Tag: Alberta NDP

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Alberta Politics

What’s at stake in Alberta’s mid-term by-elections

Then-leader of the Wildrose Party Danielle Smith at a press conference during the 2014 Edmonton-Whitemud by-election. (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Then-leader of the Wildrose Party Danielle Smith at a press conference during the 2014 Edmonton-Whitemud by-election. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

Deciphering what happens in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona, and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills could be interesting

The three by-elections happening on June 23 could have a big impact on Alberta politics, but maybe not in the way you might think. The results of the mid-term by-elections in urban Edmonton-Strathcona, suburban Edmonton-Ellerslie, and rural Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills are an important test for Alberta’s political leaders and the results could impact provincial politics in our province in different ways.

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Alberta Politics

Where is Nenshi? Should we take the separatists seriously?

The Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton (credit: Dave Cournoyer)
The Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton (credit: Dave Cournoyer)

Big questions about Alberta politics on The Line Podcast

Any day I get to talk about Alberta politics is a good day, so I was thrilled to join freelance writer and The Line co-founder Jen Gerson on the latest episode of the The Line Podcast to talk about what’s happening in Alberta politics.

In the hour and ten minute long discussion, we dove into the growing undercurrent of separatist sentiment inside the United Conservative Party, the burgeoning Dodgy Contracts Scandal dogging Premier Danielle Smith’s government, the upcoming by-elections in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, and a big question many political watchers have been asking: where is NDP leader Naheed Nenshi?

Listen to the episode on The Line or find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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Alberta Politics

Polling plunge a five-alarm fire for Nenshi’s NDP

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.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s mid-term by-elections

Premier Danielle Smith with UCP candidate Tara Sawyer and supporters in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills on May 24, 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith with UCP candidate Tara Sawyer and supporters in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills on May 24, 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

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.

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Alberta Politics

Upcoming by-elections in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona

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.

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Alberta Politics

Redrawing Alberta’s electoral map

Alberta Electoral Map

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.

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Alberta Politics

Ten big questions about Alberta separatism in 2025

The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).
The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).

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.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta Speaker Nathan Cooper is going to Washington DC

Alberta Legislative Assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper wearing the newly designed western-style tricorn hat designed by Smithbilt Hats Inc. (source: Legislative Assembly of Alberta)
Alberta Legislative Assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper wearing the newly designed western-style tricorn hat designed by Smithbilt Hats Inc. (source: Legislative Assembly of Alberta)

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.

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Alberta Politics

Punchy Nenshi calls on Danielle Smith to stop playing Alberta separatist games

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi (source: Dave Cournoyer)

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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Alberta Politics

Peter Guthrie gets kicked out of the UCP Caucus

Peter Guthrie and Premier Danielle Smith at the cabinet swearing-in ceremony in 2023 (source: AlbertaNewsroom / Flickr)
Peter Guthrie and Premier Danielle Smith at the cabinet swearing-in ceremony in 2023 (source: AlbertaNewsroom / Flickr)

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.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta boys Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney return to the province of their youths

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper at an election rally in Edmonton on April 7, 2025 (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper at an election rally in Edmonton on April 7, 2025 (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)

It was Alberta Week in Canada’s federal election campaign

It was Alberta Week in the federal election campaign with the two party leaders who grew up in the western province returning to wave their party flags and rally supporters.

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Alberta Politics

Liberals tap Corey Hogan to run against Jeremy Nixon in Calgary Confederation

Liberals drop former NDP MLA Rod Loyola in Edmonton Gateway

Canada’s federal election is in full-swing and today’s Daveberta newsletter includes a quick update about candidate nominations in Alberta. I will be back early next week with a regular column and more analysis from Alberta in the federal election.

As of this morning, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party are the only parties with candidates in all 37 ridings in Alberta. The Liberal Party briefly had a full slate but are down one after their candidate in Edmonton Gateway was removed yesterday (more about that below).

The deadline for parties to nominate candidates or for Independent candidates to put their names forward is Monday, April 7 at 2:00 p.m.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith threatens a national unity crisis if Canadians re-elect Mark Carney’s Liberals

Liberal Party leader Mark Carney on the campaign trail (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)
Liberal Party leader Mark Carney on the campaign trail (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

UCP MLA writes that Canada is broken and Team Canada is a “fake team”

Mark Carney has only been Prime Minister of Canada for 17 days but last week he may have made one of the most consequential statements by a Canadian political leader in recent memory.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said in response to American President Donald Trump’s almost daily threats against Canada.

Trump backed down on his threats last week to level 25 percent tariffs against the Canadian automobile manufacturing industry, probably temporarily, after Carney announced retaliatory tariffs, but this week could feature Trump’s next big intervention in a federal election campaign where he has become the biggest villain. April 2 is what the Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” It’s the day he says he plans to level more huge tariffs on products being imported into the US.

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Alberta Politics

NDP MLA Rod Loyola challenging Conservative MP Tim Uppal in Edmonton Gateway

Rod Loyola was the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie until stepping down this week (photo source: Rod Loyola / Facebook)
Rod Loyola was the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie until stepping down this week (photo source: Rod Loyola / Facebook)

Rod Loyola has resigned as the Alberta NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie and is running as the Liberal Party candidate in the new Edmonton Gateway riding in the federal election. Loyola represented his south Edmonton provincial riding from 2015 until he stepped down earlier this week to pursue the federal Liberal nomination.

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What to make of Mark Carney’s meeting with Danielle Smith

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to supporters at the United Conservative Party Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in Edmonton on March 19, 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith speaks to supporters at the United Conservative Party Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in Edmonton on March 19, 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Liberal PM expected to call federal election on Sunday for an April 28 or May 5 vote

Prime Minster Mark Carney was in Edmonton yesterday for his first visit since winning the Liberal Party leadership and becoming leader of the government. Carney met with Premier Danielle Smith, who re-endorsed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre the night before at a sold out Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in the capital city.

The Prime Minister and Premier did not make themselves available to speak with the media after the meeting and there were no photos taken of the two politicians together, which is probably an indication of how well we can expect the meeting went (Smith’s office later posted a photo of her meeting with Ambassador of Austria Andreas Rendl, which also gives us an idea of where the Prime Minister fits in her pecking order).

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