Alberta Votes history lesson: When the NDP had 16 seats

"Thank you my friends.Isn't it sweet?"

On May 8, 1986, a jubilant Ray Martin, leader of the Alberta NDP, stood before a cheering crowd, beaming as if he had just won the election.

After capturing16 seats in an election won by Premier Don Getty and the Progressive Conservatives, the NDP would become the Official Opposition for the first time.

Eleven of those seats were in Edmonton, twoin Calgary. The remaining three were inAthabasca-Lac La Biche, Vegreville and St. Albert.

The NDP kept the same number of seats three years later. NDP MLAs were elected in Stony Plain, West Yellowhead and Vegreville, where Derek Fox won his second term in office.

However, theNDP presence fadedin 1993, left with no seats after51 Tories and 32 Liberals were elected to the 83-seat legislature.

• WATCH: Rachel Notley talks about her father Grant's success as an rural NDP MLA

"Who could promise bigger cuts was the message of the day," said Fox, who lost his seat to Tory candidate and future premier Ed Stelmach that year. "So it was one or the other."

In 2015, the party is hoping to make a comeback with apush to win seats in Calgary, and possibly Lethbridge, in a bid to expand its reach outside of Edmonton.

While the party's support is growing, few believe the NDP has any chance of winning in rural Alberta, where right-wing parties like Tories and Wildrose are firmly entrenched.

The party wasn't bound by those expectations in 1986. The NDP's predecessor, the CCF, had its roots in rural areas.Candidates and volunteers were also motivated by the death of former leader Grant Notley, father of currentleader Rachel Notley, in a plane crash in 1984.

"When he lost his life in that plane crash,it did have a galvanizing effect for a lot of people, that they wanted to work hard and not lose the vision that he had helped fan," said Bob Hawkesworth, NDP MLA for Calgary-Mountain View from 1986 to 1993.

"For those of us who were around at that time, the current campaign with his daughter Rachel as the leader takes on special meaning and significance."

'It didn't just happen'

WhenFox waselected in Vegreville in 1986, it wasn't aone-time oddity inAlberta electoralhistory.He repeated thatfeat in 1989.

Fox, who still lives in the town east of Edmonton, said his first win didn't entirely come out of the blue.

The incumbent had decided to step down, so the riding was wide open.The NDP had a strong organization in Vegreville at the time, and candidates had performed well in earlier elections.

Fox's strength as a candidate and the past NDP support made Vegreville one of seven ridings the party targeted for successin 1986.

Still, winning the electionwasn't a given.

"It didn't just happen," Fox said Sunday. "I was nominated a year before the election and we campaigned with enthusiasm and vigour, and by the time the election was called, we were raring to go."

The same time Fox was campaigning in Vegreville, Hawkesworth, a long-time Calgary alderman, was running for the NDP in his city.

Hawkesworth sees many parallels between the 1986 and 2015 campaigns the governing Progressive Conservatives at the time hada new leader and Albertans were anxious about a ballooning deficit caused by plunging oil prices.

It was for those reasons thatHawkesworth decided to run for the NDP, even if it meant leavinga comfortable seat on city council.

"With a government looking for a very large majority again in the legislature, it felt like there needed to be a strengthening of democratic voices and alternative points of view that needed to be represented," he said.

Hawkesworth won by a small margin in 1986, beating a young PC candidate named Jim Prentice.

Rebuild based in Edmonton

The party has beenrebuilding since the devastating loss in 1993, which contributed to the current image of theNDP as an urban party based in Edmonton,Martin said.

The NDP was able to regain a toehold in the legislature in 1997, when Raj Pannu and Pam Barrett were electedin Edmonton-Strathcona and Edmonton-Highlands, respectively. Martin made his way back to the legislature in 2004.

Still, the party was never able to capture more than four seats, none of them outside Edmonton.

Martin, Fox and Hawkesworth believe that will change in 2015.

The factors that pushed the NDP to win 16 seats in 1986 exist againtoday. Hawkesworth believes the unpopular measures introduced by the government in the budget may help his party.

Then there's Notley, who Hawkesworth saidreminds many of her father.

"I think one of the reasons the New Democrats are tracking so well is the popularity of Rachel Notley," he said. "She has all of the qualities of her father, and more."

Martin saidhe's hoping for theNDP to make a breakthrough.

"Sometimesin politics, it depends on the timing. And this time, I believe, like in '86, the timing is right."