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Alberta Politics

PC and Wildrose Party candidates running against Rachel Notley in Edmonton-Strathcona

Rising from the political grave, candidates from Alberta’s two former dominant conservative parties are running against NDP leader Rachel Notley in Edmonton-Strathcona.

Rachel Notley Alberta Premier NDP
Rachel Notley

According to the Elections Alberta website, Gary Horan has been nominated to run as a Progressive Conservative candidate and Dale Doan as a Wildrose Party candidate in the long-time NDP-held district in the heart of Edmonton.

While the two parties are organizationally non-existent, they are controlled by the United Conservative Party and Jason Kenney is technically the leader of all three parties.

In order to avoid de-registration by Elections Alberta, the parties are required to field at least one candidate in the election. It is likely they will be paper candidates, meaning no real campaign will be organized to elect them in this district.

It is believed that the shell of the PC Party still owes a significant amount of debt in the range of $175,000 that was accrued during the party’s disastrous 2015 election campaign, which is why the party still exists on paper. Alberta’s election finance laws bar the UCP or any other party from repaying the debts of the PC Party, even though its leadership controls the party.

It is likely that the UCP continues to keep the Wildrose Party registered in order to avoid another group claiming the party name and running candidates under its banner against the UCP.

The PC Party governed Alberta from 1971 until 2015. The Wildrose Party formed the Official Opposition from 2012 until 2017.

Notley was re-elected in 2015 with 82 per cent of the vote. Voters in Edmonton-Strathcona have elected NDP MLAs in eight of the nine elections since 1986.

There are now 11 candidates running in Edmonton-Strathcona:
Advantage Party: Don Meister
Alberta Party: Prem Pal
Alberta Independence: Ian Smythe
Communist: Naomi Rankin
Green: Stuart Andrews
Independent: Gord McLean
Liberal: Samantha Hees
NDP: Rachel Notley [FacebookTwitter]
Progressive Conservative: Gary Horan
UCP: Kulshan Gill
Wildrose: Dale Doan


If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them to the list. Thank you!

8 replies on “PC and Wildrose Party candidates running against Rachel Notley in Edmonton-Strathcona”

I figure that running useless candidates is a waste of time. More concern to me is Alberta Independence Party candidate Dave Bjorkman “is he invited to the Alberta debates”?. If not WHY?? Are we not free Albertan people to decide on election issues. Are we going to let the MSM decide our election before even voting?.

Hey there! Out of curiosity, what date did the WildRose and PC candidates announce their candidates? There was a guy (white-grey spiky hair, middle-aged, average paunch, got out of a dark SUV) canvassing signatures for “Conservative and Wild Rose” candidates to “Run against Rachel Notley” at my bus stop in Strathcona on Friday morning. It seemed a bit weird at the time, and now that I seen there are already candidates, it seems even weirder.

My thoughts are maybe the PC and WRP candidates are another attempt at a kamikaze situation that allegedly got Jason Kenney elected leader of the UCP to get Notley defeated in her own riding

I have a call into Elections AB to clarify the rules for candidates running in a constituency. In Edm Strathcona the Wildrose and PC Party list candidates, but provide a direct link to the UCP party. To me this appears somewhat like stacking the deck in that if any one of the three (UCP, Wildrose, PC Party), then the UCP can claim this riding’s seat…So they have 3x the chance to get a seat… which seems unfair and perhaps unlawful. I guess I will find out the answer once the AB Elections Officer returns my call and explain me the election rules and lows.

Even if it is allowed it seems pretty slippery on behalf of the UCP to allow this. It certainly adds more weight to less than honest conduct by the UCP management.

Thanks for the comment, Kirby. The three parties votes are still counted separately. A vote for the PC or Wildrose candidate does not count toward the UCP candidate in Edmonton-Strathcona.

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