You’re mixing the way first past the post works with popular votes (which is the important part of this discussion), that’s two separate things and you should know it if you were involved as you mentioned. One shows the opinion of the population as a whole, the other shows the opinion of the majority of separate districts.
The NDP wasn’t even close to the conservatives, they were 8.6% behind in popular support. 1300 is the difference required to switch enough districts to the NDP so they would have won, it still would have meant that they would have taken power with less than 45% of the total vote and with the second position going to a party with 8% more popular support than them.
If your three kids want to go see movie A and you and your wife want to go see movie B and you tell them “Well, we’re paying so we’re going to see Movie B” it doesn’t mean your family was leaning towards seeing Movie B, it means the parents had disproportionate power to decide which movie the family was going to see.
That’s what happens with first past the post, have 45 districts voting at 100% for Party A, 55 districts each individually voting at 35% for party A and 65% for party B, party B is now in power with 35.75% of the popular vote and 55 seats, party A has 45 seats and 64.25% of the popular vote.
Alberta leans conservative, the popular vote is the proof of that.