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Alberta Politics

Low key, low energy mayoral race starts to take shape in Edmonton

Edmonton City Hall (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Edmonton City Hall (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Who’s on first in the race to replace Amarjeet Sohi? It’s hard to tell.

There are 87 days until municipal election day in Alberta and Edmonton’s sleepy mayoral race is beginning to take shape.

With Mayor Amarjeet Sohi not running for re-election after serving one term in the office, what looks like a fairly open field of current and former city councillors has emerged in the race to replace him.

With the city facing an addictions and mental health crisis, a pitch battle over zoning and infill in mature neighbourhoods, huge population growth that is putting immense pressure on the city’s public services, infrastructure, schools and hospitals, and a provincial government is openly hostile to the current city council, whoever is in the mayor’s chair for the next four years will face a rough and challenging time.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

To celebrate 20 years of Daveberta, I’m happy to offer free subscribers a 20 percent discount on an annual paid subscription ($40/year down from the regular $50/year). Paid subscribers get full access to all Daveberta newsletters and columns, full episodes of the Daveberta Podcast and a shout out on the podcast, and special Alberta politics extras.

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Alberta Politics

Daveberta turns 20 years old

CBC The National reporter Ian Hanomansing interviews Dave Cournoyer on the day before Alberta’s 2023 provincial election (source: CBC)
CBC The National reporter Ian Hanomansing interviews Dave Cournoyer on the day before Alberta’s 2023 provincial election (source: CBC)

I’ve been writing about Alberta politics since 2005 and it’s been a wild ride

It was 2005.

After a short stint on the dysfunctional Calgary Board of Education, former Fraser Institute intern Danielle Smith was in her fifth year as a columnist and editorial board member at the Calgary Herald. Smith joined the Herald a few years earlier while the journalists who worked for the paper were on strike.

Harvard-educated Naheed Nenshi was teaching non-profit management at Mount Royal College in Calgary. Nenshi was recovering from an unsuccessful first campaign for city council the year earlier and was about to build his profile as a civic affairs columnist in the same newspaper that employed Smith.

And somewhere on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton, a young political science student named Dave plucked away at his laptop keyboard writing posts to publish on his new blog, Daveberta.

A lot has happened in the 20 years since. Time flies when you’re having fun.

I never expected or planned to still be writing about Alberta politics today but it turns out that it was something I enjoyed doing and people enjoyed reading, so I kept it up. And I’m glad I did.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

To celebrate 20 years of Daveberta, I’m happy to offer free subscribers a 20 percent discount on an annual paid subscription ($40/year down from the regular $50/year). Paid subscribers get full access to all Daveberta newsletters and columns, full episodes of the Daveberta Podcast and a shout out on the podcast, and special Alberta politics extras.

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Alberta Politics

Edmonton’s mayoral frontrunner Tim Cartmell skips crucial vote to go on vacation

With municipal elections happening in October, Edmonton mayoral race is taking shape and taking unexpected turns.

A heated few weeks at Edmonton City Council culminated with retiring councillor Sarah Hamilton launching a profanity-laden attack against her colleague Jo-Anne Wright, and perceived mayoral race frontrunner and Better Edmonton Party leader Tim Cartmell leaving on vacation just before the end of public hearings and missing a crucial vote to amend the city’s controversial zoning bylaw.

A motion from Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to reaffirm some of the most controversial parts of the current bylaw passed in a 6-5 vote, meaning that Cartmell’s vote would have made the difference had he shown up in-person or joined the meeting over Zoom.

The week before Cartmell left for vacation, he proposed halting infill development in the city with a dramatic motion that he was told ahead of time was likely illegal. Cartmell then posted a video on social media tut tutting his council colleagues before leaving for an undisclosed vacation spot that his campaign says has no internet connectivity.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Battle River-Crowfoot by-election should be a Poilievre landslide

Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative by-election candidate Pierre Poilievre (source: Danielle Smith / Instagram)
Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative by-election candidate Pierre Poilievre (source: Danielle Smith / Instagram)

A Liberal win in this sprawling rural riding would be one in a trillion

With Stampede season soon winding down in Calgary, attention of the political class will quickly turn from the lobbyist receptions, pancake flips, and oil industry cocktail parties to the land of real cowboys. The federal by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot has been called for August 18 and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is the favourite to win this vote and reclaim a seat in the House of Commons after his defeat in Ontario on April 28.

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Alberta Politics

Separation looms large among rural conservatives in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election

This week’s by-elections were as clear an indication as any that the divisive debate over Alberta’s separation from Canada is mostly an issue among rural conservatives in and outside of Smith’s UCP.

UCP candidate Tara Sawyer won the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding with 61 percent, a drop of 14 points from the 2023 election, and most of that vote appears to have gone to the right-wing separatist Republican Party.

The Republicans had hoped their party leader, Cam Davies, could pull off a win inspired by separatist Gordon Kesler’s win in Olds-Didsbury in 1982 but when the votes were counted he placed third with 17 percent behind NDP candidate Bev Toews, who placed second with 20 percent.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta is getting a bad deal and it’s always Ottawa’s fault

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next Panel looks a lot like a UCP re-election tour

Alberta is getting a bad deal and it’s always Ottawa’s fault. That’s Premier Danielle Smith’s key message in a 6 minute and 26 second long video posted on her social media channels on Tuesday.

Less that 24 hours after the polls closed in three provincial by-elections that saw voters deliver one win for Smith’s United Conservative Party and two wins for Naheed Nenshi’s NDP, the premier was ready to announce a new panel to hear people’s grievances about Ottawa and views on the provincial government taking control of immigration, which immigrants should have access to social services, and creating a provincial tax collection agency, provincial pension plan and provincial police force.

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Alberta Politics

Naheed Nenshi’s NDP win Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona by-elections

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi shares a stage with NDP MLAs at his by-election victory party on June 23, 2025 (source: Alberta NDP / YouTube)
NDP leader Naheed Nenshi shares a stage with NDP MLAs at his by-election victory party on June 23, 2025 (source: Alberta NDP / YouTube)

UCP wins Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills but fails to make gains in Edmonton

The ballots have been counted in the provincial by-elections held yesterday and the results are: Status quo ante bellum.

Naheed Nenshi’s NDP held suburban Edmonton-Ellerslie and urban Edmonton-Strathcona, and Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party held rural Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills.

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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.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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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

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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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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Daveberta Podcast

What does Mark Carney’s win and Pierre Poilievre’s loss mean for Alberta?

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Danielle Smith’s sovereignty agenda gives the Liberals a generational opportunity to reset with Albertans

New and recent episodes of the Daveberta Podcast are available exclusively to paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack.

The votes are counted and the surprising results of Monday’s federal election will have big ramifications for Canada. Friend of the pod and Partner & Chief Strategist at Y Station Communications and Research, Chris Henderson, joins us on the Daveberta Podcast to break down the election results and what they mean for the country, Alberta, and Premier Danielle Smith’s continued pursuit of a sovereignty agenda.

We also delve into Pierre Poilievre’s future as leader of the Conservative Party what opportunities Mark Carney’s Liberals have to reset their relationship with Albertans.

The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and produced by Adam Rozenhart. This episode was recorded on April 29, 2025 in the offices of Adverb Communications in beautiful downtown Edmonton.

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