Marlin Schmidt voted MLA with Best Sense of Humour and Brooks Arcand-Paul is the MLA to watch in 2026
After a week of fierce campaigning, all the votes have been counted and the winners of the ninth annual Daveberta Best of Alberta Politics Survey have been chosen.
The annual survey is all about celebrating the best in Alberta politics and the winners were nominated and voted for by politically-savvy Daveberta subscribers.
Congratulations to this year’s winners.
Voting is now open for this year’s best MLA, best cabinet minister, most effective opposition MLA, best public speaker, and more.
With hundreds of names submitted to the ninth annual Best of Alberta Politics Survey, your nominations have been sorted and the top choices have been identified in all nine categories.
Voting in the 2025 survey is now open to the nearly 8,000 Daveberta subscribers until Tuesday, December 2 at 8:00 p.m. The results will be announced on Thursday, December 4.
Nominate your picks for this year’s best MLA, best cabinet minister, most effective opposition MLA, and more
It’s that time of year again. I am thrilled to launch the ninth annual Daveberta’s Best of Alberta Politics Survey. There is never a dull moment in Alberta politics so I am excited to hear from you about the big political players of 2025.
I have changed up the categories this year to recognize not just the best MLAs but the work they do in the Legislature and in their constituencies.
Thank you to everyone who has shared kind words and notes of congratulations as I mark 20 years of writing about Alberta politics on Daveberta. This week I had the real honour meeting with my MLA, Janis Irwin, who presented me with a celebratory scroll marking the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Daveberta. Thank you, Janis!
Daveberta readers will also know Irwin as the 5-time winner in the Best Alberta MLA category in the annual Best of Alberta Politics Awards.
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.
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.
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais faces former Conservative MP Kerry Diotte and Mark Carney’s red wave
As Canada’s federal election enters its final week, I am taking a closer look at the race in the Edmonton Griesbach riding. It’s one of a surprisingly large handful of Alberta ridings that are considered competitive in this election and it also happens to be the riding I live and vote in.
The east central/north side Edmonton riding was where the NDP picked up their second seat in Alberta in the 2021 federal election when New Democrat Blake Desjarlais defeated two-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte. This year’s election is a rematch between the two candidates but, despite traditionally being a blue-orange race, the Liberal Party’s surge could put that party’s candidate in the mix.
Justice Minister Mickey Amery voted Best Cabinet Minister of 2024
With all the votes counted, the winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2024 Survey have been chosen. The eighth annual survey is all about celebrating the best in Alberta politics. The winners were selected from a week-long vote for the top two choices in each category nominated by Daveberta subscribers.
Vote for this year’s best MLA, cabinet minister, MLA to watch, municipal leader and more
With hundreds of names submitted to the 2024 Best of Alberta Politics Survey, your nominations have been sorted and the top two choices have been identified in all seven categories.
Voting in the eighth annual survey is now open to the nearly 4,600 Daveberta subscribers (free and paid) until Sunday, December 1 at 8:00 p.m. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, December 3.
Jennifer Johnson welcomed into the UCP Caucus, Rob Anderson to replace Marshall Smith as Premier’s Chief of Staff
The leaves are changing, the nights are getting cooler, and the days are getting shorter. It’s fall in Alberta. And while many Albertans are enjoying a fairly pleasant change of seasons as we reluctantly brace ourselves for the inevitable shock of the first snowfall, politics in our province is just starting to heat up.
Government and opposition MLAs will return to the Legislature at the end of this month for what is expected to be a painfully contentious and controversial session. And a rowdy crowd of more than 5,400 partisans are expected to converge on Red Deer for the United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting and leadership review during the first two days of November.
And like the changing of the seasons, there will be a few notable changes in the ranks of the UCP when these two big events happen at the end of the month.
Another way for politicians to control the message and avoid facing tough questions
In the span of one week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith released two pre-recorded video messages announcing major changes to the United Conservative Party government’s political agenda.
The first was an 8-minute broadcast online and on television featuring Smith announcing new funding for school construction and taking political jabs at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the federal government’s immigration policies.
A second 3-minute video featured the Premier announcing the rumoured amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights she argued would enshrine protections for people who refuse get vaccinated and people who own firearms and property.
With thousands of submissions and votes cast over the past two weeks, the winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2023 Survey have been selected.
Always a fan favourite, for the fourth year in a row Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin has been voted the Best Alberta MLA.
A savvy communicator, Irwin (and her internet famous cat, Oregano) has a huge social media following and is widely considered one of the hardest working constituency MLAs in the province.
Her reputation has led to invites to speak at NDP conventions across the country, including at the recent federal NDP convention in Hamilton and the BC NDP convention in Victoria.
After Irwin was re-elected to a second term last May, she took on a new role as housing critic in the expanded 38-MLA official opposition caucus, which has placed her on the forefront of one of the biggest political issues of the year.
“Across the province, I hear from single parents, young professionals, seniors, students and dual-income families who are struggling to afford 20, 30, even 50 per cent increases to their rent,” Irwin recently wrote in the Calgary Herald.
Responding to the huge spike in rental costs in Alberta, she introduced Bill 205: Housing Statutes (Housing Security) Amendment Act, 2023, which would establish a two-year temporary rental cap at 2 per cent, followed by a two-year rental cap tied to inflation, and increase reporting requirements to ensure the government is meeting its intended housing targets.
“Everyone deserves a place to call home,” Irwin said at the press conference announcing the private member’s bill. “However, many Albertans are experiencing the impacts of the housing crisis, reflected in the steep increases to rental costs across the province.”
Just this past week she walked the talk on housing when she spoke compassionately against the Edmonton Police Service’s plans to forcibly decamp hundreds of Edmontonians just days before Christmas in what is likely the city’s largest encampment sweep ever. Many of the people who live in those camps are constituents in the inner city riding she represents.
“The UCP government must be able to guarantee a safe place for every person impacted before police take action,” Irwin said. “We must stop criminalizing poverty as a province and a community. We can’t enforce our way out of the housing crisis.”
Sawhney was new to politics when she was first elected in 2019 but quickly distinguished herself as a strong performer in a largely rookie cabinet and surprised many political watchers when she launched a campaign for the leadership of the United Conservative Party in 2022. She was eliminated after the second ballot but that didn’t end up hurting her political prospects.
After initially bowing out of the recent election after one term as MLA for Calgary-North East, she jumped back into the campaign when cabinet minister Sonya Savage announced she wouldn’t run again in Calgary-North West.
Sawhney’s decision to run again played a big role in helping the UCP hold on to the seat, and her cabinet experience ensured a significant role for her in the re-elected but reduced UCP government.
Now, as Minister of Advanced Education, she has proved herself to be competent and skilled at calming a ministry that caused considerable controversy during her UCP predecessor’s time in the role.
Sawhney also demonstrated independence from the UCP’s most radical wing by pushing back when delegates at the recent United Conservative Party annual general meeting voted in favour of government cutting financial support to post-secondary institutions that refuse to eliminate offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion (frequently referred to as DEI).
Read about the other winners on the Daveberta Substack.
Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcastand special Alberta politics extras
You shared your picks. It’s now time to vote for the top 3.
With more than a thousand submissions made in the annual Best of Alberta Politics survey, your choices have been sorted and you can now vote for the top 3 choices in each category.
Voting for the top 3 will be open until Dec. 17 at 8:00 p.m. and the winners will be announced on December 19.
This is the seventh annual edition of this survey and it is all about celebrating the best in Alberta politics, so if there is a person who doesn’t fit neatly into any of these categories who deserves some kudos, please send me an email and let me know.
Thank you and good luck.
Dave
Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.
Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcastand special Alberta politics extras.
Rachel Notley has been one of the Alberta NDP’s greatest assets since she took up the reins of the party in 2014. Under Notley’s leadership, the NDP went from a small and scrappy opposition party to form government in 2015 and then solidify itself as a viable political force and the singular opposition to the United Conservative Party after 2019.
And after 9 years as the helm of the Alberta NDP she helped transform, it’s likely she will not lead them into the 2027 election.
Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.
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When I worked for the Alberta Liberal Party back in the 2000s, we had an inside joke that the Liberals could run Jesus Christ as a candidate in Wainwright and still lose. It was funny because it was probably true (the last time voters in Wainwright elected a Liberal MLA was in 1909) and was a reflection of how cynical we were that the party had any chance of actually winning any seats in rural Alberta.
I imagine more than a few Alberta NDP supporters felt the same when the results of the 2023 election started rolling in on May 29, 2023. Despite making big gains in Calgary and winning 38 seats province-wide, the party’s hopes of forming government were dashed at the city limits.
Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.
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More confusing messaging about the Alberta Pension Plan
As Alberta’s United Conservative Party government continues its big $7 million advertising push to convince Albertans to leave the Canada Pension Plan and start a separate Alberta Pension Plan, Finance Minister Nate Horner told CTV’s Vassy Kapelos that the province’s decision on whether or not to hold a referendum on leaving the CPP will be based on a “high level feeling from many sources.”
Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.
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