Seven Oaks Magazine.

I never bought into the Metropolis-Hinterland theory of political organization until I ran as an NDP candidate in my home city of Lethbridge during the 2004 federal election.

Within this theory, the Metropolis is viewed as an area of privilege with high political priorities, whereas the Hinterland consists of regions where political issues are ignored by the political elite. Large urban centres are traditionally seen to be the Metropolis and rural areas are the Hinterland.

When I first read this theory, I thought it lacked insight and did little to explain Canadian politics. After my campaign experience, I have changed my conclusion. The Metropolis-Hinterland theory does, in fact, shed light on how all political parties view this province, and how little people from Alberta understand our political culture.

No political party puts many resources into Albertan campaigns. The Reform/Alliance/Conservatives know they will likely win most seats without strong candidates or organization, so their strategy is to just throw money at election campaigns. We’re fairly sure the Conservative incumbent’s sign budget was greater than my whole campaign budget.

The Liberals know that there is still a profoundly negative sentiment towards their party leftover from the Trudeau era, and while they are more likely to put more effort into campaigns, they know that it is a lost cause. Like the NDP, they do not have the financial resources of the Conservatives.

And then there’s my party, the NDP. We put much effort into finding candidates that reflect the diversity of Canadian society, but many of our campaigns are also lost causes.

In Alberta, we had one person doing all the organizing for 28 ridings, and while most ridings, including mine, have wonderful organizations already on the ground, some do not, particularly those ridings that were created once the writ was dropped.

Alberta is the Hinterland.

As I was becoming more involved in the partisan process, I began to strongly suspect that coming from Alberta was a political handicap. As an Albertan I know I am painted with a Tory-blue brush before I speak or act, and that it is difficult to dispel that view despite my words or actions. This is the reality of the “Alberta Advantage.”

No political party treats Alberta as the plurality it is.

The reality of Alberta’s youth like me who came of age in the Ralph Klein era is radicalization. Radically right-wing political groups are already springing up all over Alberta, and more and more Albertans are looking left.

This is evident in Lethbridge. While we have always had a strong group of NDP members (who keep an office operated and paid for by volunteers open in Lethbridge and have done so for 25 years), we had more people coming into our office to volunteer and donate that ever before in a federal campaign.

In my mom’s neighbouring riding of Macleod, where there are less than 30 NDP members, a similar movement occurred.

Some days my NDP campaign looked more like a pendulum. Sometimes people were incredibly supportive, saying that they had never voted NDP but were going to this election. Other days we were demonized by the religious right that closely resembles their cousins south of the border. The idea that the NDP was founded on the “social gospel” seemed only to enrage. Our campaign office was the target of many organized phone and foot campaigns about abortion and same-sex marriage, and many religious people, even members of my own congregation, saw me as an evil.

I suspect this is mirrored in many NDP campaigns, however, and was not unique to my experience.

What was unique, I think, was dealing with Alberta’s political socialization. Farmers in Alberta, for the most part, are not right wing. That might sound bizarre, but when one listens to farmers, particularly dry land grain farmers who depend on the Canadian Wheat Board and ranchers and cow-calf operators who have been hit hard by BSE, they spontaneously suggest policy solutions that sound surprisingly like NDP agriculture policy. However, the next words out of their mouths are, “I’m voting Conservative and I hope they get in.”

Overcoming the idea that farm = conservative is difficult. People know that the last two decades of federal representation has hurt more than it has helped, but they do not make the connection between those hurts and right wing representation.

What we found was that people were developing a respect for the NDP in Lethbridge; a respect for our ideas and platform, a respect for our leader, and a respect for me as the candidate. That respect, which is hard to come by and is not usually present for the NDP in south western Alberta, did not always translate into votes.

That respect did translate to 10 per cent of the vote, and in Lethbridge we usually pull 5 per cent. While many in Alberta are still products of their socialization, there is change in the air.

Alexa McDonough, a former leader of the NDP states that winning takes three elections.

The first election shows who and what you are. The second election reinforces the trust that was built in the first election. The third election drives home that the NDP is really the best choice for the constituency.

In the Hinterland, we have begun to build that trust. That we are willing to work so hard for what seems to be a lost cause is already beginning to pay off.