CALGARY—For the first full day of campaigning for Alberta’s provincial election, Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley both went straight into the heart of one of the most closely watched ridings in the province.

The two party leaders held campaign rallies Wednesday night in Lethbridge, a city two hours south of Calgary split into two ridings that both elected the NDP in 2015. Although southern Alberta tends to skew conservative, the city of just under 100,000 people, with both a larger university and a robust public sector, has recently deviated from the regional trend.

Lethbridge-West incumbent Shannon Phillips won handily four years ago, and she has been a high-profile NDP cabinet member as the minister of environment and parks. She’ll be facing off against United Conservative Party candidate Karri Flatla, along with the Alberta Party’s Zac Rhodenizer, and Liberal Patricia Chizek.

Kenney riled up a packed, enthusiastic house at the city’s Italian Cultural Club with a speech that could be summarized by three words, also emblazoned on blue campaign signs held by supporters: “Jobs, economy, pipeline.”

“In 27 days, a bright new day will dawn in this magnificent province,” the United Conservative Party leader said, to loud cheers from the crowd.

In his speech, Kenney hammered the NDP on economic issues, blaming the governing party for high unemployment numbers. He also criticized the carbon tax — something the audience repeatedly booed — saying the NDP would “never have been elected” had they directly included the controversial tax in their platform. He pledged to kill the initiative and fight the federal carbon tax in court with Ontario and Saskatchewan.

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The crowd count was about 300 people, Kenney’s campaign said.

Debra Slomp, a woman in her 60s who said she volunteers at the local UCP constituency association, said Kenney’s economic messages resonated most with her — she supports the resource sector and would prefer a pipeline over oil by rail, fearing the risk of a derailment, she said. She also said she supported Kenney’s pledges to let parents have more control over their children’s education.

“So many businesses have been hurting, jobs have been lost,” she said. “I had to get involved. I was so discouraged with the NDP policies and agendas.”

It’s not a coincidence that both the major party leaders headed straight to Lethbridge as the race to April 16 begins, according to University of Calgary political scientist David Stewart.

“For the UCP, it’s an opportunity to knock off the most high-profile New Democrat in southern Alberta. And for the New Democrats, it’s an opportunity to send a message that they are going to fight throughout the province, not just in the big cities.”

Meanwhile, Notley spoke to a crowd at the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ provincial convention, where she emphasized what she said was an NDP record of protecting and improving workers’ rights.

She pressed the message that a UCP government wants to create “two Albertas” rife with inequity and increased privatization of public services.

“(The UCP) is already planning to undo the bulk of our reforms,” Notley said. “(Kenney) will put your hard-earned rights through the shredder and never think twice.”

The NDP leader also kept pushing the message that Kenney wouldn’t be a trustworthy leader, based on his knowledge of the “kamikaze” campaign to hurt Brian Jean during the UCP leadership race.

“If he’ll cheat his own members, who won’t he cheat?” she said.

Notley got an enthusiastic response from the crowd, which repeatedly broke into chants of “Rachel, Rachel” — but it wasn’t just Lethbridge voters in the room. Union representatives from all over the province were there.

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Lottie Poulsen, a union member who works in Lethbridge, said she thinks the NDP have brought workers’ rights in Alberta more up to date, and she doesn’t want to see that go backwards.

“Corporate welfare, that’s what Kenney is offering,” she said. “I think we’re here for the people. We’re the labourers.”

She added that in her opinion, she also has doubts about Kenney’s trustworthiness after seeing news about his 2017 leadership race.

Earlier, on Tuesday morning, a Lethbridge iron foundry was the backdrop for Kenney officially declaring that a UCP government would get rid of the carbon tax — a promise the UCP has touted in the past.

Kenney said legislation to repeal the carbon tax would be “bill one” for his government, if elected, and said the NDP was dishonest about its plans to implement a carbon tax during the last election. He also called for a referendum to be required to bring in a provincial carbon tax, the same way a referendum must be held before a provincial sales tax can be imposed in Alberta.

“What the NDP has done with their carbon tax cash grab is to punish people for living normal lives in this big, cold, northern, energy-intensive economy. It makes no sense,” Kenney said.

Stewart said he doesn’t see either leader specifically targeting issue messages to Lethbridge.

“I think they’ll be hitting their provincial themes,” he said. “I would expect the New Democrats to be talking a lot more about integrity and health, because they made health the big item in the speech from the throne.”

On Wednesday afternoon, that’s exactly how Phillips responded to Kenney’s morning announcement.

She accused Kenney of spreading false information about Alberta’s energy policy and climate change, and said Albertans “can’t trust him to tell the truth.”

“Kenney trades in YouTube conspiracy theories rather than jobs and facts with respect to renewables,” she said.

With the leaders choosing Lethbridge as the first stop to test their campaign messages, Stewart said it’s likely to be closely watched as a bellwether for the UCP.

“If they can knock Phillips off in Lethbridge-West, I think a lot of dominoes are going to fall.”

Emma McIntosh is an environment, justice and investigative reporter with Star Calgary. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaMci

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