Alberta NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro won the provincial by-election in Lethbridge-West.
Unofficial results from Elections Alberta:
With the impending electoral defeat of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau growing more likely by the day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has embarked on her own Team Alberta diplomatic charm offensive in the United States.
Just days after American President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods imported into his country, Smith jetted off to the Western Governors conference in Las Vegas. Smith held a handful of one-on-one meetings with Republican and Democratic governors as part of her pitch to US law-makers to exclude Canadian oil and gas from Trump’s tariff war.
“I am a fan of our biggest trading partner” Smith’s told a Fox News host when she was asked on-air if she was a fan of Trump. In response to Trump’s now frequently repeated threats that Canada should become America’s 51st state if Canadians don’t like the tariffs, Smith said he was “hilarious.”
Nearly five months after Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips resigned her seat in the Legislature, a by-election has been called in Lethbridge-West and it’s happening on December 18.
For the past five years, this urban riding located in southwest Alberta has been an electoral anomaly: a lone orange island surrounded by a sea of blue. The riding was one of two won by the NDP in 2023 that was outside of the immediate Edmonton and Calgary areas.
Alberta’s $160.6 billion investments now under a government controlled cone of silence
Secure in her party’s leadership after earning the support of 91.5 percent of members at the United Conservative Party AGM earlier this month, Premier Danielle Smith isn’t skipping a beat in implementing her government’s political agenda.
The firing of the CEO and the entire board of directors of AIMCo, the arms-length Alberta Investment Management Corporation, was confirmed through a short 9:47 am press release from Finance Minister Nate Horner last Friday.
Calgary is in the headlines a lot these days, but today’s Daveberta newsletter doesn’t have anything to do with the busted water main that is threatening the city’s water supply (but I do hope to write more about that later).
Today’s newsletter focuses on two big political events happening in Alberta’s largest city this weekend: the announcement of the NDP leadership vote and the federal Conservative nomination vote in Calgary Signal Hill.
The United Conservative Party leadership race is taking the spotlight but Alberta’s political parties are chugging along with candidate nominations ahead of a provincial election that is scheduled for next May but could happen anytime after the new UCP leader is chosen.
As of today, the Alberta NDP has nominated 31 candidates, the UCP has nominated 23, and two Alberta Party candidates have been nominated.
Here are the latest updates:
UCP MLA Mike Ellis was nominated in Calgary-West and UCP MLA Whitney Issik was nominated in Calgary-Glenmore.
MLA Chris Nielsen is facing a challenge for the NDP nomination in Edmonton-Decore from Africa Centre executive director Sharif Haji. Nielsen was first elected in 2015. A nomination vote is being held on June 24 and 25.
I am tracking candidates and building a list of people running for nominations to run in Alberta’s next provincial election. If you know of someone running, please post a comment below or email me at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. Thank you!
(And, I know I’ve said this before but feel free to sign up for the Daveberta Substack.)
When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But as Albertans bask in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter by-election in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche (which must be called by February 15 – in 4 days).
Until then, here are the latest candidate nomination updates:
MLA Chris Nielsen announced today that he plans to seek the Alberta NDP nomination in Edmonton-Decore and run for re-election in the next provincial election.
“The past 7 years have been an incredible time for me. The chance to represent the outstanding residents of Edmonton-Decore has been an honour, privilege and incredible learning experience,” Nielsen said in a statement posted on social media. “…the work is not finished yet … there is much more to do.”
Nielsen was first elected in 2015 and was re-elected in 2019 with 47.5 per cent of the vote, defeating United Conservative Party candidate Karen Principe (who was elected to Edmonton City Council in October 2021). He currently serves as the Official Opposition critic for Red Tape Reduction.
Before his election in 2015, Nielsen worked as a shipping receiver at the Lucerne Foods ice cream with UFCW Local 401.
Sayid Ahmed is seeking the UCP nomination in the north Edmonton riding.
Mohammad Ali Kamal is seeking the NDP nomination in Edmonton-South West.
“SW Edmonton, the place for growing families, trails, and tranquility should be served by a community worker who can relate to the people of this riding, compared to the incumbent Kaycee Madu who would not follow the law that he is supposed to represent as the provinces law minster, and as a result is now a suspended justice minister,” Kamal said in a press release.
Kamal is the Executive Director of the Shifa Medical Clinic, Treasurer of the Alberta Association of Clinic Managers, Director of the Duggan Mother’s Day soccer Tournament, and a NCCP certified soccer coach.
Kamal joins Chand Gul as the second candidate seeking the NDP nomination in this riding.
The riding is currently represented by UCP MLA Kaycee Madu, who is on leave from his role as Minister of Justice and Solicitor General following allegations that he phoned Edmonton Police Service Chief Dale McFee receiving a traffic ticket for driving distracted in a school zone.
Educator Rosman Valencia has filed papers with Elections Alberta to seek the NDP nomination in Calgary-East. International Avenue Business Revitalization Zone executive director Alison Karim-McSwiney is also seeking the NDP nomination.
Calgary-East has been represented by United Conservative Party MLA Peter Singh since 2019. Singh was elected with 49.7 per cent of the vote over New Democrat Cesar Cala, who finished second with 32.1 per cent.
(Today’s intro with inspiration from Phil Connors)
It wouldn’t be a January in Alberta without freezing rain and a big political scandal.
As the province comes to grips with the rise and spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Alberta’s United Conservative Party government has tied itself in knots over a distracted driving ticket.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced last Monday night that Edmonton-South West MLA Kaycee Madu would “step back” from his role as Minister of Justice and Solicitor General following reports that ten months ago the Justice Minister phoned Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee after he was issued a ticket for distracted driving in a school zone.
The decision to ask Madu to “step back” and be temporarily replaced by Energy Minister Sonya Savage until an independent investigator can look into the issue, is far from the firing that many Albertans were calling for after news of the scandal was broken by intrepid CBC reporters Elise von Scheel and Janice Johnston.
Madu’s decision to call McFee was inappropriate and showed a stunning lack of judgement. The Minister should have known better to bring up the specific personal matter. Even if he didn’t ask the chief to rescind the ticket and wanted to discuss other issues, as Madu claims, it is impossible to ignore the power dynamic of making this call.
Following the release of the story by the CBC, Madu issued his own statement saying he did mention his ticket to the Chief but he wanted to raise concerns about racial profiling and whether he was being spied on by the Edmonton Police Service, similar to how officers of the Lethbridge Police Service were caught spying on former cabinet minister Shannon Phillips.
Shortly after Madu’s office released his statement, Kenney issued his own separate statement on Twitter, which made it look like the Premier’s and Madu’s offices weren’t even closely coordinating their responses to the scandal.
Kenney announced in his stream of tweets that the government was hiring an independent investigator, but a week later it is still unclear who the independent investigator will be and what exactly that person will be investigating.
Both Madu and McFee have agreed the phone call happened, and it should be clear that the government does not need to pay someone to point out that a pretty big line was crossed.
Will the investigator investigate whether the distracted driving ticket was valid? Madu and McFee disagree about whether the ticket was just, though the Justice Minister chose not to challenge the ticket in traffic court (which is another big issue) and he paid the fine.
Or will Kenney’s investigator investigate whether Madu was a victim of racial profiling or a target of a political conspiracy by members of the Edmonton Police Service?
Institutional racism is definitely a problem in Alberta’s police forces, and the shocking revelations of abuse of power by police officers in Lethbridge are nothing to dismiss, but it definitely seems that Madu statement shocked a few months of life into an embarrassing political scandal that could have been put to rest in a week or two.
If the allegations levelled by Madu against the Edmonton Police Service are as serious as he claims, it is hard to imagine why the government would not have acted on this 10 months ago, rather than sitting idle until the CBC broke the story.
Postmedia columnist Don Braid wrote that “the ticket episode was widely known in cabinet circles and talked about in jocular tones.”
Braid also wrote that senior cabinet ministers including Ric McIver and Jason Nixon and senior staffers like Pam Livingston (now Kenney’s Chief of Staff), Larry Kaumeyer (then Kenney’s Principal Secretary and now CEO of Ducks Unlimited Canada), and Matt Wolf (Kenney’s former director of issues management) were aware of the incident. Kenney said he was aware of the ticket but avoided answering whether he knew about Madu’s phone call to Chief McFee.
The government’s failure to act in response to the scandal 10 months ago and its fumbling reaction when it was made public last week certainly does not inspire confidence in how Madu or the UCP government would oversee the provincial police force they are hoping to replace to RCMP with in much of Alberta.
This is only one of the latest scandals that reeks of the kind of entitlement that brought down the old Progressive Conservative regime in 2015.
It was only one year ago that Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard resigned from cabinet and Kenney was forced to demote a handful of UCP MLAs who chose to flout the government’s public health travel advisories and fly off to hot holidays in Hawaii and Mexico.
And only three months ago, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Devin Dreeshen, a noted Kenney loyalist, resigned from cabinet after a former staffer filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, defamation, heavy drinking, and a toxic workplace culture in the Legislature Building.
As pollster Janet Brown tweeted this weekend, “elitism and entitlement are the kryptonite of the right!” And right now, Kenney is slipping and sliding on a skating rink made of kryptonite.
