Rod Loyola has resigned as the Alberta NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie and is running as the Liberal Party candidate in the new Edmonton Gateway riding in the federal election. Loyola represented his south Edmonton provincial riding from 2015 until he stepped down earlier this week to pursue the federal Liberal nomination.
Liberal PM expected to call federal election on Sunday for an April 28 or May 5 vote
Prime Minster Mark Carney was in Edmonton yesterday for his first visit since winning the Liberal Party leadership and becoming leader of the government. Carney met with Premier Danielle Smith, who re-endorsed Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre the night before at a sold out Leader’s Dinner fundraiser in the capital city.
The Prime Minister and Premier did not make themselves available to speak with the media after the meeting and there were no photos taken of the two politicians together, which is probably an indication of how well we can expect the meeting went (Smith’s office later posted a photo of her meeting with Ambassador of Austria Andreas Rendl, which also gives us an idea of where the Prime Minister fits in her pecking order).
Alberta goes for another ride on the royalty roller coaster
After twenty years of writing about Alberta politics and about same number of provincial budgets, it’s sometimes hard not to write the same thing year after year: Alberta relies too heavily on revenues from oil and gas royalties to fund the daily operations of government.
That’s the baked-in analysis of Alberta politics. Our provincial government’s over-dependence on oil revenues is both a blessing and a curse. When the price of oil is high, things are really good. When the price of oil is low, it’s really bad. It is the central component of what we used to call the “Alberta Advantage.”
Alberta has been able to afford to have the lowest taxes in Canada and high spending on public services because the government could use oil and gas royalties to offset what every other province would normally collect through taxes.
Smith wants tariff exemptions for oil and gas but Trump might want those jobs for American workers
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith continued her diplomatic charm offensive in the United States with a surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort owned by incoming American President Donald Trump. Trump’s Sunshine State refuge has operated as his White House-in-Waiting until next week’s Presidential Inauguration festivities.
Smith has been a regular guest over the past few weeks on a long list of Fox News shows where she has argued that Trump should to exempt Canadian oil and gas from his threat of tariffs. She also plans to join a crowd of Trump supporters to watch him be sworn-in to office next week in Washington D.C.
Albertans found out about Smith’s trip after her staff posted photos on social media of her and Trump alongside celebrity investor and former Conservative Party leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary. She also posted photos of herself, O’Leary, and conservative gadfly Jordan Peterson at Mar-a-Lago.
Alberta NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro won the provincial by-election in Lethbridge-West.
Unofficial results from Elections Alberta:
With the impending electoral defeat of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau growing more likely by the day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has embarked on her own Team Alberta diplomatic charm offensive in the United States.
Just days after American President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods imported into his country, Smith jetted off to the Western Governors conference in Las Vegas. Smith held a handful of one-on-one meetings with Republican and Democratic governors as part of her pitch to US law-makers to exclude Canadian oil and gas from Trump’s tariff war.
“I am a fan of our biggest trading partner” Smith’s told a Fox News host when she was asked on-air if she was a fan of Trump. In response to Trump’s now frequently repeated threats that Canada should become America’s 51st state if Canadians don’t like the tariffs, Smith said he was “hilarious.”
Nearly five months after Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips resigned her seat in the Legislature, a by-election has been called in Lethbridge-West and it’s happening on December 18.
For the past five years, this urban riding located in southwest Alberta has been an electoral anomaly: a lone orange island surrounded by a sea of blue. The riding was one of two won by the NDP in 2023 that was outside of the immediate Edmonton and Calgary areas.
Nominate your choice for this year’s best MLA, cabinet minister, up and comer, and more
It’s that time of year again. I am thrilled to launch the eighth annual Daveberta Best of Alberta Politics Survey. It has been a big year in Alberta politics so I am excited to hear from you about the big political players and issues of 2024.
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.
The next step in the Alberta NDP’s transformation from Rachel Notley’s NDP to Naheed Nenshi’s NDP takes place this weekend in Calgary.
NDP members from across Alberta will gather in the province’s largest city this weekend for the party’s first meeting of its Provincial Council since Nenshi won his landslide victory in the race to replace Notley.
Nenshi’s 84% win with 62,746 votes means there is no doubt who the vast majority of the party’s membership wanted as leader. But meaningfully connecting with the people in the room this weekend will be Nenshi’s next big step.
Expect a charm offensive.
New book delves into the conservative politics of former Premier Jason Kenney
Author and journalist Jeremy Appel helps us launch the 7th season of Daveberta Podcast with an in-depth conversation about his new book, Kenneyism: Jason Kenney’s Pursuit of Power.
In his book, Appel takes one of the first in-depth looks at Jason Kenney’s rise and fall in Canadian politics, and dissects the branches of conservatism and adherence to hierarchical social order that drove the former Premier to become a political animal unlike anything Alberta politics has seen before.
The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and produced by Adam Rozenhart. This episode was recorded on September 23, 2024 in the offices of Adverb Communications in beautiful downtown Edmonton.
Kenneyism in Alberta politics. An interview with Jeremy Appel by Dave Cournoyer
New book delves into the conservative politics of former Premier Jason Kenney
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.
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.
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.
Former Calgary mayor wins with a record 62,746 votes on the first ballot
Naheed Nenshi is the new leader of the Alberta NDP. The former Calgary mayor won with a huge landslide victory on the first ballot.
Here are the results of the NDP leadership vote:
Nenshi’s three-terms as mayor of Alberta’s largest city have made him one of the province’s most recognizable politicians. That name recognition and his history of electoral success in Calgary almost certainly helped carry him to his landslide first place finish in the race to replace Rachel Notley.
