Tag: Jeremy Nixon

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Alberta Politics

Top 10 closest Alberta races in Canada’s 2025 election

Top 10 closest Alberta races in Canada's 2025 election
Top 10 closest Alberta races in Canada's 2025 election

It’s been just over three months since Election Day in Canada and, as the dust has settled, I’ve taken a closer look at the results in ridings across Alberta.

The Conservative Party continued its decades-long streak of electoral dominance in federal elections in Alberta as it saw its support jump to 63.5 percent from 55.4 percent in 2021 (though it is still lower than the 69 percent the Conservatives earned in Alberta in 2019). The Conservatives had strong showings in every part of the province, but especially in rural Alberta where the party’s candidates were elected with huge margins of victory.

Alberta’s two largest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, were home to the most interesting and most competitive races of the federal election in our province. The races with the narrowest margins of victory were in the cities, and the three closest races were in Calgary, which not long ago was considered a Conservative stronghold.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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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

🇨🇦 Alberta ridings I’m watching on federal election night in Canada

It’s Election Day so don’t forget to vote!

It’s Election Day in Canada and the polls are open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Alberta. If you aren’t one of the 815,131 Albertans who voted in the Advance Polls, then be sure to find your voting station and cast a ballot today.

While voters in most of Alberta’s 37 federal electoral districts are expected to elect their local Conservative Party candidate tonight, there are a few ridings that are expected to be competitive. Here are a few Alberta ridings I will be watching closely tonight…

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Alberta Politics

Liberals tap Corey Hogan to run against Jeremy Nixon in Calgary Confederation

Liberals drop former NDP MLA Rod Loyola in Edmonton Gateway

Canada’s federal election is in full-swing and today’s Daveberta newsletter includes a quick update about candidate nominations in Alberta. I will be back early next week with a regular column and more analysis from Alberta in the federal election.

As of this morning, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party are the only parties with candidates in all 37 ridings in Alberta. The Liberal Party briefly had a full slate but are down one after their candidate in Edmonton Gateway was removed yesterday (more about that below).

The deadline for parties to nominate candidates or for Independent candidates to put their names forward is Monday, April 7 at 2:00 p.m.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s MAGA charm offensive could haunt the Conservatives

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the United Conservative Party’s Leader’s Dinner in Edmonton in March 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the United Conservative Party’s Leader’s Dinner in Edmonton in March 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith demanded Carney call a federal election after he was sworn-in as Prime Minister ten days ago, she probably didn’t expect that a two week old interview with an American alt-right news website would be making headlines on the first day of the campaign.

In a March 8 interview with the pro-Trump Breitbart website, Smith said she asked the Trump administration to pause their economic attacks on Canada until after the federal election because they might hurt Pierre Poilievre’s chances of defeating the Liberals.

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Alberta Politics

UCP launches attacks ads at Nenshi. Nenshi laughs it off and shoots back.

Politics in Alberta doesn’t skip a beat.

Less than a week after former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi won a landslide victory in the Alberta NDP leadership race, the United Conservative Party has launched a series of attack ads against him, framing the new NDP leader as “Justin Trudeau’s choice for Alberta” and “just another tax and spend Liberal.”

Nenshi’s team tossed out the old NDP playbook.

Instead of stumbling over fancy words and getting overly defensive (or even worse, ignoring the charge), Nenshi laughed off the attack and shot back with his own stinging criticism of Smith’s UCP.

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Alberta Politics

NDP to announce new leader and Conservatives vote in Calgary Signal Hill

The view from the inside of the Wonderland Sculpture outside The Bow tower in downtown Calgary (source: Dave Cournoyer)
The view from the inside of the Wonderland Sculpture outside The Bow tower in downtown Calgary (source: Dave Cournoyer)

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.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s big win

UCP leader Danielle Smith on election night in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
UCP leader Danielle Smith on election night in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Losing Calgary was the plan Smith shared with Rick Bell months before the 2023 election

Danielle Smith has never been interested in building a big tent political party.

It was October 2022 when Smith landed in hot water with United Conservative Party MLAs from Calgary when she told Postmedia columnist Rick Bell that she would be okay with her party losing half its seats in that city.

Fast forward seven months and that’s what happened when Smith’s UCP were re-elected on May 29, 2023.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s UCP comes down hard on Alberta’s municipalities

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Changes will send chills through municipal councils and create a lot of grief for MLAs

One of my goals when I moved Daveberta over to this Substack newsletter in 2022 was to take a different approach to writing about Alberta politics. For 17 years I published, sometimes, almost daily commentary on Alberta politics. Now, being on this site gives me a chance to take a breath, observe, and not feel like I need to rush analysis of what’s happening on our province’s political scene.

With that in mind, it has been very interesting to watch over the past week how Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government has unrolled its suite of changes to municipal governance and local election laws, and responded to the loud backlash from municipal leaders.

The UCP has spent a lot of political capital and government resources in its ongoing jurisdictional fights with the federal Liberal government in Ottawa, but Smith’s sovereignty agenda isn’t limited to challenging the powers of the federal government. This week’s Bill 20, Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act and last month’s Bill 18, Provincial Priorities Act are aimed at removing decision making powers from Alberta’s locally elected leaders and increasing the powers of the provincial government.

The drastic changes to the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act introduced by Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver gives the provincial government sweeping powers to overturn municipal bylaws and increased powers to remove locally elected municipal mayors, councillors, and school board trustees.

Changes also include legalizing corporate and union donations to municipal candidates and introducing a formal structure for political parties in municipal elections in Calgary and Edmonton.

It’s hard to imagine how most of these changes would improve municipal government or municipal elections, or that there is even broad support for some of these changes (there isn’t).

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Alberta Politics

10 things I’m watching in Alberta politics in 2024

Premier Danielle Smith (centre) at a November 27, 2023 press conference with Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz (left) and Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf (right). (source: Alberta Newsroom / Flickr)
Premier Danielle Smith (centre) at a November 27, 2023 press conference with Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz (left) and Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf (right). (source: Alberta Newsroom / Flickr)

From the price of oil to the influence of right-wing populist groups to the NDP leadership race and more

January is usually a quiet month in politics, making it a good time to look ahead at what to expect in the year to come. Here are ten things I will be watching that could have a big impact on Alberta politics in 2024:

1. Price of oil

Alberta is probably the only province where the international price of oil is at the top of the Premier’s daily briefing notes. The price of oil not only has a big impact on a lot of Albertans’ jobs, but also the provincial government’s revenue stream.

Relying heavily on the price of oil to pay for the day to day operations of public services, the Alberta government’s 2023/2024 budget projected as much as 25 percent of its revenue will come from oil and gas royalties.

“If we go into this coming fiscal year starting April 1 with $72 per barrel, that might put the government into a situation where they either have to revise their spending plans or face a modest deficit,” University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe told CBC.

In Alberta, governments live and die by the price of oil.

2. Influence of right-wing populist and separatist groups

Without a doubt the influence of populist and separatist groups has grown in Alberta politics in recent years. Nowhere is this more pronounced than inside the governing United Conservative Party since Danielle Smith became Premier in October 2022 after riding the wave of populist discontent that pushed out former premier Jason Kenney.

In the closing months of 2023, newly elected UCP President Rob Smith spent nearly two hours on a livestream hosted by Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Chris Scott and past Independence Party of Alberta candidate Kerry Lambert.

The APP has advocated for the creation of a Republic of Alberta and is currently calling for a referendum on Alberta’s independence from Canada. Scott gained notoriety in conservative circles during the COVID-19 pandemic when his restaurant in the central Alberta hamlet of Mirror remained open in contravention of public health rules.

Also, in the final days of 2023, the UCP highlighted an endorsement from University of Calgary professor Barry Cooper in its year-end fundraising pitch on social media. Cooper has compared Alberta to pre-revolutionary colonial America in 1775 and has called for a referendum on separation from Canada. He is also a co-founder of the Free Alberta Strategy, an autonomist documentchampioned by Premier Smith’s Chief of Staff Rob Anderson.

And, on January 24, Smith will host and interview American media personality and conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson at an event in Calgary that has been promoted by the APP and other influential right-wing groups like Alberta Proud, and Take Back Alberta (which is reported to be under investigation by Elections Alberta).

3. The race to replace Rachel Notley

It is hard to imagine the modern Alberta NDP without Rachel Notley, but she announced last week that she will not lead the NDP into the 2027 election and will step down as leader when her successor is chosen, likely later this year.

The leadership race jockeying has already begun, with at least five MLAs sending signals that they plan to run: Calgary-Mountain View MLA Kathleen Ganley, Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman, Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi, Edmonton-City Centre MLA David Shepherd, and Edmonton-Rutherford MLA Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse.

The NDP Provincial Council will meet on January 27 to discuss timelines and rules for the leadership race. The winner of the race will lead the 38-MLA NDP Caucus into 2025 and the party into the 2027 provincial election.

I am planning to write a lot more about this leadership race in the weeks and months to come.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s post-election honeymoon is over

Premier Danielle Smith speaking to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on October 26, 2023 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith speaking to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on October 26, 2023 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

The seasons are changing and it’s not just the weather – the political seasons are changing too.

The first snow has fallen and the cold north winds are blowing across Alberta. The seasons are changing and it’s not just limited to the weather – the political seasons are changing too.

Five months after the 2023 provincial election, Alberta’s politicians will be back in the provincial capital on October 30 to start the first substantial sitting of this Legislative Assembly. MLAs met shortly after the election to choose a Speaker for the new Assembly (Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper) but this fall’s session will see Premier Danielle Smith’s re-elected United Conservative Party government introduce its legislative agenda.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta Pension Plan games begin. But why?

Finance Minister Nate Horner, pension engagement panel chairperson Jim Dinning, and Premier Danielle Smith (source: YouTube screenshot)
Finance Minister Nate Horner, pension engagement panel chairperson Jim Dinning, and Premier Danielle Smith (source: YouTube screenshot)

“More Alberta, less Ottawa”

Alberta’s United Conservative Party government opened up a new front in its fight for more provincial autonomy with a proposal to withdraw Alberta workers from the Canada Pension Plan and create an Alberta Pension Plan.

Premier Danielle Smith joined Finance Minister Nate Horner and pension engagement panel chairperson and former finance minister Jim Dinning on stage to announce a sunshine and apple pie forecast for a new Alberta Pension Plan.

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Alberta Politics

Bringing Jason Nixon and Ric McIver back into cabinet was smart politics

Then-leader of the Wildrose Party Danielle Smith at a press conference during the 2014 Edmonton-Whitemud by-election. Newly nominated Wildrose candidate Jason Nixon is standing on the right side of the photo. (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Then-leader of the Wildrose Party Danielle Smith at a press conference during the 2014 Edmonton-Whitemud by-election. Newly nominated Wildrose candidate Jason Nixon is standing on the right side of the photo. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

It has been almost two weeks since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her new 24-member cabinet and a lot of ink has been spilled dissecting what the appointments could mean for the start of the United Conservative Party’s second term as government and the next four years.

There are big challenges facing the new cabinet, especially for ministers appointed to high-profile positions. But what caught my attention among the appointments was the return of two former cabinet ministers who were pushed into the backbenches when Smith entered the Premier’s Office last October.

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Alberta Politics

19 Alberta ridings I’ll be watching closely on Election Day

19 Alberta ridings I’ll be watching closely on Election Day (source: CanadianPolling.ca)
19 Alberta ridings I’ll be watching closely on Election Day (source: CanadianPolling.ca)

There are four days left until Election Day in Alberta.

Readers of the Daveberta will know I’ve been watching this Alberta election pretty closely and, while I’ve actually been watching all 87 ridings throughout the campaign, there are a few handfuls I’ve been keeping a close eye on.

Some of them will be close races and some will be won with landslides.

Here’s my list of 19 ridings I’ll be watching closely on Election Day.

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Amarjeet Sohi and Danielle Smith present very different solutions for downtown Edmonton’s problems

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi delivers his State of the City Address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on May 9, 2023 (source: https://medium.com/mayorsohi)
Mayor Amarjeet Sohi delivers his State of the City Address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on May 9, 2023 (source: https://medium.com/mayorsohi)

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith presented two very different approaches on Tuesday morning to address the challenges facing the capital city’s downtown core.

No one will deny that there are big social problems facing Edmonton’s downtown. You can take a walk down almost any street downtown and see people facing mental health or addictions challenges. It’s sad and troubling.

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