Alberta, home to Canada’s vast oil sands, is preparing for a political shake-up for the first time in a generation as voters head to the polls Tuesday with surveys showing the Progressive Conservative’s 44-year dynasty may be coming to an end. Premier Jim Prentice is seeking to extend his Conservative party’s reign with a 13th-consecutive majority. Polls show the Tories, as the party is known, trailing Rachel Notley’s New Democrats and the right-leaning Wildrose under Brian Jean. An NDP victory may weigh on oil company earnings and share prices as the pro-labor party has pledged to raise corporate taxes and review the royalty payments made by producers, said AltaCorp analyst Jeremy McCrea. Prentice, who has led the province since September, called the early election just days after releasing a March budget designed to loosen the government’s reliance on oil revenue by increasing taxes on income, gasoline and alcohol. The […]