I'm an urban professional transplant who makes decent money, has savings and lives a fairly comfortable life; that is to say, I've benefitted immensely from Alberta's economy and should have had no reason to be disaffected with the Tories, and yet I was.

I can't profess to speak for the entire disaffected portion of the electorate, but for me personally, the Tories represented a flawed philosophy of elevating corporations and the wealthy to an untouchable, divine status while reminding the rest of us that we should be thankful they're carrying our economy and livelihoods on their backs. In good times, the untouchable class paid increasingly less taxes while profiting extravagantly from depleting the limited natural resources that belonged to all Albertans, and when things took a dive, the same profiteers were shielded from sharing in the province's burden, while the rest of us had to shoulder the pain.

Conservatives, always without fail, rely on the argument that corporations and the wealthy are job creators, and that our economy's success depends wholly on their wellbeing. While it's true that they contribute to the economy through employment and investment, they certainly don't do it out of the goodness of their heart. To be sure, if they could make the same or greater profits by eliminating labour in their equation, they'd definitely do so. In fact, the argument should be turned on its head, and it should be recognised that we, the average citizens, contribute to the corporations' and the wealthy's success because our labour is a net positive in their profit equation, or else they wouldn't hire us at all. Taxes ensure that the current and next generation of commoners will continue to be healthy, educated and well-adjusted to remain a net positive to the job creators.

As a young, high-earning professional without a family, my tax bill will most certainly be going up under an NDP government without a similar increase in the level of services and benefits I'll enjoy from the government, but that, to me, is fair and preferable to being a second-class citizen to the corporations and the wealthy whose allegiance is sworn to their shareholders and pocketbooks, rather than to this wonderful province and her people.