Orange Crush

May 5, 2015 will go down in history, at least here it will. Alberta elected an NDP government after 43 years of Tory rule; and the Calgary Flames managed a win against the Ducks.

Have to say the NDP victory surprised me. I expected the PCs would not do as well as they have in the past. There was a lot of anger at what looked like Tory arrogance and entitlement starting with the Wild Rose floor crossing last December, followed by the now-infamous mirror comment by then-Premier Prentice, a wildly unpopular budget featuring tax hikes (for everyone but corporations) and cuts to services, and then ignoring their own fixed election date to even call this election a year early (to the tune of about 30 million dollars); it just didn't look like a strong starting point to me. Not that I'm any sort of political pundit or anything. I expected a small majority, maybe even a (gasp) minority PC government despite the pollsters all say the NDP was more popular than expected. The last few elections Albertans just seemed to hold their noses and vote in another PC government. Of course, there just didn't seem to be much of a viable alternative either.

I did not expect an NDP majority. Wow. Now Rachel Notley and her team of, mostly rookie, MLAs are off to form government. Interesting times for sure as we find out if the NDP can rule a province which has been entrenched under the same party for so long; during an economic down-turn no less. I don't think they're going to have an easy time of it and unless they can maintain the trust of the electorate they're not going to get a second term.

The former Premier, Jim Prentice, did win his seat but resigned as leader of the PCs and as an MLA before they'd even finished counting the votes. Not sure that was a good move, maybe he was just shocked at the scope of the loss, but it certainly came off like he was not going to play if he couldn't be the leader.

The Wild Rose party did well forming the official opposition. Will make for some interesting debates with two such diametrically opposite parties sitting in the Legislature.

Also have 1 Liberal and 1 Alberta Party member elected. The Liberals just seemed like they didn't know what they were doing this election, I can't recall if they even had an official leader at this time but I don't think they did. Maybe they'll be better positioned next time. And the Alberta Party are the new kids on the block, and so, did quite well all things considered.

Enough political stuff.

Knitted on a stealth project tonight so no pictures for obvious reasons.

Also no updated picture of the knitting board blanket. Will try to get one soon.