UCP wins Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills but fails to make gains in Edmonton
The ballots have been counted in the provincial by-elections held yesterday and the results are: Status quo ante bellum.
Naheed Nenshi’s NDP held suburban Edmonton-Ellerslie and urban Edmonton-Strathcona, and Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party held rural Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills.
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.
Voters only getting 2 more MLAs despite huge population boom
Alberta will have a new electoral map when the next provincial election is called. An Electoral Boundaries Commission has been named and will begin travelling the province next week to collect feedback from Albertans about how new riding boundaries should be drawn to reflect population changes since the last time the map was redrawn in 2017.
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.
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).
NDP’s Oscar-winning film inspired catch phrase captures the UCP moment in Alberta politics
“Danielle Smith wants to control everything, everywhere, all at once…”
In the middle of the weekly chaos of Alberta politics, a catch phrase inspired by an Academy Award winning film has captured one of the driving themes of Alberta politics today.
“Danielle Smith wants to control everything. Pensions, police, health care, schools, local councils. Any dollar spent anywhere in the province, and any decision made by anyone. Everything,” NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski first said in an April 29 press release.
Kasawski is the rookie MLA from Sherwood Park who became the opposition’s sole Municipal Affairs critic when co-critic Sarah Hoffman joined the NDP leadership race earlier this year.
While Municipal Affairs can sometimes be a sleepy file, on both the ministerial and critic side, it has been front and centre over the past month as Premier Danielle Smith and Minister Ric McIver rein in municipal and university funding agreements with the federal government and expand the provincial cabinet’s power to fire locally elected officials and overturn municipal bylaws.
If you want full access to all Daveberta columns and episodes of the Daveberta Podcast, please consider signing up for a paid subscription.
A special weekend episode of the Daveberta Podcast
It’s rare that I send out a newsletter on the weekend but I thought subscribers would enjoy listening to a new episode of the Daveberta Podcast we recorded this week.
We cover a lot of ground in this episode of the Daveberta Podcast, including:
The full episode of this Daveberta Podcast is available to paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack.
Smith said she wouldn’t campaign on an Alberta Pension Plan and police force, but it looks like that’s what we’re getting.
I want to focus on the lede from this widely shared Canadian Press story published on March 5, 2023:
United Conservative Leader Danielle Smith says she won’t be campaigning on some of her party’s more contentious ideas — sovereignty legislation, a provincial police force and an Alberta pension plan — ahead of the May 29 election.
The reason why this story is notable is because of how much of the re-elected UCP’s political agenda today focuses on those three things Smith specifically didn’t want to talk about during the campaign.
Daveberta is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
It’s not unusual for parties that form government to back away from campaign promises or even implement policies they didn’t campaign on at all. But it feels a little more unusual for a party leader to implement policies she said she didn’t want to talk about during a 28-day election campaign that happened less than a year ago.
It was a shameless and cynical move, because despite Smith saying she didn’t want to campaign on those issues during the election, it was clear the UCP was going to move forward on pensions, police and sovereignty if they were re-elected.
Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.
If you want full access to all Daveberta columns and episodes of the Daveberta Podcast, please consider signing up for a paid subscription
After a weekend of campaign kick-off rallies in Calgary and Edmonton, Premier Danielle Smith is expected to visit Lieutenant Governor Salma Lakhani today to ask that the Legislature be dissolved and a provincial election be held on May 29.
This will be Alberta’s 31st provincial general election since the province was formed in 1905, and it is also expected to be one of the most competitive in recent memory.
Read the rest of the column on the Daveberta Substack. Sign up for a paid subscription to get access to the Daveberta Podcast and special election extras.
Alberta is a pretty boring place to spend a federal election. Even as the polls shift nationally, there is a good chance the seat total could be the same as the 2019 election: 33 Conservative and one NDP.
It’s a quiet campaign.
Unlike the 2019 election, when Albertans were still riled up from that year’s April provincial election and federal campaign issues like pipelines and the carbon tax, this year feels sleepy. The majority of Albertans will surely cast their ballots again on September for the Conservative Party, but it might not be with the same level of enthusiasm and gusto as the last election.
But, if there is a chance that any seats could switch parties, here are a few of the ridings where it might happen:
Probably one of the only centres of electoral excitement in Alberta is where Conservative candidate Kerry Diotte is seeking re-election for his third-term against New Democrat Blake Desjarlais.
The NDP are hoping they can elect a second MP from Alberta and are putting that hope into Desjarlais’ campaign. Party leader Jagmeet Singh has visited the riding twice in the past month, spending an entire day campaigning in the district during the first week of the election, and pouring volunteer, financial and online advertising resources into the local campaign.
If the NDP are going to pick up a second seat in Alberta in this election, this is it.
Even NDP MLAs, who shunned the federal party in 2019, have been campaigning with Desjarlais in his bid to unseat Diotte. Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin, Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman, Edmonton-Rutherford MLA Richard Feehan, Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang, Edmonton-North West MLA David Eggen, and Edmonton-West Henday MLA Jon Carson have been spotted on the campaign trail in Edmonton-Griesbach.
Full list of candidates in Edmonton-Griesbach:
Conservative James Cumming and Liberal Randy Boissonnault are facing each other for the third time since 2015. Boissonnault won the first time they face each other in 2015 and Cumming unseated him in 2019.
NDP candidate Heather MacKenzie, a former public school board trustee and past municipal candidate, is hoping to dislodge the Liberals as the main alternative to the Conservatives.
NDP vote has held firm over the past three elections, suggesting that Boissonnault’s win in 2015 and defeat in 2019 was more about voters switching between the Conservatives and Liberals than a split between the Liberals and NDP.
Toronto Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland stopped in the district at the beginning of the campaign to support Boissonnault’s bid for re-election.
Full list of candidates in Edmonton-Centre:
Conservative Tim Uppal’s main challenger is city councillor Ben Henderson, who hopped south from his long-held municipal ward to run in his federal district.
While Uppal served as an MP for many terms, this is his first time running for re-election in Edmonton-Mill Woods. He was the MP for Edmonton-Sherwood Park from 2008 to 2015.
The district was represented by Liberal MP Amarjeet Sohi from 2015 to 2019. Sohi is running for Mayor of Edmonton.
Full list of candidates in Edmonton-Mill Woods:
It’s a long-shot but if the Liberals are able to salvage their national campaign in the next two weeks they could be in a position to pick up this district that Liberal Kent Hehr won in 2015. In this election Liberal Sabrina Grover is challenging first-term Conservative Greg McLean.
Full list of candidates in Calgary-Centre:
Conservative Jag Sahota is facing a challenge from city councillor George Chahal who is running for the Liberals in this northeast Calgary district. Chahal has been endorsed by Mayor Naheed Nenshi, and a handful of city councillors including mayoral election hopefuls Jyoti Gondek and Jeff Davison.
Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau’s plane touched down just long enough for him to appear at a rally in support of Chahal during the first week of the election.
Former MLA Darshan Kang was elected as the Liberal MP in 2015 but left the Liberal caucus after allegations of sexual harassment.
Full list of candidates in Calgary-Skyview:
Conservative candidate Blake Richards will probably safely coast to re-election on September 20, but the cast of conservative characters in this district make it interesting. Richards faces former Ontario Conseravtive MP Derek Sloan, who has relocated to Alberta in order to hold rallies for anti-mask and COVID conspiracy theorists, Maverick Party candidate and rodeo competitor Tariq Elnaga, People’s Party candidate Nadine Wellwood, and Independent separatist candidate Ron Voss.
Full list of candidates in Banff-Airdire:
It has yet to be seen what kind of impact two smaller right-wing parties will have in Alberta in this election.
People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier is in Alberta this week holding a series of rallies and it seems like the right-wing populist party is gaining support among disenchanted conservatives and anti-vaxxer crowds.
Wildrose Independence Party leader Paul Hinman has been spotted at People’s Party events and Bernier also met with Cypress-Medicine Hat Drew Barnes, who currently sits as an Independent MLA after being ejected from the United Conservative Party caucus earlier in the summer. It also appears as though outgoing Fort McMurray-Cold Lake Conservative MP David Yurdiga endorsed the local People’s Party candidate in a post on his personal Facebook account.
The separatist Maverick Party is only running candidates in districts they have determined are not likely to elect a Liberal or NDP MP, which is most of Alberta, but limiting themselves to running in Conservative strongholds has probably eliminated their chances of being relevant in this election.
Former talk radio host Dave Rutherford has been joining Maverick Party interim leader Jay Hill at candidate events across the province.
City Councillor Ben Henderson has been acclaimed as the Liberal Party candidate in Edmonton-Mill Woods.
Henderson currently serves as Councillor for Ward 8 and was first elected to City Council in 2007.
“Edmonton Mill Woods deserves strong and effective representation in government, that is why I’m thrilled and honoured to run for the job of serving the community of Mill Woods and the Meadows in Parliament, “ Henderson said in a press statement released on August 10.
“The results of this upcoming coming election are critical to ensuring we recover successfully from COVID-19 and make progress in building a truly prosperous community for ourselves and future generations,” Henderson said.
Before his election to council, Henderson was a Mediator and Negotiator, and before that was a theatre director, working as founding Artistic Director of Nexus Theatre and the Artistic Director of Theatre Network.
Henderson, who is married to former Edmonton-Centre Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, announced in March 2021 that he would not seek re-election to council in the October elections.
Henderson’s municipal ward does not overlap with the south east Edmonton federal riding, which is likely a recognition by the Liberals that their chances of unseating New Democratic Party MP Heather McPherson in Edmonton-Strathcona, which includes all of Henderson’s Ward 8, are slim to none.
Recruiting a four-term city councillor to run in the federal election is a coup for the federal Liberals in Edmonton. Henderson will bring many years of campaign experience and, likely, a dedicated team and resources to his campaign.
Nathalie Batres, who works as Mayor Don Iveson‘s Senior Media and Communications Advisor, is listed as the media contact in Henderson’s press release.
Henderson’s candidacy will also likely mean that Conservative Party MP Tim Uppal will be forced to spend more time campaigning inside his riding than if he faced a lesser known Liberal candidate.
Edmonton-Mill Woods was represented by Liberal MP and former city Councillor Amarjeet Sohi from 2015 until his defeat to Uppal in 2019. Sohi is now running for Mayor of Edmonton.
The area was previously represented by Conservative MP Mike Lake from 2006 to 2015 (Lake now represents the neighbouring Edmonton-Wetaskiwin) and Progressive Conservative-turned-Liberal MP David Kilgour from 1979 to 2006.
Also nominated by the Liberal Party today is Shahnaz Jabeen in Calgary-Rocky Ridge.
I am building a list of candidates seeking party nominations to run as candidates in Alberta in the next federal election. If you have any additions to the list, please comment below or email me at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. Thank you.
The non-Conservative parties are slowly starting the process of nominating candidates in Alberta ahead of the next federal election.
Blake Desjarlais is seeking the New Democratic Party nomination in Edmonton-Griesbach. Desjarlais is the Director of Public Affairs & National Operations for the Métis Settlements General Council and was the co-chairperson of the Alberta government’s Indigenous Climate Leadership Summits in 2017 and 2018. The nomination meeting is scheduled for March 18.
David Gamble is seeking the Liberal Party nomination in Calgary-Confederation. Gamble was the provincial Liberal candidate in Calgary-Klein in the 2015 election and previously served as Executive Vice-President of the Alberta Liberal Party.
Government audit manager Tunde Obasan is challenging former federal Conservative leadership candidate Rick Petersen for the Conservative nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona. Obsan was the United Conservative Party candidate in Edmonton-South in the 2019 election where he was defeated by NDP MLA Thomas Dang.
The Conservatives are continuing to acclaim their incumbents in Alberta. As of today, I am not aware of any Conservative MPs in Alberta being challenged for their party nomination ahead of the next election.
Here is the list of the most recently acclaimed Conservatives in Alberta:
See a full list of candidates who have announced their plans to run for federal party nominations in Alberta.
The results across Canada were a mixed colour of red, orange, green, blue, and bleu as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is returning to Ottawa to form a new Liberal minority government. But the results in Alberta were anything but mixed.
The Conservative Party earned 69.2 percent of the total vote in Alberta in Monday’s federal election, which is 3 percent higher than the party’s previous high-water mark of 66.8 in Alberta in the 2011 federal election.
It is no surprise that the vast majority of Albertans voted Conservative and that nearly all of the province’s elected Members of Parliament are also Conservative. This has happened in virtually every election since I was born, and about 25 years before that too.
Conservative candidates were elected or re-elected in most ridings in ranges from 70 percent to over 80 percent. It appears that Battle River-Crowfoot remains the strongest Conservative voting riding in Canada, with 85 percent of voters in that riding supporting the Conservatives.
Conservatives also dominated in Alberta’s two largest cities, earning 69 percent in Calgary, and 63 percent of the vote in Edmonton, which voted overwhelmingly for the Alberta NDP in the recent provincial election.
The Conservative Party and its predecessor parties have dominated Alberta for decades, and the Conservative have represented the majority of Alberta’s federal ridings since 1958, and have held all of the province’s seats from 1972 to 1977, 1977 to 1988 and 2006 to 2008.
This election has once again reminded Canadians of the regional divides in our country but it should also not be a surprise. Regional division is a feature of Canadian politics and our First Past the Post electoral system exaggerates these divides.
New Democratic Party candidate Heather McPherson was elected in Edmonton-Strathcona, making her the only non-Conservative MP in Alberta and the only woman elected in the Edmonton area serving in the House of Commons.
While the NDP convincingly held off Conservative challenger Conservative Sam Lilly and Liberal Eleanor Olszewski, this election further exposed fractures between the provincial and federal NDP in Alberta.
McPherson’s opponents delighted in a decision by Rachel Notley to withhold her endorsement of McPherson until days before election day but it appears to have had no impact on the results in the riding. McPherson finished with 47 percent of the vote, four points ahead of now-former MP Linda Duncan‘s results from 2015.
Liberal MP and Minister of Natural Resources Amarjeet Sohi was defeated by Conservative Tim Uppal in Edmonton-Mill Woods, Randy Boissonnault was defeated by Conservative James Cumming in Edmonton-Centre, and Kent Hehr was defeated by Greg McLean in Calgary-Centre, leaving the Liberals with no seats in the House of Commons from Alberta, and likely no representation in the new federal cabinet from Alberta.
The Liberals saw their province-wide vote total in Alberta cut to 13.7 percent, down from 24.6 percent in 2015. The personal unpopularity of Trudeau in Alberta, fuelled by angst and frustration with the current economic situation and the consistently low international price of oil, made it very unlikely that the Liberals would do well in Alberta in 2019.
Despite Sohi’s loss in Monday’s election, the congenial and personally popular politician is frequently named as a potential candidate for Edmonton’s 2021 mayoral election if Don Iveson decides not to seek re-election.
The prospect of the Liberal minority government influenced by the NDP and Greens could lead to the introduction of new national programs that will benefit Albertans – including universal pharmacare and dental care, and expanded childcare coverage – and the prospect of real electoral reform that could ease some of the rigid political divides we saw in Monday’s election.
Trudeau announced today that his government plans to move ahead with the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project, despite delays caused by court challenges from First Nations communities. Because the construction of the pipeline project does not require any votes of Parliament, the minority situation is not likely to impact the construction of the project.
Oil pipeline aside, the Liberals are expected to push forward on their climate change plans, including the introduction of a federal carbon tax in Alberta next year. In what could be a sign of changing times, New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs announced his plans to create a provincial carbon tax, dropping his opposition the federal carbon tax.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is showing no sign he plans to end his campaign against Trudeau, announcing this week that he has sent a letter to the prime minister outlining the Alberta government’s demands, including a plan for a resource corridor and changes to the equalization formula (none of which Trudeau campaigned for ahead of Monday’s election).
Kenney has announced plans to hold a series of town hall meetings to gauge voter frustration following the federal election. This could be similar to the MLA Committee on Alberta’s Role in Confederation created by Ralph Klein and chaired by Edmonton MLA Ian McClelland in 2004, which travelled the province to gauge support for the Firewall manifesto (the committee’s final report rejected most of the manifesto’s proposals).
The town halls are both a relief valve and a steering wheel that allows people to vent their frustrations while allowing Kenney, as Klein would say, to try to keep ahead of the crowd.
Former Alberta MLA Alana DeLong was defeated in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, finishing second with 25% behind NDP MP Alistair MacGregor. DeLong served as the Progressive Conservative MLA for Calgary-Bow from 2001 to 2015. She ran for the BC Liberals in the 2017 provincial election on Vancouver Island as well.
The results in Alberta and bot-driven promotion of the #wexit hashtag on Twitter have fuelled a surge of media interest of Alberta separatism, an idea that has no wide-spread support in this province.
Many Albertans are feeling a real sense of frustration with the federal government, as Monday’s election results demonstrate, but there is no evidence that Albertans are flocking en masse to separatism. None.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
As the federal election results rolled in, Dave and Adam recorded a special episode of the Daveberta Podcast to talk about the election results in Edmonton and Calgary, what a new Liberal minority government led by Justin Trudeau could mean for Alberta, and how Premier Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party will react.
Thanks to the Alberta Podcast Network, powered by ATB, for supporting the show. The Alberta Podcast Network includes more than 30 great made-in-Alberta podcasts,
You can listen and subscribe to the Daveberta Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find podcasts online. We always love to feedback from our listeners, so let us know what you think of this episode and leave a review where you download.
Send us your feedback, or ask us any questions you have for our next episode. You can get us on Twitter, Instagram, the Daveberta Facebook page, or you can email us at podcast@daveberta.ca.
