Opposition shouldn’t panic – it should make smart changes
The three provincial by-elections are in full swing and the NDP are eager to have leader Naheed Nenshi join their MLAs in the Legislature. Two new polls will add extra urgency to the NDP’s efforts to hold on to two of those seats and have Nenshi hit the ground running when he is elected in Edmonton-Strathcona on June 23.
By-elections in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona, and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills on June 23
It was two years ago today that Premier Danielle Smith led the United Conservative Party to re-election in Alberta. It was a close election by Alberta standards, with former premier Rachel Notley’s NDP making big gains in Calgary but not enough to block a conservative re-election.
Despite implementing a political agenda much more radical than anything that was promised on May 29, 2023 and being dogged by controversial scandals and allegations of corruption, Smith’s UCP continues to hold it’s support in the province.
Smith is a deeply divisive figure in Alberta but she is a shrewd politician and skilled communicator who knows how to appeal to and govern with her party’s voters exclusively in mind, even if it sometimes puts her offside with most Albertans.
The Alberta NDP are scheduled to nominate a candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election on June 14, but rumours are circulating that Premier Danielle Smith could call that by-election along with two others in Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona very soon.
The UCP announced last week that Alberta Grains chairperson Tara Sawyer had been appointed as the party’s candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Sawyer’s appointment happened without an open nomination race, which is likely an indication the UCP was concerned a pro-separatist candidate could possibly create a messy nomination contest in that rural central Alberta riding.
Voters only getting 2 more MLAs despite huge population boom
Alberta will have a new electoral map when the next provincial election is called. An Electoral Boundaries Commission has been named and will begin travelling the province next week to collect feedback from Albertans about how new riding boundaries should be drawn to reflect population changes since the last time the map was redrawn in 2017.
Is Premier Danielle Smith a separatist? Is the UCP a separatist party?
The biggest difference between today’s Alberta separatist push and past efforts is that today’s most vocal separatists are operating within the governing UCP. Premier Danielle Smith gave her tacit public support for these groups in an online video address earlier this month and she knows that any direct effort to try to stop it would turn those groups, which included some of the UCP’s most enthusiastic activists, against her.
Many of those enthusiastic separatists inside the UCP helped topple former Premier Jason Kenney in 2022 and propel Smith to victory in the leadership race that followed. Writer Jen Gerson cleverly described Smith’s situation through one rule of politics: you get ate by the dragon you ride in on.
Also: Six thoughts on Danielle Smith’s separatist threats
After ten years as the MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills and nearly six years as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Nathan Cooper is leaving the Legislature to take up a new job as Alberta’s senior representative to the United States.
In a statement released yesterday, Premier Danielle Smith announced that Cooper would replace representative James Rajotte, who recently stepped down after filling the role since 2020.
Also: Pierre Poilievre running in Battle River—Crowfoot by-election, gets unwelcome greetings from UCP VP
Naheed Nenshi’s speech was upbeat and touched on a lot of traditional NDP points about public health care, public education and rights for workers, but he was most animated when ripping into Premier Danielle Smith’s threat that the Liberal Party’s re-election would spark an unprecedented national unity crisis and her flirtation with Alberta separatists.
‘I will be damned if we ever let Danielle Smith tear the country down,’ Nenshi said. “Alberta’s New Democrats will always, always, always stand with the millions and millions of Canadians who believe in a stronger, more unified country,” Nenshi said.
“No more playing stupid separatist games with the future of our province! No more disrespecting Indigenous communities! No more disrespecting Albertans!”
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Danielle Smith’s sovereignty agenda gives the Liberals a generational opportunity to reset with Albertans
New and recent episodes of the Daveberta Podcast are available exclusively to paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack.
The votes are counted and the surprising results of Monday’s federal election will have big ramifications for Canada. Friend of the pod and Partner & Chief Strategist at Y Station Communications and Research, Chris Henderson, joins us on the Daveberta Podcast to break down the election results and what they mean for the country, Alberta, and Premier Danielle Smith’s continued pursuit of a sovereignty agenda.
We also delve into Pierre Poilievre’s future as leader of the Conservative Party what opportunities Mark Carney’s Liberals have to reset their relationship with Albertans.
The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and produced by Adam Rozenhart. This episode was recorded on April 29, 2025 in the offices of Adverb Communications in beautiful downtown Edmonton.
Conservatives win 34 of 37 seats, Liberals win 2, NDP 1
One of Daveberta’s first rules of Alberta politics is to never underestimate the Conservatives, and that rule appears to have held true last night as votes in the federal election were counted across the province.
At the time I am publishing this, Conservative Party candidates are elected in 34 of 37 ridings in Alberta. This makes them a significant block in what will be a 144 MP Conservative Opposition in Ottawa. This is a larger Conservative caucus than existed before this election but falls far short of the huge majority government the Conservatives were expecting Pierre Poilievre would lead them to only a few months ago. The Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Mark Carney were re-elected with 168 seats, including two in Alberta.
It’s Election Day so don’t forget to vote!
It’s Election Day in Canada and the polls are open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Alberta. If you aren’t one of the 815,131 Albertans who voted in the Advance Polls, then be sure to find your voting station and cast a ballot today.
While voters in most of Alberta’s 37 federal electoral districts are expected to elect their local Conservative Party candidate tonight, there are a few ridings that are expected to be competitive. Here are a few Alberta ridings I will be watching closely tonight…
With Premier Danielle Smith travelling to South Korea to meet with the Governor of that country’s Gangwon state government this week, I am re-sharing an amusing article I originally published on March 22, 2023. Enjoy!
If you are in the market for used office furniture or old electronics, then the Alberta Government’s online auction website is probably for you. Sometimes you might also find an old piano, intriguing piece of art, mobile trailer or heavily-used ATV, but a few months ago something very unique was put on the government’s auction block: a Bell of Friendship.
This particular Bell of Friendship was gifted to the Government of Alberta in 1981 by the then-Governor of Kangwon-do (known more commonly as Gangwon), South Korea.
Jagmeet Singh, Pierre Poilievre, and maybe Mark Carney make final stops in Alberta
Canada’s federal election is four days away and most polls are pointing to a big national victory for Mark Carney’s Liberal Party. While the national polls show the gap between Carney’s party and Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives slightly tightening, the Liberal lead in Ontario and Atlantic Canada looks insurmountable unless something drastic happens before April 28.
While most of Alberta’s federal ridings will be solidly Conservative blue on election night, the province’s two biggest cities could produce some interesting results. I haven’t seen any actual riding-level polls, which are both expensive and difficult to conduct, but most national polls show the Liberals with around 30 percent support in Alberta. This would represent the largest percentage of votes for the federal Liberals in Alberta since 1968.
The Liberal surge in the national polls, which shows the Liberals jumping up to around 30 percent support in Alberta in some polls (the party’s highest levels of support in this province in almost sixty years), has led to a lot of discussion in this campaign about vote-splitting.
“Stop the Split!” was the key message of a recent pamphlet that Blake Desjarlais’ campaign mailed to voters in the riding. The NDP campaign’s message is “Only Blake Desjarlais can defeat Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in Edmonton Griesbach.” The pamphlet doesn’t mention Kerry Diotte, which is interesting, and points out that in the last election the NDP earned 40 percent of the vote, the Conservatives won 37 percent and the Liberals finished third with 13 percent in the riding.
Discussions about vote-splitting in Edmonton, which usually revolve around defeating Conservative candidates, almost always devolve into cringeworthy arguments between Liberal and NDP partisans – which is why I try to avoid them.
Daveberta readers are smart people and it’s not my place to tell you how to vote. The furthest I’ll wade into the vote-splitting debate in my riding today is to say that it’s true that the Liberals are doing very well in the national polls and it’s also true that Desjarlais’ campaign is the better organized of the two main non-Conservative candidates in Edmonton Griesbach.
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais faces former Conservative MP Kerry Diotte and Mark Carney’s red wave
As Canada’s federal election enters its final week, I am taking a closer look at the race in the Edmonton Griesbach riding. It’s one of a surprisingly large handful of Alberta ridings that are considered competitive in this election and it also happens to be the riding I live and vote in.
The east central/north side Edmonton riding was where the NDP picked up their second seat in Alberta in the 2021 federal election when New Democrat Blake Desjarlais defeated two-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte. This year’s election is a rematch between the two candidates but, despite traditionally being a blue-orange race, the Liberal Party’s surge could put that party’s candidate in the mix.
Confusing hodgepodge of government investigations shows need for independent public inquiry into Dodgy Contracts Scandal
There is a lot happening in Alberta politics this week, including the news that Airdrie-Cochrane United Conservative Party MLA Peter Guthrie has been officially removed from the UCP caucus. The former cabinet minister resigned as Minister of Infrastructure in February 2025 as a protest against allegations of corruption, cover-ups and political interference in government contracts related to health care supplies and private surgical companies.
“I’m not going to stand by and see potential corruption exist within government and be a part of that,” Guthrie told the Globe & Mail when he resigned from cabinet in February. “I felt profound disappointment in their ability to be able to ignore these clear conflicts,” he said.
