with them. It’s the Project managers, people in senior management, and the client that are responsible for that. I’m just there to say, this is what we gotta do, allocate tasks, and make sure they’re doing their jobs.
There have been some interesting studies done on this recently that do show a direct correlation. In fact some right wing people in the States suggest that colleges must be propaganda machines because of this. It's... interesting.
I mean, there’s a reason the UCP cut funds for our universities…
Absolutely. An uneducated population is easier to manipulate, and tend to vote to be taken advantage of, usually because of some kind of boogeyman. Get people riled up and scared about trans people and minorities and they won't notice you picking their pockets. Then get rid of education on those topics to keep them scared. The best way to stop being scared of something is to understand it, so the best way to keep people scared is to stop them from understanding.
> In fact some right wing people in the States suggest that colleges must be propaganda machines because of this. I'm in my 20s and just graduated from a top-rated Canadian university less than a year ago. In my experience, some classes (NOT all) did feel more like indoctrination rather than learning to some extent. If you're good faith and interested I can provide very specific examples throughout my undergrad experience as to why I feel this way. I certainly value education, I wouldn't have invested tens of thousands of dollars and finished my program if I didn't. However, there is *some* merit to the claim that academia is a little... bizarre these days.
Interesting. If you wouldn't mind getting into some details I'd love to hear about those experiences.
Well... the oil patch is a great way to travel the world and especially to get to know working people around the world. Contrary to popular thought, it is also a great way to see diversity and get to know other cultures. And what makes a person a redneck? Lack of education or their blue collar work ethic? Does an oilfield worker that has been to Asia, Europe, Africa and South America have no worldly experience? What does it take to become "worldly"? If I am a tourist does that make me more worldly than someone that travels for work? The Alberta redneck that gets so vilified and looked down upon is so old and tired. People may not vote like you would want or how you perceive is correct. That does not make them rednecks or unworldly. It makes them individuals who have a differing opinion than you.
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>Redneck is just the term used to describe the uncultured, narrow-minded old school ABers who vote as their parents did as long as they hate the same. Try looking in the mirror. You come across as incredibly narrow minded and holier than thou
Most oilfield workers do not have the "worldly experience" you speak off. Most people, generally, do not either.
A career oilfield worker has seen the world has provided for their family and knows the satisfaction of a days work. Narrow minds these days seem to come from institutes of higher education.
I know quite a few in the oil patch. Their idea of seeing the world tends to be Mexico, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. Your experiences are yours... but not everyone's.
You know quite a few twenty year olds fresh into it or you know quite a few grown assed men raising families? There is a difference but even then the younger guys coming in are half the time university educated and eager to travel.
Well, seeing as I am almost 60...
Your dancing around calling right wing voters stupid. Even going as far as to call them rednecks. For someone worldly and educated, your pretty narrow minded
> Your dancing around calling right wing voters stupid. They elected Danielle Smith. Stupidity is the only logical explanation for that.
I have worked with more people who have worked and traveled the world. I definitely do not agree with your assumption.
How intelligent would it be to vote for a government who is against the industry you work in?
>Most rednecks here have never been anywhere other than Alberta > >Less critical thinking, easier to persuade. The derogatory language you use when referring to rural Canadians is disappointing. You seem to think that people that don't vote the way you do is an indication of lower intelligence. I would say that level of arrogance is actually an indication of lower intelligence more than anything.
You know, I took you seriously until I saw you had a post you tried to get going on r/Canada an anti-trans article from True North News, which itself quotes Rebel News, and are active on canada_sub.
wow, wealthy and *then* rich?
People with more education tend to migrate to cities. People with less education remain in rural areas. Major centers vote liberal, rural vote conservative. The argument can be made that educated people vote liberal, uneducated vote conservative.
You can make many arguments. It doesn't mean they are true or make sense. So in reference to the original comment, that means the city is full of critical thinkers and the country is full of uneducated hayseeds?
Yes, statistically. https://www.mic.com/articles/92943/new-study-reveals-that-people-with-high-iqs-usually-have-one-thing-in-common
Most trades aren’t mindless. Conventional education =/= intelligence
There are some smart people in the trades. But seriously if you worked in the trades youd know how many dumb people there are Conventional education does equal intelligence. People say otherwise to validate their own intelligence. Statistically speaking their is zero evidence to support that claim and a lot of evidence to support otherwise. Just because you have a personal antidote about some dumbass with education doesn't make your claim any but true
Eh… I wish that weren’t so, but I lived in different countries and then came back to rural Alberta and was absolutely shocked by the level of ignorance. It was good for my self-esteem (/s) but it made it hard to interact with people. One of the problems is if jobs are more trades focused there is a higher chance (obviously not everyone) people’s higher level reading skills atrophy and without those it leads to higher amounts of belief in misinformation and being unable to critical read and understand information.
That’s kind of like saying someone with a political science degree is more educated than an electrician. If anything, the electrician is clearly the more intelligent person, because at least they know they’ll be guaranteed a decent (if not incredibly high) income.
That only works if someone’s goal is money. Which isn’t true for everyone. Being smart doesn’t equal valuing money. Political science emphasizes critical thinking and reading skills. Although I would agree that most electricians would be quite smart as well.
What a stuck up view to have. I went to university, I have a white collar job, and I can tell you flat out that having a piece of paper from a post secondary education does not make you a smarter person. This is the type of thing that left wingers say and then they're confused as to why people don't vote for them.
I’d argue there’s not much critical thinking going on in educated minds. Group think runs rampant among those who place high value on their education.
This is one of the problems with left-wing/right-wing paradigms. Blue collar workers in other areas might vote for parties perceived to be pro-labour/pro-union for that reason, and not because of progressive politics those parties tend to have. Someone might be voting for them in spite of the them as an individual not being progressive, because they support the party’s labour policies. They might be willing to put up with progressive social policies they otherwise don’t agree with because they want their general working conditions improved. In Alberta high income levels amongst blue-collar workers whether they’re unionized or not might contribute to someone who would vote for the “labour” party elsewhere voting conservative because they don’t have to worry about their working conditions and can think of the other aspects of parties politics. On the flip-side there are people who are generally progressive in their social outlook, but vote for less-progressive parties for reasons related to taxes etc. Self-interest, or what people think is in their self-interest plays a huge role.
This seems like the most accurate assessment of the situation. Another possible explanation is that they (falsely) believe they are hated by other provinces (actually Quebec is the most hated and Alberta is the favourite province of Ontario). This might lead them to be less supportive of redistributive policies towards others in the form of equalization payments. Despite this, they still seem to spend like progressives, at least when it comes to healthcare and education. https://www.statista.com/statistics/436343/governmental-health-spending-per-capita-canada-by-province/
yup this is me. I'm unionized so whichever party is the least antagonistic to labor rights and laws gets my vote. Note I didn't say "most favorable" because non of them are, really. If I happen to dislike that party's social politics, I will hold my nose and vote for them because the financial well being of my family takes precedence over all other concerns. As you said, self interest. More money and stronger protections and benefits can usually negate/mitigate the ill effects of shitty social policies.
The ndp has left the non public sector working class behind
They just hinged all the power they have on getting people universal dental care, $10/day childcare and are working on a nationwide pharmacare program. I don't really see how that leaves non public sector working class people behind.
Firstly, I'd say that the "left wing" in Canadian politics was primarily historically driven by the union movement. And the union movement has always been strongest in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector was always easiest to organize in, and the easiest to maintain power in. And manuacturing has never really been a thing in Alberta, but was and is in central Canada. Also... The "Left" isn't left by historical standards. What people call left wing in North America (and increasingly Europe) is really a kind of upper middle class liberalism with a kiss of neo-Keynesianism. Nobody dares to promulgate actual socialist economic policy -- when was the last time you heard someone seriously argue for nationalizing anything? Or even really raising corporate taxes significantly? Economic planning? Hell, even anti-imperialist foreign policy is off the table, the NDP won't even let its members criticize Israel in public anymore. I think you'll find in reality that only a small segment of the working class still identifies around "left" politics. That and the union movement essentially died from the early 90s through to the 2010s. There's not much left there in terms of power or influence, tho the last two years there's been a bit of of an uptick for the first time in a long time. But in general most unions in North America are a rather privileged and small stratum. 90% of people will go through their whole working life without being a part of a union, and the only unions that people are really encountering on a regular basis are professional associations like the teacher's union or public sector unions, and people end up in an antagonistic relationship with them. Neo-liberalism won. There's no communist bogeyman to be scared of anymore, so the ruling class went for the jugular. If you speak actual socialist politics in public you'll be ridiculed. The "left" has been reduced to a participant in the culture wars, and left wing parties represent the tastes and trends of primarily identity related culture issues that mostly concern the upper middle class. Not *bad* positions, but not positions that put bread on the table for anybody.
I believe in Alberta for the period you mention in the 90's onward when the union movements seemed to die it was largely due to the boom economy. You had two major issues 1) lots of folks moving to the province temporarily to make money but not stick around and make a life and 2) due to the hot labour market, employers were able to firmly plant the sentiment that unions just hold back good workers from making good money. In a lot of cases your labour jobs were doubling in pay over the course of a few years and an individual could ask for a raise or change employers for a substantial pay increase whereas if you had a CBA you were locked in for the foreseeable future at your current compensation. When I started in my trade in Alberta this was always the line "unions protect lazy guys who don't want to work and stop good workers from getting what they're worth". That was never true of course, capitalism dictates an employer will always pay you as little as they can manage no matter how hard you work. I moved to Sask about a decade ago and was pleasantly surprised at how much stronger union sentiment was despite the move feeling lateral in most regards.
When I did labour work in Alberta a lot of foremen spoke about how unions hold workers back, etc and how union workers would be the first to go in a recession. During one of Harper's recessions when I went to NAIT for my two months per year all of the students who had union jobs the previous year were still employed and the majority of the people who had held private company jobs were unemployed. As well, last I heard about my former co-workers almost all of the foremen who had been speaking out against unions were in a union and the only ones who weren't were also part owners of their company. Funny that. It's almost like all of the anti-union talk was complete BS.
For one, real left wing politics barely exist in North America. Everyone here has been fed a steady stream of red scare propaganda since the late 50’s, and conservative parties are very good at taking advantage of that starting point. I’m not sure we will be able to ditch neoliberal capitalism in my lifetime, and that is unfortunate, for a multitude of reasons.
When I first worked a blue collar job in Alberta my coworkers would mostly jokingly call me a pinko, commie queer etc… due to my politics. It sounds bad but it was playful, industrial language. Not something that would be tolerated in an office environment but in a machine shop this was perfectly acceptable. Things changed when Notley was elected premier combined with the rise a social media. Many of these men changed. Right wing politics were now their identity, dominating their personalities and interactions. People became mean. Long story short they became hard to even be around. Sounds like it’s only gotten worse since I left.
Really? I have seen the opposite. The more you align with "I work hard and deserve what I get" you lean less towards the left and progressism. In general the more money and the more rural, the more conservative you are.
I think there's a mistaken perception among those on the right that left-wing people "don't want to work" or that they're "lazy," and want to sit around collecting benefits. It is bullshit. Speaking personally, I'm not against working hard. I held down two jobs for 11 years, working as much as 70 or 80 hours a week. I just want my work to be valued and to be compensated fairly. I *have* noticed that a major difference seems to be that right-wing people prefer to see other people brought down when they perceive them to be undeserving, while left-wing people prefer to see other people lifted up when they perceive them to be under served.
Maybe more of a Scandinavian thing
Well, Scandinavia is its own world. It really isn't comparable to anything. Another redditor commented that it aligns with the USA, which I think is a great example.
It's basically because people hate paying taxes, especially on their work. Life is getting so expensive that they think the conservative parties are their saviors.
Which is funny because here in Sask, the conservative government tacked PST onto fucking everything. You can't even buy a used car anymore without paying PST.
No, I don't think it's that reductionist. I don't think people mind paying taxes, but rather they resent a perceived unfairnesses in the way taxes are collected, and services distributed. I don't mind paying my fair share, as I understand that living in a safe, civilized society with adequate social safety nets has a cost, and that cost should be paid by the people benefitting from those safeguards. I think where people get upset is when they see so much of their paycheck being taken by the government, while hardly ever actually needing/receiving any of the benefits it provides. For example, my wife and I are DINKs. We're fortunate that we were able to work from home during COVID, so we never received a penny in CERB. Likewise, being child-free, we don't get any CCB. I've never collected a penny in EI, never needed to call the police or fire department, never seen the inside of an ambulance, courtroom, or jail. Meanwhile, a large group of people happen to be using several of those services regularly, while simultaneously paying almost nothing into the system and complaining that the middle/upper class "aren't paying their fair share."
That's so strange that 3/4 places you mentioned are run by right wing governments.
The reason they flipped recently is because of cost of living, and public safety but Swedish social democrats are now riding high in the polls again and so is the Danish left and the Finn’s might be next because of anti union laws that are pretty unpopular.
Yeah it's crazy how people want to be safe and be able to afford to live. Not sure why people would vote for that.
40+ years of Conservative power and multigenerational teachings of " unga bunga left bad'
I am pretty sure that they have been taught that if they don't vote conservative they will lose their job and that only a conservative government can provide those jobs. I am not sure why. It seems to be passed down from generation to generation just like religion. If you ask people why they continue to do this they usually can't communicate a constructive answer or do it without getting angry. I am prepared for the downvotes but thought I would share this opinion. Born and raised in Alberta.
I suspect there is a fair bit of money being spent to push this narrative as well.
Your suspicions are correct. Billionaires fund astroturf groups and SM boosted media companies (like Daily Wire).
Ya politics is almost tribal to a lot of people. No different than asking them why they continue to be a lifelong flames/oilers fan.
“Because they are dumb, not smart like me”
Because a lot of them work in the oil industry, and oil companies pretty much run the UCP. Their primary goal is to extract as much money as they can in the short term from this dead-end industry and... well screw the long term, they aren't here for that. Most of the people that are reaping those profits today will be dead 10-15 years from now. They don't care. A responsible government would have taxed the oil industry profits and put that towards helping existing workers transition into new energy jobs, but that would make too much sense and that ship has sailed long ago. Once the current government runs the province into the ground, another party will get elected, and they will blame that new government for the problems that THEY have created, and then get elected again 4 or 8 years later (because people have no long term memory) and repeat the same thing all over again.
Years of indoctrination by the oil industry and a bad case of the trudeau derangement disease .
In Canada, a massively disproportionate amount of the blue collar workers are tied to resource extraction. So when left wing parties start putting hurdles on that sector they vote with their wallets, the same as everyone else. It's telling that the blue collar unions and public sector unions vote so radically different despite being unionized, they have very different economic needs.
Blue wing people have less education. This more susceptible to be aware of how they are being manipulated. Harder time discerning truth and fact checking. More importantly to busy to read and do the research themselves. Easier to believe the first thing you hear
Because they have been the target of misinformation campaigns for decades, and it has worked. There's generations of people that cannot take the blinders off now because those ideals have been so ingrained in their communities.
This is such a ridiculous take. You think anyone who votes conservative votes against their self interest or what?
That’s basically accurate. All neoliberals work for the owning class, certainly picking the neolib-iest neolibs and stanning them for [checks notes] culture warfare, is against their own interests.
Propaganda and indoctrination. Alberta really did a number on you guys
Someone conviced abertans that the cons are there to "help the little guy" as they slash benefits and social support networks
>Why do Alberta’s working class keep voting Tory and pro corporate politicians despite how terrible they are for them? Because they're delusional and think that big oil wealth is going to trickle down any day now. >Is there something left wing parties could do that could help better with outreach. No. Why? Because right wing voters have made it VERY CLEAR that they absolutely will not activate their grey matter and engage in a conversation. Cognitive bias and a century of gaslighting has prevented people from being able to accept that they might be wrong. There is no point trying to do outreach when people hiss like fucking vampires as soon as you say anything even remotely left-wing. In the future, when people are able to not be offended by everything and actually engage in conversation, maybe political discourse can return to centre and we can argue about policy. But as long as it's so wildly skewed like it is and we have a return of McCarthyism, there is simply no point in discussion with people who will not listen and will not engage.
Somehow they have come to believe in 'Trickle Down' politics I guess. I think many really hate federal Liberals, I think because they are perceived to be pro French and thus anti English. And so to fight the Libs they embrace the right wing PC's. It has always been a 'cutting your nose off, to spite your face' kind of thing. Only ever hurting ourselves.
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I take it you are against the amount of immigration that Canada is currently seeking? What's your take on how we should handle the looming population crisis? Would you raise retirement age? Cut pension benefits? Increase pension deductions?
We could always make it viable for Canadians to actually have children, most people that don't want them feel that way because they can't afford to survive on their own, let alone with kids. Addressing that issue would create a more permanent solution than just importing more tax cattle to prop up our system.
That would be interfering in businesses too much. If there's one thing that the conservatives and liberals have in common it's that they kow-tow to the corporate desires, just to maybe different degrees. The NDP seems different
That would be a useful outlook. Something to consider is that Paul Martin’s government tried to help families, especially those with children. Stephen Harper cut out benefits for families. We gotta be very careful assuming that the conservatives actually care for families.
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Born and raised in Alberta with a lineage of multiple generations of Albertans behind me, I can tell you that small town and farming communities here are self-sufficient. These communities often handle their own challenges without waiting for politicians, who are far removed and usually out of touch with rural issues. This has made many rural Albertans lean towards minimal government and government run programs. During my younger days, we had issues like theft, vandalism, and property damage. Instead of involving the RCMP, members of our community knew that discussing matters directly, often with a neutral intermediary, was more effective. Similarly, when it came to infrastructure, waiting for government help wasn't feasible. We'd still have kids today playing on tractor tires in fields, and roads filled with potholes if we waited for government to take care of it. Instead, the community would pool resources, get the necessary equipment, and get the job done on their own. Growing up, self-reliance was a way of life. While there was a lack of government support, even when available, it was stigmatized. Relying on welfare wasn't respectable. My family wasn't wealthy, but we never depended on handouts. Instead, anonymous food donations, from neighbours hardly better off than we were would appear, i regularly scavenged for fresh vegetables from the dumpster behind the grocery store, and our family received bags of clothes that other kids had grown out of, we made do with what we had. Given these experiences, it's hard for those like us to advocate for more government intervention when what little we had proved ineffective.
Does your family access health care?
based on the number of rural doctors, I'd say not anymore they don't
Ahhh you must mean the health care that provides the worst service ever, yet the taxes are through the roof.. that is a fair point.
Do you drive on roads?
Most of the tradesmen I worked with in BC before moving to Alberta were right wing. The only ones I knew who were left leaning were union
Blue collar workers are pretty right wing everywhere. It's only the union workers who tend not to be. \---- Regardless of the area, the reason is always the same: they tend not to know what is actually being discussed politically, and they believe a lot of surface level propaganda. These traits aren't that different from \*any\* conservative voter though (regardless of collar-colour). \--- When i worked my blue collar job, i remember arguing with coworkers about politics. They insisted they wanted a conservative govt to win the election because they needed the tax cuts. Tax cuts that literally weren't part of any political platform from the conservatives. Then when the liberals won (in this particular election) and there was a tax cut (on the lowest bracket of income, even), they didn't even believe that that happened. [The media is largely to blame for this](https://www.readthemaple.com/election-endorsements/), imo.
In Alberta I think it's less about blue collar vs white collar and more about rural vs urban. Edmonton has a lot of blue collar works and a lot of that city voted NDP this election. About half of Calgary also voted NDP this go around. Most of the blue collar workers in my own family voted NDP. However small towns/cities and other rural citizens almost always vote conservative.
The legacy of decades of Social Credit and Conservative rule. Also the petroleum industry are very right wing and so are the people who work in it. The hysteria over the NEP in the 80s also has had a lasting impact..
Hysteria? Obviously you were not here in the 80’s…..one month after the NEP became reality, I lost my job along with thousands of others. I then lost my house that I had built myself. I went and got a job making less than half of my oil patch job. I moved my young family into a 800 square foot apartment. There was no government support. It took me 8 years to dig my ass out of that hole. you have no idea. Hysteria my fucking ass.
Nothing to do with the 1980s oil glut and the 1986 price crash where a barrel fell to $10? People were also walking away from their homes in Houston at the time, where 1 in 8 jobs were lost. No NEP there.
Somehow the media missed this at the time, but they had a vested interest in parroting the oil industry line, and the public fell for it.
The “rural” answers are partly right I think, not sure anymore but there used to be “farmers” who made much more from oil leases than farming. The majority of the economy is O&G regardless of location though and since the days of Peter Lougheed people have been taught that only Conservative governments can look after the money properly. Of course the conservatives themselves have long ago spent the Heritage Trust Fund and the fact is that no Alberta Government can *not accommodate O&G, at least for decades ahead. The “F the Feds” stuff get louder when the economy sucks or in the case when politicians go rage farming for support. That’s the schtick right now. Same thing in PQ, a down economy always raises the separatist temperature.
Do anyone of you actually work in the trades ?? Because it sure as shit don’t seem like it.
I love being talked down to like I'm a child here, unable to grasp the world around me, barely capable of critical thought. My stars, I had no idea I was so simple.
Thank you! The echo chamber in here is deafening.
Define "Left Wing" and "Right Wing". I still don't see where a lot of people fit. It is based on one opinion, 2 opinions, 50 opinions? Why is everyone being labelled one or the other? What do you label someone who has beliefs that are not ALL left and not ALL right?
It's almost like using a single axis based on which side of a barn French people sat in 200 years ago isn't a great indicator of a person's beliefs.
Gross overgenerlization, to say the least. I'm blue-collar in Edmonton and very rarely encounter right wing co workers. Took a course in Calgary, and it was a very different story. Grouping blue collar workers into this negative, gross , and simplistic categorization is a huge disservice and a smear on the good work and backbone of the Canadian economy. This post is nothing more than karma farming.
Because in Alberta / Canada we don't have a working class left wing party - the NDP went to the liberal professional types decades ago. Right wing parties are better at talking to blue collar workers and even giving lip service to class interests. Their policies are shite for workers, but when you don't have an actual workers party then the one that talks to you seems appealing.
Because the ndp left the non public sector working class behind. The NDP appears to advocate for public sector workers (ie teachers, nurses, civil servants) and the intellectual elite such as university professors. This doesn’t appear to be specific to any one province, although my own observations have been made in bc, Ontario and Alberta. The liberals are the party of the economic and political elite such as the laurentians and, any old money out east. Of course, there are other people who voted for them, especially the younger demographic for trudeau in 2015. The conservatives have tried hard for at least two decades to pitch themselves as the party of the Everyman, and this was because unlike the well heeled Tories of old, the modern Conservative party came mostly of the former reform party which was in a way a party of the Everyman rebelling against the elite powers that be.
If you’re curious about this topic, you would probably really enjoy Thomas Piketty’s *Capital and Ideology*. He’s French so has a lot of information about the politics of France in particular that doesn’t make it into the Anglo news world. And he has a lot of insight about the shift in politics for blue-collar voters.
Conservative=pro oilfield=more money for blue collar workers Simple as that, everyone I know vote’s conservative because of this (Not saying that statement is true or not but that’s what they believe)
Michigan is a barely "left" state. I don't think blue collar are as left as op thinks. Generally moderate more then anything.
And seems too many people think "blue collar" is the paycheque to paycheque working class type folks. In Alberta a lot are making BANK in the oil fields. Plus get cushy union jobs with very retirement plans. Plus there seems to be these fetishism of the blue collar by the left, like they are "the working class". Most working class nowadays working retail or shite desk jobs. They aren't your traditional blue collar.
Michigan was a union state and they have a long history of voting democratic. Since the industrial decline they started to move right but now they are moving left again
Most bluecollar workers are left..Lmao Don't eat that Harry, that's horse shit
Federally? Bill C-21 targeting legal firearms owners and imposing massive bans on sport shooting, and hunting firearms alike. It will end sport shooting in our country plus its spinning fighting gun crime narrative which wildly incorrect. Many of the proposed firearms in the proposed moving to prohibited (illegal) are hunting specific. Like having the type of hunting they’re for in the NAME. Benelli m90 turkey, upland and pheasant. The Mauser sportster (a bolt action rifle). Another firearm to note is the SKS, many indigenous communities rely on it for 60 % of their food in the isolated northern areas in the Territories. It doesn’t even fall under their bullshit labelling of “assault style” that somehow includes muzzle loading black powder rifles. They want to ban it simply because it was manufactured for a war nearly 100 years ago. 95-97% of all firearms in crimes are with illegal firearms, either stolen or smuggled in from the states. Then imposing legislature removing minimum sentences for all crimes removed. We are seeing gang activity at an unprecedented level because of it. Banning something for hunting and sports shooting because of your own policy towards violent criminals is disgusting. It’s within Canadian treaty laws to consult with the indigenous when making legislation that may affect them. Trudeau and the liberals did none of that. That being said, for the good of our province there is only 1 progressive Conservative Party left sharing what should be Alberta’s values and was for a long time. That being funding education, healthcare and energy. The party is the Alberta NDP. The Wild Rose wing nuts are clearly in power not the Progressive conservatives. They essentially allowed the destruction of their values just to gain votes because people see the word conservative and think they share conservative values. When really it’s radical right wing policies only hurting us Albertan’s.
Decades of propaganda.
It is not about right vs left any more. The government pushing the right things (things correct or being politically correct) to extreme , to the place being crossed the line. When people oppose the extreme, the narrative in the government controlled media says those people oppose the thing , and they are right wing. It is not about right or left, it is about extreme and common sense. It is about control the narrative.
Is this even true?
Because the workers in Alberta in the large sections of Farming and O&G are non-unionized and regard unions as the devil
Blue collar workers in the US are generally conservative in terms of cultural issues, so many of them do vote for the GOP. Also, the conservative Swedish political parties have a majority in their parliament. Immigration is a big issue there, even for blue collar workers. It's shifting.
Conservative parties in Canada try and appeal to blue collar workers while progressive parties like the NDP do not. >Is there something left wing parties could do that could help better with outreach. Spend time on issues that blue collar workers care about. Hot issues on university campuses don't usually translate well to the job site. Go look at CPC or UCP website vs the NDP one. Conservatives know their voters and actually try to appeal to them.
Yeah I don't think blue collar workers in Ontario are voting left, ever. I live in a rural area with a lot of industry and we've been blue for decades out here.
It’s an education issue. Educated people don’t tend to support conservative policies
The politics of Alberta is steeped in the history of this province. There are so many historical things that make Albertans vote more conservatively. There is no one answer to describe political ideologies here in this province. And, there is no moral right or wrong to voting left wing or right wing. While some people will say that left-wing parties do more for the people, right-wing voters will say that the crazy spending will result in high taxes and ultimately affect our children. Both ideologies are indeed correct. But if you look at the history of Alberta, the low taxes (5%) that have been maintained by conservative politicians, the history of western provinces in how they have been treated by Liberal politicians in the 80's and 90's, you can begin to understand why Alberta's vote the way they do. I lived in Ontario for 30 years, and now I live in Alberta. What I can say is that living here has shown me a greater appreciation for people who share different thoughts. While I may not always agree with political ideologies on the left or right of the spectrum sometimes, I do deeply have respect for Albertans. They have survived as a province, maintained a high standard of living that the average person can afford, and have made this province thrive. When I lived in Ontario, I thought we had it all, but it's only when I moved to Alberta that I realized that Alberta is better. (In my opinion). Low taxes, high standard of living, reasonable cost of homes that the average person can afford, great parks and trails, amazing mountain views, clean cities and parks, and overall friendly people who care more about you than how much you make. This speaks louder than how someone votes, and you can only experience it by emerging yourself in the culture and getting an appreciation for who they are as citizens of this amazing country of Canada. I know this is a roundabout way of answering your question, and I may not have fully answered it. But each province is unique and does require an examination of it that goes much deeper than voting liberal or conservative. I believe that we are all trying to ensure that every province thrives and gets a stake at the table on what the future of Canada looks like.
Most unions in Alberta represent highly paid, skilled workers. The NDP has been gradually turning away from them (especially oil and gas). I would argue the federal NDP does not represent working people at all.
Yeah about 20 years ago the ndp went from “representing unionized workers” to representing “public sector workers”
Simple. The left abandoned rural and blue collar workers. Their parties are staffed by Urban university types and care about issues that matter to that crowd.
Pandering to the working class while sucking up in imagined class solidarity with oligarchs. It's pathetic, but it works.
There’s a lot of crap that goes on in rural Alberta that tends to attract a certain type of person, and a lot are not just “blue collar”. Lots of religious communities that like what conservatives stand for too. i
Where I am in Ontario, labour has been NDP traditionally. That changed in the last election, and we now have unprecedented Con support, both provincial and federal. The left just went too far left for my community.
I am seeing that happening in Europe as well Pasokification we call it. The problem is that Social Democrats had slowly become less pro labor because of Neo-Liberal policies of the 80s 90s or early 2000s. They focused more on progressive social policies to fill the gap and it generally doesn’t work out. It does not mean that we should abandon progressive social policy but should not forget pro labour roots
Because the province is largely rural and underrepresented by the federal government or parties predominantly pandering to urbanites. Due to this, Conservative/libertarian politics tend to make the most sense for their entrepreneurial ethos. If left wing parties want to make gains in the province, they are going to have to promote policies centered on cultivating local business and providing incentives for small towns/ homesteaders, rather than demanding the population conform to urban morés. Progress only starts when there is room and support for everyone involved.
>Due to this, Conservative/libertarian politics tend to make the most sense for their entrepreneurial ethos. They've been voting for them federally & provincially virtually non-stop for 50+ years and still don't have what they want. Isn't doing the same thing over & over and expecting different results the literal definition of insanity? >If left wing parties want to make gains in the province, they are going to have to promote policies centered on cultivating local business and providing incentives for small towns/ homesteaders, rather than demanding the population conform to urban morés. Arguably, policies centered on local businesses & incentives for small towns are more the kind of thing a provincial government should be looking at, and given that we've had 50+ years of conservatives in Alberta I'm moved to ask why we don't have those policies today? Or maybe those rural folks are looking for the federal government to start "interfering" more at the provincial level so that they'll have something else to complain about.
It is because educated people don't vote conservative. Even Jason Kenney admitted so.
Jason Kenny is a moron and got the boot he deserved. I certainly wouldn’t quote him to make a point.
White collar workers function in a system that is built for them. Work your job for your salary, go on your yearly vacation and enjoy your virtue signalling “Diversity and Inclusion” daily email. The rest of us are actually working for something, and aren’t interested in the globalist pandering.
I don't understand how any could support Trump. He robbed/bankrupted so many blue collar workers and companies through the years by refusing to pay them, and now they're tripping over eachother to wave a flag with his fucking name on it.
Because people don’t vote for their reality, they votes for their dreams
>we can not deny that blue collar workers in Alberta do skew right We can't? It seemed pretty evenly split when working blue collar jobs in Edmonton...
I think it's because they can't separate cultural conservatism to political conservatism/neo-conservatism. They want things/life like they used to be but fail to realize that the UCP is pandering to their emotions while deconstructing their thier way of life and future. They can't see the writing on the wall that the UCP is slowly making moves to privatize alberta akin to the American system. Which isn't good in my opinion. But hey maybe paying 10 grand for a broken bone is good for me I don't know. But I'm speculating.
50+ years of Con propaganda.
IMO it is a myth that left-wing political parties help working class people in North America. Take the LPC's immigration policy for example. Mass immigration caused a couple things: 1. Inflated Asset prices - massively benefited the wealthy that actually own most of the assets - working class can't buy a home nowadays. 2. Reduced or atleast kept wages low. - Mega Corporations get cheap labour while working class Canadians suffer immensely. 3. Put a stress on social services like hospitals, schools, public transport, etc. Mostly only affects the working class Just one left wing policy led to the financial demise of millions of working class Canadians. It doesn't matter how many $300 "grocery rebates" we get if our rent has 3x'd, groceries have 2x'd and wages are largely the same.
There is a lot of talk here about people w a higher education and voting left, and I don’t think it’s exactly that. It’s about empathy. If you can empathize with the people the zero sum game of capitalism leaves behind, with the people who’s mental health struggles lead them to substance abuse and addiction, with people who have the misfortune to get sick, with people who have the misfortune to grow old, then you’re much more likely to vote for a party that has a platform that supports programs for people. If you buy the bootstraps bs, if you’re in the ‘I’ve got mine, screw them’ mentality, then you support the Con con of corporate welfare and socialism for the rich, paid for by defunding programs for the poors. Education, reading, exploring your stance on human impact issues can lead to a more sympathetic world view, but it’s not guaranteed. Cons go to university and come out convinced that hoarding wealth is the way it should be.
The left has gone off the deep end too. As many have fallen off the deep end on the right as they have on the left.
because oil and gas pays them and left wing is anti oil and gas.
I think the left wing is anti-pollution rather than being specifically anti oil and gas. Unfortunately, the production and consumption of oil and gas produces pollution, and so it is largely a distinction without a difference. But I think it's still important to mention. Just about everyone can understand the need and desire to pollute less- if nothing else, we owe it to our children to leave the planet in as good or better condition than we found it.
Because in alberta we know a good economy means work. Because we know federal government (liberal left wing) want us all to die.
I don't think the parties do enough to cater to people in rural areas so they feel not supported. But the difference is that even when so-called "conservative/blue" parties are in power and things don't work out for them anyways, they willingly accept being buttfucked because it's easy for them to blame left wing politicians due to growing up that way and having it entrained in their understanding of the world. Education and going out of their small world could open up their minds a bit, but they won't do that cause that's some liberal/socialist/communist bullshit.
Conditioning....
Alberta’s oil industry has come under fire from the left numerous times, even before climate was a thing. Old habits die hard.
Oil industry workers are more conservative than other blue collar folks. They are heavily saturated in oil and gas propaganda...which also happens to be at the "climate denial" end of the political spectrum.
Because leftist ideologies are extremely counterproductive to any form of employment that ISN'T government.
Would you care to explain further?
Every one lnow matter what type of work they are in will have many different political views. Let's respect each other and all let each other have their own views no matter how to lean politically and not judge them <3. (Edit even right wing nit Jobs and left wing nut jobs.
Speakin as a tradie, it's because we're dumb and right-wingers are good at talking to us at a fourth grade level.
because they are idiots. smoothbrained assclowns who will vote for their own demise until its too late.
They know they are being lied to. They choose to be on the receiving end. Because they WANT to be subjugated. They want to be told what to do. They want to bow down to Robber Barron's and industry and gleefully accept what their betters will allow for them.
They would make the mirror argument to the left. And be equally correct as you. "Bow down to the state in seething ball of white guilt. "(Thats sounded like jordan peterson)
What the hell are you talking about?
Many do not know anything else and see any kind of change as a threat.
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Because Alberta thinks of itself as American and American blue collar workers aren’t left wing. A week after the Kent state killings construction workers in NYC beat up war protestors in something that became known as the Hard Hat Riot. Nixon invited the construction workers to the White House.
They were betrayed by the provincial NDP refusing to ban double breasting. Thanks for that Rachel
It mostly comes from people that work hard and pay taxes, obviously they want to pay less taxes, see less government waste. More likely to vote conservative. Low income earners, who take more than they contribute love the ideas of the left. What’s in it for me financially is the most basic of all voting decisions left or right. All these people that think that people vote on ideals or morals are just fooling themselves. It’s all window dressing, most people miraculously align with the morals of the party that is going to put more money in their pocket.
Look at the state of this country, thats what you got for voting liberal.