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He questioned which political parties would be able to work with the PCs if they won a small majority. A minority government would be “uncharted territory” in Alberta and a whole new governing party would be “chaos,” he said.

Smith disagreed.

“I don’t think that we need to be panicked into thinking we can’t ever change government because, I have to tell you, there has been more chaos in the last three years — every single ministry has had four different cabinet ministers, at least,” she said.

“I don’t think we would have more instability than that by changing government.”

Still, Smith presented a gloomy outlook for the next four years regardless of the outcome.

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“It does not matter who is in government for the next four years,” she said. “It’s going to be terrible. I really think we lost our window of opportunity. Now we’re in a position where all of the parties in some way are relying on oil prices to recover. They’re all using the projections that get us to oil at $83 by Year 3 … I’m skeptical.”

“We’re in for some really tough times,” she said.

Smith said she expects the PC party will emerge from next month’s election with a small majority government. She acknowledged the attitudes of Albertans have become much more progressive on a number of issues, and those changes are starting to affect the province’s politics — a position echoed by the other two panellists, Bratt and data scientist Brian Singh.

With the NDP surging in Edmonton, and rural ridings appearing to maintain their support for Wildrose, Smith said the election will be decided in Calgary.

“I think it would be a miracle for the PCs to turn things around in Edmonton,” she said. “The coalition that Ms. Redford put together there relied on having union support. It does not matter what they throw at Rachel Notley this week, that union support is not going to be changed back to the PCs this time.”