Category: Alberta Politics

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Alberta Politics

It’s a draw. Fast-paced leaders debate was entertaining but probably didn’t move votes

Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley and UCP leader Danielle Smith at the televised leaders debate (screenshot source: CBC)
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley and UCP leader Danielle Smith at the televised leaders debate (screenshot source: CBC)

It’s one and done.

United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith and Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley met last night for the only televised leaders debate of Alberta’s election campaign. The debate was entertaining for political watchers and it will probably be analyzed to death for the next 24 hours, but I’m not sure it will have much of an impact on the election campaign.

Here are a few quick thoughts on the leaders debate…

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

A short history of leaders’ debates in Alberta elections

PC leader Ralph Klein, NDP leader Ray Martin and Liberal leader Laurence Decore at the 1993 TV leaders debate, a first in Alberta politics (screenshot source: CBC)
PC leader Ralph Klein, NDP leader Ray Martin and Liberal leader Laurence Decore at the 1993 TV leaders debate, a first in Alberta politics (screenshot source: CBC)

United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith and Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley will face each other at 7:00 pm tonight in the only televised leaders debate of Alberta’s election campaign.

This is the first time Alberta has had a TV debate featuring only two party leaders, but both people taking the stage have experience doing this before.

This is Notley’s third televised debate since 2015 and it’s Smith’s second.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Please Take Your Seats, the Show is About to Get Under Way

Election lawn signs in Edmonton (source: Dave Cournoyer)
The next two weeks will be a lot of fun for political watchers

We’re halfway through the third week of Alberta’s election campaign and we’re seeing how the two main parties are laying the groundwork for this week’s marquee event: the televised leaders debate.

After a rough first two weeks of the campaign, the United Conservative Party is stepping up its attacks on the Alberta NDP’s economic record, trying to shift attention away from health care and the never-ending stream of controversial comments that have come out of Danielle Smith’s mouth.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Daveberta Podcast: Who’s on the ballot in Alberta’s election?

I joined Éric Grenier of TheWrit.ca on his excellent podcast this week to discuss Alberta’s election and the candidates who will be on the ballot on May 29. Éric was generous enough to share the audio from that episode so I can share it with the lucky paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack.

Thank you to Daveberta Podcast producer Adam Rozenhart for editing this so we can share it with you today.

Listen to this episode of the Daveberta Podcast by signing up for a paid subscription to the Daveberta Substack.

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Alberta Politics

Look who’s running in Alberta’s election. There are 349 candidates but it’s still a UCP-NDP race

NDP leader Rachel Notley at an election campaign rally in Calgary (source: Rachel Notley / Twitter)
NDP leader Rachel Notley at an election campaign rally in Calgary (source: Rachel Notley / Twitter)

The official list of candidates was released by Elections Alberta at the end of last week. I’ve been tracking candidate nominations for this election quite closely over the past two years and shared some initial thoughts a few weeks ago. But now that the list of candidates is official, here’s a quick look at the slates on the ballot on May 29.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Get a limited-edition Daveberta election lawn sign

Daveberta Substack Alberta Election Lawn Sign
Daveberta Substack Alberta Election Lawn Sign

I am excited to announce I’ve printed a limited run of special edition Daveberta lawn signs and I am looking forward to sharing them with some of you!

The “I’m voting for…” lawn signs let you check the election issues most important to you and are a great way to show your neighbours what you’re voting for on May 29. They look great planted on lawns and placed in apartment windows.

Read more about it on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Elections Alberta releases the official list of 2023 election candidates

The deadline has passed for candidates to get on the ballot for Alberta’s provincial election and, as was widely expected, only the United Conservative Party and the Alberta NDP have fielded a full slate of 87 candidates.

The Green Party has the third largest slate with 41 candidates and Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s Solidarity Movement of Alberta has 38.

The Independence Party (formerly led by Pawlowski) has 14 candidates and the Paul Hinman-led upstart Wildrose Loyalty Coalition also has 16.

The Alberta Party has nominated 19 candidates and the Liberal Party has 13.

There are 14 registered political parties and 349 nominated candidates.

I will update the list of candidates to reflect the Elections Alberta official list this weekend and I will share some thoughts about the nominated slates soon on the Daveberta Substack (subscribe!).

I’ve been tracking candidate nominations for this election since March 2021 and it is always a bit of a bitter sweet ended when we reach deadline day. I want to thank everyone who reached out, emailed, DMed, texted and tweeted me with candidate updates over the past two years.

I’m sure it won’t be long before I start collecting nomination updates for the next Alberta election.

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Alberta Politics

Amarjeet Sohi and Danielle Smith present very different solutions for downtown Edmonton’s problems

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi delivers his State of the City Address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on May 9, 2023 (source: https://medium.com/mayorsohi)
Mayor Amarjeet Sohi delivers his State of the City Address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on May 9, 2023 (source: https://medium.com/mayorsohi)

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith presented two very different approaches on Tuesday morning to address the challenges facing the capital city’s downtown core.

No one will deny that there are big social problems facing Edmonton’s downtown. You can take a walk down almost any street downtown and see people facing mental health or addictions challenges. It’s sad and troubling.

Read the rest of this column on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Wildfires rage across Alberta. This natural disaster will define the second week of the election campaign

A map showing wildfires across Alberta on May 7, 2023 (source: Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard)
A map showing wildfires across Alberta on May 7, 2023 (source: Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard)

A hot, dry, and windy spring has sparked dangerous wildfires across Alberta.

More than 25,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in communities including Brazeau County, Drayton Valley, Edson, Entwistle, Evansburg, and the County of Grande Prairie. In rural areas, this not only means that people need to get out quick but they also need to arrange the speedy transport of livestock caught in the paths of the fires.

Alberta’s provincial election is probably the last thing on the minds of most people impacted by these natural disasters, but the wildfires will certainly play a defining role in the second week of Alberta’s provincial election campaign.

Read the rest of the column on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Former Wildrose leader Paul Hinman’s Wildrose Loyalty Coalition names 54 candidates in Alberta’s election

Wildrose MLA Paul Hinman and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith in 2010. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

The separatist Wildrose Loyalty Coalition was only recognized as a political party by Elections Alberta last week and this weekend the right-wing splinter party registered a slate of 54 candidates in ridings across Alberta.

The right-wing slate includes leader Paul Hinman, who is running in Taber-Warner, an area he represented as an Alberta Alliance and Wildrose Alliance MLA from 2004 to 2008.

The Wildrose Loyalty Coalition was formed by Hinman after he was removed as leader of the Wildrose Independence Party. Hinman was leader of the Wildrose Alliance from its creation in 2008 until 2009, when Danielle Smith was chosen as leader.

Meanwhile, the formerly-Hinman-led Wildrose Independence Party has nominated 2 candidates, including now-leader Jeevan Mangat in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake.

The other right-wing separatist party, the Independence Party, has 11 candidates nominated, including recently named Cody Ray Both in Cypress-Medicine Hat, David Braun in Grande Prairie, Vicky Bayford in Red Deer-North, Kerry Lambert in Chestermere-Strathmore, and Frank Kast in Taber-Warner. Kast replaces previously nominated candidate Brent Ginther.

Recently ousted Independence Party leader Pastor Artur Pawlowski announced last week that he plans to create a new party called the Solidarity Movement of Alberta.

I’m planning to write a more in-depth piece about Alberta’s cottage industry of right-wing political parties on the Daveberta Substack next week.

More nominations

Other smaller parties have also announced new candidates:

The Alberta Party nominated Darrell Dunn in Vermilion-Lloydminster-Vegreville, Wayne Jackson in Calgary-Beddington, and Preston Mildenberger in Grande Prairie.

The Green Party has nominated Christopher Khan in Edmonton-Meadows, David Clarke in Edmonton-City Centre, Derek Thompson in Edmonton-Manning, Lane Robson in Calgary-Currie, Shane Diederich in Grande Prairie. Michelle Overwater Giles in Airdrie-Cochrane, Justin Fuss in Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, and Galloway Hiatt in West Yellowhead.

Newly registered Independent candidates include Andrej Gudanowski in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview, Nancy O’Neill in Lesser Slave Lake, Larry Heather in Calgary-Acadia, and disqualified UCP candidate Zulkifl Mujahid in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo.

Total Nominated candidates

Here are the total nominated candidates running in Alberta’s provincial election:

  • United Conservative Party: 87/87
  • Alberta NDP: 87/87
  • Wildrose Loyalty Coalition 53/87
  • Green Party: 39/87
  • Alberta Party: 21/87
  • Liberal Party: 12/87
  • Independence Party: 11/87
  • Advantage Party: 3/87
  • Communist Party: 3/87
  • Wildrose Independence Party: 2/87
  • Buffalo Party 1/87
  • Pro-Life Political Association: 1/87

Subscribe to the Daveberta Substack

Daveberta Substack Podcast Alberta Politics Election Dave CournoyerI’m continuing to post candidate nomination updates on this website but subscribe to the Daveberta Substack to read my latest Alberta election coverage. My most recent piece dives into how the United Conservative Party went from being a political juggernaut in 2019 to being neck-and-neck with the Alberta NDP in 2023.

I am planning to share most of my writing for the upcoming Alberta election on Substack, so don’t miss out!

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Alberta Politics

The UCP was a political juggernaut in 2019 but four years changed a lot in Alberta politics

UCP leader Jason Kenney (Source: Facebook)
Then-leader of the UCP Jason Kenney during the 2019 election. (Source: United Conservative Party/Facebook)

It’s amazing how much can change in four years.

The United Conservative Party won big in Alberta’s 2019 election, taking 63 seats in the Alberta Legislature and earning 54.8 per cent of the province-wide vote. The party racked up huge margins of victory in rural ridings and swept Calgary.

It was a juggernaut.

It also wasn’t clear on that election night if the Alberta NDP would be able to recover from their defeat. It felt unlikely.

That the UCP is now neck-and-neck with the NDP in most polls with only 24 days left until the next election says a lot about the UCP’s four years as government and the NDP’s time in opposition.

Read the rest of the column on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Alberta Politics

Independent MLA Drew Barnes not running for re-election, two new right-wing parties announced

Drew Barnes (source: Drew Barnes on Twitter)

As the first day of Alberta’s provincial election winds down, I have a few quick candidate nomination updates to share.

Barnes not running

He waited until almost the very last minute, but Independent MLA Drew Barnes announced through a video posted on social media that he will not seek re-election for a fourth term as the MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat.

Barnes was first elected in 2012 as a Wildrose Party MLA and was re-elected under the Wildrose banner in 2015. He won a third-term in 2019 as a United Conservative Party candidate but was removed from the UCP Caucus in 2021 after two years of being a general thorn in then-premier Jason Kenney‘s side.

Party on the right

The Wildrose Loyalty Coalition (not to be confused with the Wildrose Independence Party) is now an official registered political party recognized by Elections Alberta.

The new party is led by former Wildrose Independence and Wildrose Alliance Party leader Paul Hinman, who was pushed out of his role as leader of the WIP last year. Two-time Wildrose Party candidate and UCP nominee aspirant Danny Hozack is the party president.

And there is always room for one-more fringe party on the political right in Alberta.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski, known for his 11-minute phone call with Premier Danielle Smith and his ousting as leader of the Independence Party of Alberta, was joined by former Conservative Member of Parliament Rob Anders (who is still listed as a board member of the Wildrose Independence Party) to announce they are forming another new political party – The Solidarity Movement of Alberta.

Meanwhile, the Pro-Life Alberta Political Association (formerly known as the Social Credit Party) has nominated Lucas Hernandez as their candidate in Calgary-Mountain View. Hernandez carried the party banner in Calgary-Currie in 2019, where he earned 60 votes.

The CBC’s Jason Markusoff recently wrote an analysis of the Alberta Pro-Life Political Association, a political party that acts like a political action committee.

The Independents

There are also a handful of people who have registered as candidates with no party affiliation who will run as Independents.

They include Andrew Lineker in Edmonton-McClung, Graham Lettner in Edmonton-Gold Bar, Jody Balanko in Strathcona-Sherwood Park, and Matthew Powell in Vermilion-Lloydminster-Wainwright.

Powell sought the Freedom Conservative Party nomination in the riding in 2019 (FCP joined with Wexit Alberta to become the Wildrose Independence Party in 2021).

Total Nominated candidates

Here are the total nominated candidates running in Alberta’s provincial election:

  • United Conservative Party: 87/87
  • New Democratic Party 87/87
  • Green Party: 31/87
  • Alberta Party: 18/87
  • Liberal Party: 12/87
  • Independence Party of Alberta: 7/87
  • Advantage Party of Alberta: 3/87
  • Communist Party: 3/87
  • Wildrose Independence Party: 2/87
  • Buffalo Party 1/87
  • Pro-Life Political Association: 1/87
  • Wildrose Loyalty Coalition 1/87

Subscribe to the Daveberta Substack

Daveberta Substack Podcast Alberta Politics Election Dave CournoyerI will continue to post candidate nomination updates on this website but subscribe to the Daveberta Substack to read my latest Alberta election coverage. My most recent piece covers how the UCP and NDP kicked-off the election, the role that Conservative Party MPs are playing in the election, and how the two main parties are spending money on digital advertising.

I am planning to share most of my writing for the upcoming Alberta election on Substack, so don’t miss out!

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Alberta Politics

Alberta NDP nominates candidates in Grande Prairie-Wapiti, Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche and Taber-Warner, filling its slate of 87 candidates

 The Alberta NDP became the second party to fill its full slate of 87 candidates late last night with the nomination of Calan Hobbs in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche and Jazminn Hintz in Taber-Warner.

The NDP announced on Saturday that author and editor Dustin Archibald would be the party’s candidate in Grande Prairie-Wapiti.

“As a parent, I was very concerned when the UCP introduced their inappropriate curriculum. This backwards curriculum is not one that will give my son a strong start in life,” Archibald said in a statement released after his nomination “Education is one of our biggest economic drivers in the province, so we must invest in public education to ensure children have the best start to their lives.”

And at a party event on Sunday afternoon, Alberta Liberal Party leader John Roggeveen announced he is running in Calgary-Lougheed. The Liberals currently have 12 candidates nominated to run in Alberta’s election.

Total nominated candidates

Here is the list of total nominated Alberta election candidates as of this morning:

  • United Conservative Party: 87/87
  • New Democratic Party 87/87
  • Green Party: 31/87
  • Alberta Party: 18/87
  • Liberal Party: 11/87
  • Independence Party of Alberta: 7/87
  • Advantage Party of Alberta: 3/87
  • Communist Party: 3/87
  • Wildrose Independence Party: 2/87
  • Buffalo Party 1/87

Subscribe to the Daveberta Substack

Daveberta Substack Podcast Alberta Politics Election Dave CournoyerSubscribe to the Daveberta Substack to read my latest Alberta election coverage, including what I learned from years of tracking election candidate nominations and a recent Daveberta Podcast interview with Edmonton Public School Board chairperson Trisha Estabrooks.

I am planning to share most of my writing for the upcoming Alberta election on Substack, so don’t miss out!

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Alberta Politics

Alberta’s election starts today. Parties kicked-off the final pre-campaign weekend with big election energy

UCP leader Danielle Smith at her party’s Edmonton rally on April 29, 2023. Conservative MP Tim Uppal on the right. (source: @ABDanielleSmith on Twitter)
UCP leader Danielle Smith at her party’s Edmonton rally on April 29, 2023. Conservative MP Tim Uppal on the right. (source: @ABDanielleSmith on Twitter)

After a weekend of campaign kick-off rallies in Calgary and Edmonton, Premier Danielle Smith is expected to visit Lieutenant Governor Salma Lakhani today to ask that the Legislature be dissolved and a provincial election be held on May 29.

This will be Alberta’s 31st provincial general election since the province was formed in 1905, and it is also expected to be one of the most competitive in recent memory.

Read the rest of the column on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.

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Colleen Quintal nominated as NDP candidate in Cardston-Siksika, Alberta Party names two more candidates

With three days left until Alberta’s provincial election begins, most parties are still filling their slates of candidates. The United Conservative Party is the only party currently with a full slate of 87 candidates. The Alberta NDP have named 84 candidates and are expected to complete their slate of 87 by Sunday, April 30.

The NDP have nominated Colleen Quintal in Cardston-Siksika. Quintal is President of the NDP constituency association in Lethbridge-East and works as a staff representative with CUPE in Lethbridge.

The NDP are expected to name candidates this weekend in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, Grande Prairie-Wapiti and Taber-Warner.

Here are the other recent updates to the list of Alberta election candidates:

  • The Alberta Party has named Wayne Rufiange is as their candidate in Morinville-St. Albert. Rufiange sought the Alberta Party nomination in the riding in 2019, but was defeated by former St. Albert city councillor Neil Korotash. He instead ran in Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock in the last election.
  • Brad Friesen is running for the Alberta Party in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo.
  • The Independence Party has nominated Rodney Bowen as their candidate in Central Peace-Notley.
  • The Wildrose Independence Party has nominated interim party leader Jeevan Mangat in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake and Mike Lorusso in Highwood.

Related updates

Total nominated candidates

Here is the list of total nominated Alberta election candidates as of this morning:

  • United Conservative Party: 87/87
  • New Democratic Party 84/87
  • Green Party: 31/87
  • Alberta Party: 18/87
  • Liberal Party: 11/87
  • Independence Party of Alberta: 7/87
  • Advantage Party of Alberta: 3/87
  • Communist Party: 3/87
  • Wildrose Independence Party: 2/87
  • Buffalo Party 1/87

Subscribe to the Daveberta Substack

Daveberta Substack Podcast Alberta Politics Election Dave CournoyerSubscribe to the Daveberta Substack to read my latest Alberta election coverage, including what I learned from years of tracking election candidate nominations and a recent Daveberta Podcast interview with Edmonton Public School Board chairperson Trisha Estabrooks.

I am planning to share most of my writing for the upcoming Alberta election on Substack, so don’t miss out!

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