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Alberta Politics

alberta election candidates update – march 2012.

With a provincial election expected to be called early next week, three of Alberta’s main political parties – the Progressive Conservatives, New Democrats, and Wildrose Party – have nominated full-slates of 87 candidates. The official opposition Liberal Party, with 60 candidates nominated, is rushing to fill  their remaining 27 candidacies. Expected to nominate more than 30 candidates in this election, the Alberta Party has already nominated 27 candidates. The Evergreen Party, which has risen from the financial ashes of the defunct Green Party, has sixteen candidates nominated across the province. [Last week, I spoke on CBC Calgary’s The Eyeopener how different political parties are progressing in candidate nominations].

Alberta Liberal Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)
Alberta Liberal Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)
Alberta Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)
Alberta Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)
Evergreen Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)
Evergreen Party nominated election candidates (March 22, 2012)

Here are a few of the recent updates that I have made to the growing list of candidates running in the election:

Lacombe-Ponoka: Replacing MLA Ray Prins, who announced a last minute withdrawal as the Progressive Conservative candidate earlier this week, will be replaced by City of Lacombe Mayor Steve Christie. Mayor Christie was first elected in October 2010. Meanwhile, Pauline Prins, wife of Mr. Prins, wrote a letter defending her husband to the Lacombe Globe. The local paper has been filled with letters criticizing Mr. Prins over the past few weeks.

Calgary-Bow: Ellen Phillips has been nominated as the Alberta Party candidate.

Calgary-Buffalo: Comedian and writer Cory Mack has been nominated as the Alberta Party candidate in this downtown Calgary constituency.

Calgary-East: Ali Abdulbaki has been nominated as the Liberal Party candidate.

Jason Webster Alberta Party candidate Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill
Jason Webster

Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill: The Alberta Party has nominated Jason Webster and the Liberals have nominated Don Thompson.

Drayton Valley-Calmar: The Liberals have nominated Chantel Lillycrop as their candidate.

Edmonton-Castle Downs: Kim Cassady has been chosen as the Liberal Party candidate in this north Edmonton constituency. Mr. Cassady ran in the 2010 City Council election and was the Liberal candidate in Edmonton-Highlands in the 2001 provincial election. Previous to his first provincial run, he worked for Edmonton-Glenora Liberal MLA Howard Sapers.

Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood: The Liberal Party has nominated University of Alberta student Keegan Wynychuk as their candidate. The Alberta Party has announced Cameron McCormick will be their candidate.

Jonathan Huckabay Liberal candidate Edmonton-Manning
Jonathan Huckabay

Edmonton-Manning: Official Opposition Chief of Staff Jonathan Huckabay was chosen as the Liberal Party candidate in this north east Edmonton constituency. Mr. Huckabay worked as legislative assistant to PC MLA’s until Raj Sherman was suspended from the governing caucus. The Alberta Party has nominated Mark Wall, professor of Church History and Theology and Dean of Students at Vanguard College.

Edmonton-Strathcona: University of Alberta student Ed Ramsden has been acclaimed as the Liberal Party candidate.

Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville: Matthew Levicki has been nominated as the Evergreen Party candidate.

Livingstone-Macleod: The Liberals have appointed Alex Macdonald as their candidate in this south west Alberta constituency. Mr. Macdonald works as a strategic advisor to Liberal leader Dr. Sherman at the Assembly and played a key role in former Liberal leader Laurence Decore‘s campaigns in the early 1990s.

Sherwood Park: Teacher Chris Kuchmak has been chosen as the Alberta Party candidate.

Whitecourt-Ste. Anne: Vern Hardman has been acclaimed as the Liberal Party candidate. In 2011, Mr. Hardmand was an unsuccessful candidate for the PC nomination in the neighbouring Stony Plain constituency.

12 replies on “alberta election candidates update – march 2012.”

Mr. Christie should fit right in with the PC culture of entitlement. A trip through the letters to the editor in the Lacombe paper makes for an interesting and telling read.

I wonder, how many of the rush-nominated Liberal, AP & Evergreen candidates will be real candidates that plan to campaign, versus invisible “name on the ballot” candidates?

The NDP, Wildrose & PCs at least have had candidates in place for some time and we are likely see real campaigns from all three; I don’t see the Liberals having genuine campaigns in many of these constituencies where we see these last-minute nominations.

Thanks for all your work on this list, Dave. Wonderful source.
On of the reasons the Alberta Party is not running candidates in every constituency is because our candidates are not “invisible name on the ballot” candidates, they are all well known and involved in their own communities.

Speaking as a rural Albertan (and taking off my AP candidate hat for a minute)the NDP and
Libs should realize by now that they don’t do anything but lose even more credibility with voters in rural constituencies by dropping in an unknown, urban person, often one who doesn’t even know where the constituency is, (as appears to be the case in my constituency.) Parachute candidates may work in large urban centers, where the constituencies are smaller, but they sure don’t in rural communities where everyone knows everyone else.

The NDP have had candidates in place for a while, but I doubt we’ll be seeing full-scale campaigns from them outside of Edmonton and Lethbridge. Otherwise most of them are just names on ballots.

Sadly, if the majority of rural Albertans are so locked on right wing policies — and have been for more than 40 years — such that they aren’t even interested in hearing about what some of us consider to be common sense, public good, progressive ideas, what is the point of spending limited NDP and Liberal or Alberta Party dollars trying to talk to what amounts to be deaf ears? (and we know this because fierce independents, who always used to get a fair hearing by rural folks, haven’t been voted in as MLAs, for years and years.)

Midge and Jerry, I think you’ll find candidates from progressive parties in most of those rural districts, whether they are known in the community or not, with one or two exceptions, will get the same historically dismal results as always.

Centre-left parties are better off saving their pennies and concentrating where their messages have a fair hearing: urban areas.

Let’s look at who’s running for the NDP in the northwest, shall we? Let’s see, in the “big city”, we have Paula Anderson, a local schoolteacher and ATA rep who has been active in NDP politics for years, running in Grande Prairie-Wapiti; and Mary Dahr, a hospital lab tech, Friends of Medicare local chapter officer, and women’s issues activist (for example, she has been an organizer of Take Back the Night events in Grande Prairie). Both are credible local candidates elected by their constituency associations (Paula in a contested nomination), not “parachute” candidates appointed by Edmonton.

In Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley, the NDP candidate is Nathan Macklin, and area farmer and scion of a prominent CCF-NDP family in the Peace Country (I.V. Macklin school in Grande Prairie is named after either his grandfather or great-grandfather… I’m not positive about the family tree there). Again, a credible, real candidate.

In Peace River, the NDP candidate is Wanda Laurin;I don’t know her personally, the NDP website describes her as a schoolteacher in Peace River for over 25 years, an environmental and alternative energy activist, and a former francophone school board trustee.

All of these are credible local candidates; and with no real Liberal, AP or EG alternatives, it will be very interesting to see how the PC-Wildrose vote splits in those constituencies, and where more centrist and progressive voters go.

Judging by the polls, those much vaunted ‘progressive voters’ seem to be going for Redford.

Oh and Mr. Berta the EverGreen’s have a Senate candidate named Elizabeth Johansson

The Tories made a HUGE tactical error in delivering the budget and then NOT going into an election immediately following it. This tells me the PC Party is NOT effectively reading the mood of the people.

As a result, the Premier, the government and the party are all reeling from a series of mishaps which have now most certainly affected their own potential success in the provincial election. This could have all been avoided had the PC’s been realistic, as opposed to believing their own press.

The longer the PC’s wait to call the election, the worse it will get for them. For a party who claimed they didn’t want to divide the progressive conservative vote, they sure haven’t done themselves any favours as of late.

They have no one but themselves to blame!

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