According to Fort McMurray Today reporter Vincent McDermott, Goodridge won the nomination with 52 percent of the vote on the second ballot. She defeated longtime conservative party campaign manager Willie Hoflin, social worker Elizabeth Keating, and eight-term Wood Buffalo municipal councillor Phil Meagher in the nomination contest.
Seven candidates have now entered the race to replace UCP MLA and UCP Rural Crime Task Force member Don MacIntyre in the central Alberta district of Innisfail-Sylvan Lake. MacIntyre resigned in February 2018 after he was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference. He was first elected as a Wildrose MLA in 2015.
Along with already declared candidates Devin Dreeshen, Joan Barnes, Gayle Langford, and Mike Walsh, three additional candidates have entered the race since I last wrote about this nomination contest:
Christine Moore – Councillor in Red Deer County representing the area between Sylvan Lake and Red Deer city limits. She ran in the 2015 election as the Progressive Conservative candidate in Red Deer-North where she placed third with 22 percent of the vote behind New DemocratKim Schreiner and Wildroser Buck Buchanan.
Joel Loh is vice-president of Regulatory Affairs & public relations at Simba Industries Transload Ltd. and affiliated with something called the Committee for Proud Alberta Fair Trade Oil (editor comment: I’m not sure they understand the definition of Fair Trade). Loh served as the president of the Canadian Alliance association in Calgary-Southwest in the early 2000s. He was disqualified from running for the Alliance nomination in Calgary-Centre ahead of the 2004 election, according to a 2003 report from the Calgary Herald.
Victor Sloboda is a plumbing and gas inspector with the City of Red Deer.
The only other party to nominate a candidate thus far is the Reform Party, which will be represented by its leader, Randy Thorsteinson.
The district was first created in the 2012 election from the southern and eastern half of the formerly larger Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo district. Jean was first elected in 2015 with 43 percent of the vote ahead of New Democrat Ariana Mancini with 30 percent and PC MLA Don Scott with 22 percent (Scott was elected Mayor of Wood Buffalo in October 2017).
Sources tell this blogger that Wood Buffalo Municipal Councillor Jane Stroud is planning to seek the NDP nomination to run in Fort McMurray-Conklin by-election. Since 2010, Stroud has represented Ward 4, which includes the communities of Gregorie Lakes Estates, Anzac, Janvier and Conklin. She was named a ‘Woman of Inspiration’ by Girls Inc. of Northern Alberta in 2017.
Three candidates have announced their plans to run for the UCP nomination contest in this district:
Laila Goodridge has worked as a political staffer in Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. She was director of field operations for Jean’s UCP leadership campaign in 2017. Goodridge was the Wildrose candidate in Grande Prairie-Wapiti in the 2015 election where she placed third behind PC incumbent Wayne Drysdale and New Democrat Mary Dahl.
Unlike Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, which is largely untouched by the boundary redistribution, this district will be significantly redrawn when the next election is called, with most of the district’s population becoming part of a new Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche district.
Here is a look at the vote share by party in Fort McMurray-Conklin in general elections in 2012 and 2015:
Results of the 2012 and 2015 elections in Fort McMurray-Conklin.
