With Alberta’s provincial election expected to be called tomorrow, both the governing Progressive Conservatives and New Democratic Party are expected to have candidates in place in all 87 constituencies today. If the writ is dropped tomorrow, April 7, then the provincial election will be held 28 days later on Tuesday, May 5, 2015.
The final PC candidate nomination meetings being held today are in Calgary-McCall and Calgary-Fort. There are six candidates seeking the nomination in Calgary-McCall (Rajinder Harika, Issa Mosa, Muhammad Rasheed, Jagdeep Sahota, Jangbahadur Sidhu and Kuldeep Sidhu) and four in Calgary-Fort (Bev DeSantis, Andy Nguyen, Christopher Primeau and Peter Singh). Ms. DeSantis has received Mr. Prentice’s endorsement in the Fort nomination.
Edmonton City Councillor Tony Caterina is the PC candidate in Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview. Mr. Caterina will face hard-working first-term NDP MLA Deron Bilous. Mr. Caterina is well-known in northeast Edmonton, having represented that area since 2007, and his candidacy will keep this swing riding in play.
Since 2004, the constituency has changed hands three times between the PCs and NDP, with Mr. Bilous defeating PC MLA Tony Vandermeer in 2012 by 245 votes.
This is Mr. Caterina’s second attempt at provincial office. He stood as the Alberta Alliance candidate in Edmonton-Centre in the 2004 provincial election.
According to CBC reports, when the election is called Mr. Caterina will suspend his City Council salary but he will continue to participate in council meetings during the campaign.
Mr. Caterina replaces Harman Kandola, who was nominated as the PC candidate in that constituency in late March. Mr. Kandola is now the appointed PC candidate in Edmonton-Ellerslie, a spot that was vacated under controversy by former cabinet minister Naresh Bhardwaj.
The PCs appointed Catherine Keill as their candidate to challenge Liberal/Green/Alberta Party candidate Laurie Blakeman in Edmonton-Centre. Ms. Keill is the Director of Community and Caucus Outreach in the Premier’s Office and previously worked for Mr. Prentice when he was a cabinet minister in Ottawa. She also served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former Mayor Stephen Mandel and was campaign manager for former City Councillor Karen Leibovici‘s mayoral election bid in 2013. The last time a PC candidate was elected in this constituency, Peter Lougheed was premier.
I have updated the list of Alberta Election candidates with these and more changes.
Mack, Ryan and I are excited to announce that NDP leader Rachel Notley will be our guest on the AbVote Google Hangout at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, 2015. Watch the hangout live at abvote.ca and send us your questions using the #abvote hashtag on Twitter. You can also watch previous hangouts with Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman and the Wildrose leadership candidates.
