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Alberta Politics

Yes, Alberta is actually having a separation referendum

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, US President-elect Donald Trump, and celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, US President Donald Trump, and celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

There’s a lot happening following Premier Smith’s announcement last week that she has decided to hold a province-wide referendum on October 19, 2026 about Alberta’s separation from Canada. Here are some of the latest updates:

  • “The party won’t be taking a position and I won’t be making mine public,” UCP President Rob Smith told CBC Radio this week when asked if he or the governing party would pick a side in the Alberta separation referendum. Most polls show a majority of UCP voters support Alberta separating from Canada.
  • Environics and Angus Reid have released fresh polling about Albertans response to Smith’s separation referendum.
    • The Angus Reid survey found that 56 per cent of Albertans believe Smith is handling the issue poorly and 58 per cent believe she is calling the referendum to appease the separatists in her party.
    • Sixty-nine per cent of Albertans surveyed believe the separatists will never accept a no vote result in the referendum.

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Alberta Politics

NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski running for re-election in Sherwood Park

Sherwood Park NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)
Sherwood Park NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)

Danielle Smith’s Alberta separation referendum looms over party nominations for next election

MLA Kyle Kasawski was nominated to run for re-election in Sherwood Park by Alberta NDP members at a meeting last weekend in the large suburban hamlet east of Edmonton.

Kasawski currently serves as the opposition’s Affordability and Utilities critic role has been one of the strongest additions to the NDP opposition bench since 2023.

Kasawski has been vocal in his opposition to Alberta separatism and called on Premier Danielle Smith to speak out against foreign interference.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta separatists are entrenched in the United Conservative Party

An AI-generated image shared by the anonymous separatist Rise of Alberta social media account (source: @riseofalberta / Instagram)
An AI-generated image shared by the anonymous separatist Rise of Alberta social media account (source: @riseofalberta / Instagram)

Pro-Canada Conservatives need to speak up now before it’s too late

Premier Danielle Smith deflected criticism about a senior United Conservative Party Caucus staffer attending an online meeting of the separatist Centurion Project by blaming Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi for not telling her about the separatist group’s use of a leaked voter list.

Nenshi has been taking daily swings at the UCP all week starting with claims that party president Rob Smith and Caucus Director of Stakeholder Relations Arundeep Sandhu attended the Centurion Project meeting where former premier Jason Kenney’s home address was shown in a demonstration of the separatist group’s app.

The UCP denied that the party president was at the meeting but admitted Sandhu logged into the zoom call.

Nenshi says he notified Kenney and the RCMP of the privacy breach and that the presence of Smith’s senior staffer means she can’t claim she didn’t know that the voters list had been leaked.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Nenshi wants to avoid Brexit mistakes in fight against Alberta separatists

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi launched the For Alberta For Canada campaign (source: Naheed Nenshi / YouTube)
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi launched the For Alberta For Canada campaign (source: Naheed Nenshi / YouTube)

“Our country is not perfect, but it’s the best place in the world, and Albertans are ready to fight for Canada,” Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said as he launched his party’s For Alberta For Canada campaign in anticipation of an expected referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

“Every day, Albertans ask me one simple question about separatism: ‘what can I do?’ This new campaign is an answer to that—giving everyday people the tools and the power they need to stand up for our country.

They know that if Alberta separates, we’ll lose so much. Even the threat of a referendum is already damaging our economy and creating chaos and uncertainty. Today we are giving Albertans the tools to take action and be ready for this fall.”

The NDP campaign will kick off with a province-wide door-knocking day of action on April 25, which Nenshi says aims to attract pro-Canadian Albertans beyond NDP voters.

“We’re not repeating the mistake of the people who thought Brexit would never pass. We’re getting out there now,” Nenshi told reporters. “We’re not sleepwalking into this.”

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Alberta Politics

What’s at stake in the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election?

Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre in Carbon, Alberta (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)
Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre in Carbon, Alberta (source: Pierre Poilievre / Facebook)

Pierre Poilievre is going to win. The only real question is: by how much?

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will return to the House of Commons after he wins the federal by-election happening in the sprawling rural riding of Battle River-Crowfoot on Monday, August 18.

The by-election marking Poilievre’s return to Ottawa also marks a return to Alberta after he left his hometown of Calgary more than 20 years ago to work as a political staffer in Ottawa and run in a riding just outside the capital city. After spending 21 years as an Ottawa-area MP, Poilievre was defeated by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy in Carleton on April 28, which many believe was a result of his strong support of the anti-vaccine trucker convoy that harassed residents of the capital city in January and February 2022.

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Alberta Politics

Get ready for a big fight over Alberta’s separation referendum

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery in April 2025 announcing changes to Alberta’s citizen initiative referendums (Photo: Government of Alberta/Flickr).
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery in April 2025 announcing changes to Alberta’s citizen initiative referendums (Photo: Government of Alberta/Flickr).

It’s going to be messy but the Chief Electoral Officer needs to hold his ground – and his independence.

Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer was publicly rebuked by Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Justice Mickey Amery after a petition aimed at triggering a province-wide referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada was referred to the courts to determine if it is legal.

Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure announced earlier this week that a citizen initiative petition request submitted by separatist Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre was being referred to the Court of King’s Bench to determine whether it conforms with the requirements of sections 2 (4) of the Citizen Initiative Act. That section specifically states that “an initiative petition proposal must not contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982.”

Smith and Amery took to social media to call on McClure to withdraw the court reference and allow the Alberta separation petition to move forward.

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Alberta Politics

Ten big questions about Alberta separatism in 2025

The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).
The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).

Is Premier Danielle Smith a separatist? Is the UCP a separatist party?

The biggest difference between today’s Alberta separatist push and past efforts is that today’s most vocal separatists are operating within the governing UCP. Premier Danielle Smith gave her tacit public support for these groups in an online video address earlier this month and she knows that any direct effort to try to stop it would turn those groups, which included some of the UCP’s most enthusiastic activists, against her.

Many of those enthusiastic separatists inside the UCP helped topple former Premier Jason Kenney in 2022 and propel Smith to victory in the leadership race that followed. Writer Jen Gerson cleverly described Smith’s situation through one rule of politics: you get ate by the dragon you ride in on.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith threatens a national unity crisis if Canadians re-elect Mark Carney’s Liberals

Liberal Party leader Mark Carney on the campaign trail (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)
Liberal Party leader Mark Carney on the campaign trail (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

UCP MLA writes that Canada is broken and Team Canada is a “fake team”

Mark Carney has only been Prime Minister of Canada for 17 days but last week he may have made one of the most consequential statements by a Canadian political leader in recent memory.

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over,” Carney said in response to American President Donald Trump’s almost daily threats against Canada.

Trump backed down on his threats last week to level 25 percent tariffs against the Canadian automobile manufacturing industry, probably temporarily, after Carney announced retaliatory tariffs, but this week could feature Trump’s next big intervention in a federal election campaign where he has become the biggest villain. April 2 is what the Trump is calling “Liberation Day.” It’s the day he says he plans to level more huge tariffs on products being imported into the US.

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Alberta Politics

Long list of COVID-19 grievances could head to UCP AGM policy debate

Premier Danielle Smith and Innisfail-Sylvan Lake UCP MLA Devin Dreeshen at a UCP member only town hall meeting (source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith and Innisfail-Sylvan Lake UCP MLA Devin Dreeshen at a UCP member only town hall meeting (source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)

It’s hard to imagine the old PC Party getting bogged down by this debate

If I had walked into the Alberta Legislature ten years ago and told an MLA, staffer, or journalist that in 2024 the province’s political landscape would be a competitive two-party system, I probably would have been laughed out of the Rotunda. They might have even alerted a security guard if I’d been so out of my mind to predict that the New Democratic Party would be competing with the conservatives to form Alberta’s government.

Until that point ten years ago, only twice in the Progressive Conservative Party’s four decades of uninterrupted majority governments had the dynasty been seriously challenged in an election. The PC Party was unquestionably Alberta’s Natural Governing Party.

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Alberta Politics

It’s all about the UCP leadership review

Minister of Public Safety Mike Ellis and Premier Danielle Smith respond to questions about politicians accepting tickets to NHL playoff games (source: Screenshot from YourAlberta / YouTube)
Minister of Public Safety Mike Ellis and Premier Danielle Smith respond to questions about politicians accepting tickets to NHL playoff games (source: Screenshot from YourAlberta / YouTube)

Protected rights for the unvaccinated and tax cuts aimed at appeasing unruly UCP members ahead of November vote

Summer is normally a time when politics cools down and politicians hit the BBQ circuit, but there’s something smelly in the air and it’s not just the wildfire smoke that Albertans have become accustomed to being part of our increasingly hot summers.

A political scandal surrounding Premier Danielle Smith and senior United Conservative Party cabinet ministers accepting tickets to skybox seats during the Edmonton Oilers NHL playoff run has erupted. Globe & Mail journalist Carrie Tait first broke the story that Smith and some UCP cabinet ministers had accepted box seat tickets to NHL playoff hockey games from private corporations that have close connections to or are lobbying the Alberta government.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith hosts Alberta’s largest call-in talk show: the United Conservative Party

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at the 2023 United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at the 2023 United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Any good talk radio host understands that the show doesn’t belong to the host, it belongs to the listeners. And if this past weekend’s annual general meeting is any indication, talk radio host-turned-Premier Danielle Smith might be taking a similar approach as leader of the United Conservative Party.

Aside from a nod to protecting parental rights during her keynote speech, Smith largely stood out of the way as more than 3,700 delegates packed into Calgary’s BMO Centre to vote on party policy and elect a new executive board. It was an impressive crowd and probably the largest provincial political convention in Alberta’s history.

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Net-zero a no-go for Alberta’s UCP government

A billboard van spotted in downtown Ottawa (source: Dan Woynillowicz / Twitter)
A billboard van spotted in downtown Ottawa (source: Dan Woynillowicz / Twitter)

Never a dull week in Alberta politics

Fresh from launching a pro-Alberta Pension Plan advertising campaign, the Alberta government has launched another advertising campaign asking Canadians to email their Member of Parliament to encourage them to oppose the federal government’s draft Clean Electricity Regulations (most Alberta MPs are Conservatives, so they are probably already opposing it).

The government’s “Tell the Feds” ad campaign warns that electricity prices could quadruple and Albertans could face blackouts during -30C temperatures if the draft federal regulations are adopted.

Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz, MLA for Calgary-Shaw and 2022 UCP leadership race candidate, has been the government’s point-person in opposing the draft federal regulations.

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Jason Stephan wins UCP nomination vote in Red Deer-South, Slava Cravcenco defeats Joseph Angeles in Edmonton-West Henday

United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith and Red Deer-South UCP MLA Jason Stephan (source: Jason Stephan/Facebook)
United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith and Red Deer-South UCP MLA Jason Stephan (source: Jason Stephan/Facebook)

A very brief update the list of of Alberta election candidates today:

  • MLA Jason Stephan defeated Adele Poratto to win the United Conservative Party nomination in Red Deer-South. Stephan defeated Poratto in a 591 to 233 vote.
  • Slava Cravcenco defeated Joseph Angeles to win the UCP nomination in Edmonton-West Henday. Cravcenco had previously run for the UCP nomination in Edmonton-South West against cabinet minister Kaycee Madu. Cravcenco is the owner of a window and door restoration company and a former champion Moldovan table tennis player. Incumbent NDP MLA Jon Carson is not seeking re-election and the NDP have nominated lawyer Brooks Arcand-Paul.
  • Don Golden has withdrawn from the UCP nomination contest in Grande Prairie.
  • Amanpreet Singh Gill defeated Sonya Virk to win the UCP nomination vote in Calgary-Bhullar-McCall. Gill owns an excavation company and is the former president of the Dashmesh Culture Centre. The north east Calgary riding is currently represented by NDP MLA Irfan Sabir.

Upcoming nomination votes

With just over 80 days left until Election Day, the Alberta NDP have nominated candidates in 75 of Alberta’s 87 ridings. The United Conservative Party has candidates named in 71 ridings and the Green Party has 26 candidates. The Alberta Party has nominated 14 candidates and the Liberal Party has one.

Candidate nomination votes are currently scheduled for the following dates:

  • March 9, 10, 11 – Livingstone-Macleod UCP
  • March 11 – Edmonton-Strathcona NDP
  • March 13 – Calgary-Lougheed UCP
  • March 14 – Calgary-Lougheed NDP
  • March 14 – Lethbridge-West UCP
  • March 16 – Cypress-Medicine Hat UCP
  • March 18 – Leduc-Beaumont UCP
  • March 18, 19, 20 – Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre IP

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Naheed Nenshi Calgary Daveberta Substack PodcastIf you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out the Daveberta Substack and listen to the latest episode of the Daveberta Podcast with former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi. And don’t miss Rick Bell’s column about the Nenshi interview in the Calgary Sun.

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Countdown! UCP and NDP candidate nominations picking up as Alberta election looms

Heather Feldbusch is running for the United Conservative Party nomination in Leduc-Beaumont (source: HeatherFeldbusch.ca)
Heather Feldbusch is running for the United Conservative Party nomination in Leduc-Beaumont (source: HeatherFeldbusch.ca)

The countdown is on! With just over four months until the next provincial election, the Alberta NDP have nominated candidates in 69 of Alberta’s 87 ridings. The United Conservative Party has candidates named in 53 ridings and the Green Party has 26 candidates. The Alberta Party has nominated 3 candidates and the Liberal Party has one.

Here are the most recent candidate nomination updates:

United Conservative Party

The UCP are actively nominating candidates across the province and by my count currently have nominations open in nine ridings. The governing party paused nominations during their leadership race in 2022 so they are playing catch up, quickly, ahead of the May 29 election day.

Calgary-Lougheed: Max DeGroat is the first person in the race to fill the vacancy left when former premier Jason Kenney resigned as MLA for this southwest Calgary riding in November 2022. DeGroat is the former treasurer of the UCP and was Nicholas Milliken’s campaign manager in Calgary-Currie in 2019. He is a research associate with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the former director of policy development for the Sustaining Alberta’s Energy Network, an organization formed by Kris Kinnear, who now works on special projects in Premier Danielle Smith’s office in Calgary.

De Groat is launching his campaign as a guest speaker at the Progressive Group for Independent Business luncheon on January 24. PGIB was founded by conservative activist and perennial election candidate Craig Chandler, who was recently caught up in a scandal with former justice minister Jonathan Denis.

Calgary-North East: Harjit Singh Saroya is running for the UCP nomination in the riding is currently represented by cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney. Saroya is the former chairman of the Dashmesh Culture Centre. 

Cypress-Medicine Hat: Food truck owner and recent Medicine Hat city council candidate Justin Wright joins James Finkbeiner and Robin Kurpjuweit in the UCP nomination contest in this southeast Alberta riding.

Lacombe-Ponoka: Jennifer Johnson, Dusty Myrshrall, and Chris Ross will face off for the UCP nomination in a vote on February 17, 2023. Voting will take place in Ponoka in the morning and Lacombe in the afternoon of the nomination day.

Leduc-Beaumont: Heather Feldbusch and Brandon Lunty join former catholic school trustee Karen Richert in the UCP nomination contest. Feldbusch currently works for the Alberta Counsel lobbyists company and is a former UCP political staffer. She is also former trustee on the Leduc Public Library Board and is active with the federal Conservative association in Edmonton-Wetaskiwin. Lunty previously ran for the Wildrose Party in Calgary-South East in 2015 and ran for the UCP nomination in Camrose in 2018.

Lesser Slave Lake: Former cannabis store owner Mitchell Boisvert is appealing the UCP’s decision not to grant him a waiver to run for the party’s nomination. He has not been a member of the party for the required six months so he is seeking an exception to run. 

Parkland-Lac Ste. Anne: UCP MLA Shane Getson is running for his party’s nomination for re-election. Getson was first elected in 2019 and briefly served as the UCP Caucus’ Capital Region Caucus chairperson until he publicly accused people who accepted Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments of wanting to eat cheezies and watch cartoons instead of working. Getson also participated in the anti-COVID 19 restriction Freedom Convoy demonstrations in downtown Edmonton.

Red Deer-South: MLA Jason Stephan announced that he plans to run for re-election and is running for the UCP nomination in Red Deer-South. He’s being challenged by Adele Poratto. Poratto ran for the UCP nomination ahead of the 2019 election and for the Progressive Conservative nomination in 2008. 

Alberta NDP

At this point, the NDP have already nominated candidates in most of the ridings that are considered competitive and within their reach to win in the next election. Now, the party is mostly nominating candidates in ridings that are a more a long shot for the NDP (translation: very conservative rural ridings), but the party does not appear to be parachuting urban candidates in like they might have in previous year. They are trying to recruit local candidates, even if their chances of winning in some of these rural ridings are slim to none.

Calgary-Lougheed: Venkat Akkiraj is running for the NDP nomination. According to Akkiraj’s LinkedIn profile, he has experience with the Ontario NDP as a local campaign organizer and communications director in provincial ridings in Toronto. He recently had an article published in AlbertaViews Magazine about electoral reform. 

Cypress-Medicine Hat: Cypress College founder and former Canadian Armed Forces reservist David Martin is the third candidate in the NDP nomination contest in the south east Alberta riding. Martin will join school trustee Cathy Hogg and retired teacher Tim Gruber in a nomination vote scheduled for February 28. 

Green Party

The Greens aren’t usually on the radar for most Albertans but they are putting in an effort to run candidates in the next election in both urban, rural and suburban ridings. The party has played a bit of musical chairs with some of their candidates switching ridings, like leader Jordan Wilkie switching from Banff-Kananaskis to Edmonton-Rutherford, and the latest switch listed below.

Jonathan Parks is now running for the Green Party in Calgary-Buffalo. He was previously nominated to run in the neighbouring Calgary-Currie but withdrew his candidacy in that riding earlier this month.

Upcoming nomination meetings

Candidate nomination votes are scheduled for the following dates:

  • February 6 – Innisfail-Sylvan Lake NDP
  • February 13 – Drumheller-Stettler NDP
  • February 15 – Calgary-Klein NDP
  • February 15 – Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre NDP
  • February 17 – Lacombe-Ponoka UCP
  • February 28 – Cypress-Medicine Hat NDP

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Nomination Drama! Nadine Wellwood disqualified in Livingstone-Macleod, former Wildrose MLA Scott Cyr launches a UCP comeback

Danielle Smith and Nadine Wellwood United Conservative Party Take Back Alberta
Premier Danielle Smith and Nadine Wellwood at the Take Back Alberta hospitality suite at the UCP AGM (source: Nadine Wellwood/Twitter)

Today’s by-election in Brooks-Medicine Hat will determine if Premier Danielle Smith will have a seat in the Alberta Legislature, but ahead of that vote here are the latest candidate nomination updates.

Drama in Livingstone-Macleod 

Livingstone-Macleod MLA Roger Reid and Premier Danielle Smith United Conservative Party nomination
Roger Reid and Danielle Smith (source: Roger Reid/Instagram)

Days after he withdrew from the United Conservative Party’s nomination contest in Livingstone-Macleod, MLA Roger Reid told Globe & Mail reporter Carrie Tait that he would not vote for Nadine Wellwood if she succeeds him as the UCP candidate. Now, Wellwood’s controversial nomination has been rejected by the party.

Here’s what Reid told the Globe & Mail:

Wellwood has a long history of posts on social media in which she has compared vaccine passports to Nazi Germany, promoted ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19, and spread the conspiracy theory that U.S. President Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from former president Donald Trump. 

“I think her focus is not where the people of Livingstone-Macleod are focused,” Mr. Reid said in an interview when asked if he would support Ms. Wellwood. “What she has been posting and what she’s been speaking to is not addressing the broad concerns of most of the residents of this riding.” 

Ms. Wellwood said she did not have time to respond to questions on Thursday.

Nadine Wellwood Livingstone-Macleod UCP Nomination Disqualification Statement
A statement from Nadine Wellwood’s campaign.

Wellwood blamed the “party elite” in a statement saying she would appeal her disqualification.

Her appeal will be a first test of the new UCP board, which is now about half controlled by supporters of the Take Back Alberta PAC slate, which swept the elections at the recent UCP AGM. Supporters of that PAC have called for the reopening of nominations in Cardston-Sikiska and Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, where challengers to the incumbent MLAs were disqualified earlier this year for making controversial statements on social media.

Former Wildrose MLA challenges Hanson

Scott Cyr UCP Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul Nomination Candidate MLA
Scott Cyr (source: Scott Cyr/Facebook)

Former Wildrose MLA Scott Cyr joins former MD of Bonnyville Reeve Greg Sawchuck in challenging MLA David Hanson for the UCP nomination in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul.

Cyr was first elected in 2015 and did not run for re-election in 2019 after his Bonnyville-Cold Lake and Hanson’s Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills ridings were merged in the electoral boundaries redistribution. Cyr endorsed Hanson in 2018.

He was openly critical of UCP MLA’s caught up in the Aloha-gate scandal in December 2021, telling CTV that the vacations were a “slap in the face” for his family and the average Albertan.”

The UCP has now opened nominations in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, as well as Central Peace-Notley, Chestermere-Strathmore, Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview, and Edmonton-Mill Woods.

Other nomination updates:

  • NDP members are expected to nominate Justin Huseby in Calgary-South East and Denis Ram in Calgary-Peigan tonight.
  • MLA Jason Stephan publicly announced he will be seeking the UCP nomination for re-election in Red Deer-South. He is being challenged by Adele Poratto, who ran against Stephan for the nomination in 2019 and also ran for the Progressive Conservative nomination in 2008.
  • Fred Kreiner of Jasper and Lavone Olson of Brule are running for the NDP nomination in West Yellowhead. Olson was Yellowhead County Councillor from 2007 to 2013 and 2017 to 2021. A December 8 nomination vote has been scheduled.
  • Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu announced plans to seek the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Meadows at an event at the Sultan Banquet Hall. The southeast Edmonton riding is currently represented by NDP MLA Jasvir Deol.
  • The UCP has opened nominations in a handful of ridings, including Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock, where UCP MLA Glenn Van Dijken faces a challenge from 24-year old Westlock County Councillor Isaac Skuban.
  • Jacob Stacey has been nominated as the Liberal Party candidate in Sherwood Park. He previously announced his candidacy in Strathcona-Sherwood Park.
  • Jeremy Appell has some coverage and raises some questions about Marilyn North Peigan’s departure as the NDP candidate in Calgary-Klein, a key swing-riding in the next election.

And it looks like a UCP candidate who came close to winning in the last election probably won’t be running again in the next election. Former UCP candidate Karri Flatla, who ran for the party in Lethbridge-West in 2019, levelled some pretty harsh criticism at Smith on her Facebook page.

A screenshot from Karri Flatla's Facebook page criticizing Premier Danielle Smith.
A screenshot from Karri Flatla’s Facebook page criticizing Premier Danielle Smith.

Total nominated candidates

The NDP have nominated candidates in 62 of Alberta’s 87 ridings. The UCP have candidates named in 36 ridings and the Green Party has 18 candidates. The Alberta Party has nominated 3 candidates and the Liberal Party has one.

Here are the scheduled upcoming nominations:

  • November 8 – Calgary-Peigan NDP
  • November 8 – Calgary-South East NDP
  • November 16 – Calgary-West NDP
  • November 20 – Airdrie-East NDP
  • November 23 – Livingstone-Macleod NDP
  • November 26 – St. Albert UCP
  • December 2 & 3 – Drayton Valley-Devon UCP
  • December 8 – West Yellowhead NDP

I am maintaining a list of candidates running for party nominations, so if you are seeking a nomination and would like you name added to the list please let me know. Thanks!

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