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Alberta Politics

RJ Sigurdson defeats MLA Wayne Anderson in Highwood UCP nomination, and a preview of this week’s nomination votes

Former local party local president RJ Sigurdson defeated incumbent MLA Wayne Anderson and two other challengers to secure the United Conseravative Party nomination in Highwood on October 16, 2018. Sigurdson previously served as the local constituency president for the UCP and PC Party in the district south of Calgary.

Wayne Anderson MLA Highwood UCP
Wayne Anderson

Anderson faced a nomination challenge from Sigurdson, Carrie Fischer, a former Okotoks town councillor and mayoral candidate who ran for the PC Party against Anderson in 2015, and former Wildrose and PC Party activist Dean Leask.

Sigurdson had been endorsed by from former Highwood PC MLA George Groeneveld, former Okotoks mayor Bill McAlpine, and former PC MP Doug Fee.

Anderson had been endorsed by fellow UCP MLAs Leila Aheer, Nathan Cooper, Ric McIver, Jason Nixon, Dave Schneider, Pat Stier, Glenn van Dijken, and Tany Yao, as well as former PC cabinet minister Jon Havelock and Okotoks mayor Bill Robertson. And Leask had been endorsed by former cabinet minister Ted Morton and former area MP Grant Hill.

Anderson was first elected in 2015 as Wildrose Party candidate and currently serves as the UCP Advanced Education critic. He is the second UCP MLA to lose the party’s nomination to run in the next election. Rancher and political party scion Nate Horner defeated two-term MLA Rick Strankman in Drumheller-Stettler UCP nomination contest earlier this month.

Here are the other nomination meetings taking place this week:

October 17, 2018 – Edmonton-Mill Woods AP

Anju Sharma is expected to be acclaimed as the Alberta Party candidate after two other candidates, James Moore and Walter Espinoza, withdrew from the contest.  Abdi Bakal is also expected to be acclaimed as the Liberal Party candidate in this district on October 17, 2018. The district is currently represented by New Democratic Party MLA Christina Gray.

October 18, 2018 – Calgary-Elbow NDP

Janet Eremenko is expected to be acclaimed as the NDP candidate. Eremenko was a candidate for Calgary City Council in Ward 11 in the October 2017 election where she finished third with 20 percent of the vote. The district is currently represented by Alberta Party MLA Greg Clark.

October 18 & 20, 2018 – Airdrie-Cochrane UCP

Five candidates are seeking the UCP nomination in this district northwest of Calgary: Ian Chitwood, Peter Guthrie, Morgan Nagel, Mauri Stiff, and Laura Talsma.

Chitwood is director of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. Guthrie is a former owner of a Mr. Lube franchise in north east Calgary and a former co-owner of a ranch near Castor. Nagel is a Cochrane town councillor and previously worked as a organizer for Jason Kenney’s leadership campaign and the Manning Centre. Talsma is a Registered Nurse at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre and Bethany Cochrane Long Term Care facility in Calgary.

Peter Guthrie is endorsed by former sportscaster and recent Airdrie-East UCP nomination candidate Roger Millions and former Rocky View County councillor and Calgary-Centre MP Eric Lowther. Nagel has the endorsements of Cochrane town councillors Alex Reed and Patrick Wilson. Stiff has been endorsed by Airdrie UCP MLA Angela Pitt, who is running for re-election in the neighbouring Airdrie-East district. Talsma is endorsed by UCP MLA Jason Nixon and brief UCP leadership candidate Jeff Callaway.

October 20, 2018 – Calgary-Shaw UCP

Five candidates are seeking the UCP nomination in this southwest Calgary district: past Wildrose Party candidates Brad Leishman and Mark Mantei, party activist and past federal Conservative nomination candidate Jack Redekop, communications professional Rebecca Schulz, and Daniel McLean.

Leisheman and Redekop have endorsed the right-wing Parents for Choice in Education group, and Mantei appears to have the support of the right-wing Progressive Group for Independent Business through the group’s president Sid Helischauer and PGIB-backed Calgary-Peigan candidate Tanya Fir, and UCP MLA Tany Yao. Rebecca Schultz is endorsed by Member of Parliament Stephanie Kusie, UCP MLAs Nathan Cooper and Jason Nixon and former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.

Calgary-Shaw is currently represented by NDP MLA Graham Sucha and was previously represented by Wildrose-turned-PC MLA Jeff Wilson from 2012 to 2015.

October 20, 2018 – Calgary-Varsity NDP

NDP stalwart Anne McGrath is expected to be acclaimed as her party’s candidate in this redrawn district. McGrath returned to Alberta from Ottawa in 2015 to serve as Principal Secretary in the Premier’s Office in Edmonton and then moved to Calgary to serve as Executive Director of the Premier’s Southern Alberta Office at the McDougall Centre.

Two current MLAs, Stephanie McLean and Michael Connolly, and one other candidate, Julia Hayter, have withdrawn from the contest in this district. Hayter is now running for the NDP nomination in Calgary-Edgemont.

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Alberta Politics

Rick Strankman ousted by Nate Horner in Drumheller-Stettler, UCP dumps Dale Johnson in Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland

Photo: Rick Strankman and Jason Kenney (source: Facebook)

Rick Strankman is the first incumbent MLA to lose his party’s nomination in this election cycle as he went down to defeat at the hands of Pollockville rancher and political family scion Nate Horner in last weekend’s United Conservative Party nomination contest in Drumheller-Stettler, located deep in Dinosaur Country.

Nate Horner UCP Drumheller Stettler
Nate Horner

Despite endorsements from fellow UCP MLAs Leela AheerScott CyrGrant HunterMark Smith, Pat Stier, and Wes Taylor, Strankman was unable to fend off this nomination challenge. Horner defeated Strankman by a margin of 969 votes to 740.

Strankman was first elected in 2012 and in 2016 was twice forced to apologize after penning an article comparing Alberta’s carbon tax to the Holodomor, the Ukrainian genocide of the 1930s.

His loss makes former Wildrose Party MLAs of his era an almost extinct species in Alberta politics. The only remaining former Wildrose MLA from the party’s 2012 breakthrough who is nominated to run as a UCP candidate in 2019 is Drew Barnes, who will be running for re-election in Cypress-Medicine Hat.

There is now speculation that Strankman could seek the nomination to run as a candidate with Derek Fildebrandt’s upstart Freedom Conservative Party in 2019.

As noted in a previous article, Horner is a rancher and the latest member of the Horner political family to recently jump into the provincial arena. The Nate Horner is a relative of former deputy premiers Hugh Horner and Doug Horner, and the grandson of Jack Horner, who served as Member of Parliament for central Alberta from 1958 to 1979. Jack Horner served as a Progressive Conservative until 1977, when he crossed the floor to the Liberals and served as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau‘s government before he was soundly defeated in the 1979 election.

Drew Barnes Wildrose MLA Cypress Medicine Hat
Drew Barnes

A third candidate in the UCP nomination race, Todd Pawsey, was disqualified by the party at the eleventh hour following the discovery of unsavoury Facebook posts. The social media posts included “jokes about transgender people, making extremely sexual/sexist comments and calling Premier Rachel Notely a queen beyotch,” according to a report by the Ponoka News.

While it is not common for incumbent MLAs to lose their party nominations, it is not unheard of. Ahead of the 2015 election, incumbent MLAs Joe Anglin, Gary Bikman, Rod Fox, Peter Sandhu and Danielle Smith lost their nominations. MLAs Carl Benito, Broyce Jacobs and Art Johnston were defeated in their bids to secure their party’s nominations ahead of the 2012 election.

Johnson removed. Wood to be appointed?

Dale Johnson UCP Lac Ste Anne Parkland Candidate Nomination
Dale Johnson

Dale Johnson has been removed as the nominated UCP candidate in Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland after the party discovered he paid $5,584.60 to an employee he fired with whom he was in a romantic relationship, according to a report by CBC

Johnson replied to the decision on his Facebook page: “…while I disagree with this decision, our Party has the right to make it and I will not be challenging it.

He previously served on Onoway town council, as president of Whitecourt-Ste. Anne PC association and as an appointed board member of the Aspen Regional Health Authority and Credit Counselling Services of Alberta.

Johnson defeated three other candidates to secure the nomination in August 2018. There is speculation in some political circles that the UCP could choose to appoint Leah Wood as the candidate in this district. Wood was a member of the UCP interim board and was widely considered to be the favourite of the party establishment in the August nomination contest.

Upcoming Nomination Meetings

Craig Coolahan NDP MLA Calgary Klein
Craig Coolahan

Edmonton-Mill Woods – Walter Espinoza and Anju Sharma will compete for the Alberta Party nomination at a meeting on October 2, 2018.

Calgary-Klein – MLA Craig Coolahan is expected to be chosen as the New Democratic Party candidate at a meeting on October 3, 2018. Coolahan was first elected in 2015 with 44.3 percent of the vote in the 2015 election. Before his election, he worked as a business representative with the United Utility Workers’ Association.

Edmonton-West Henday – MLA Jon Carson is expected to be nominated as the NDP candidate in this new west Edmonton district on October 3, 2018. Carson was first elected as MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark in the 2015 election while earning 57 percent of the vote. Carson was an apprentice electrician when he was elected to the Legislature.

Calgary-Currie – Tony Norman is expected to be nominated as the Alberta Party candidate in Calgary-Currie on October 4, 2018. Norman was the Alberta Party candidate in this district in the 2015 election.


Here are some of the latest updates to the list of candidates running for party nominations ahead of the 2019 Alberta provincial general election:

Calgary-EdgemontJulia Hayter is seeking the NDP nomination. Hayter is a constituency assistant to current Calgary-Varsity MLA Stephanie McLean and was seeking the NDP nomination in that district until Anne McGrath entered the contest last week.

After some deep consideration and conversations, I have decided to remove my name from the Varsity nomination race. As…

Posted by Julia Hayter on Monday, October 1, 2018

Calgary-North East – Rocky View County Councillor Jerry Gautreau is seeking the UCP nomination in this northeast Calgary district. Gautreau earned 178 votes when he ran as a Social Credit Party candidate in the 2004 election in the now defunct Airdrie-Chestermere district.

Edmonton-City Centre – Stephen Hammerschimidt has withdrawn from UCP contest in this downtown Edmonton district.

Fort McMurray-Lac La BicheLaila Goodridge was only elected as MLA on July 12, 2018 but she already faces two high-profile challengers for the UCP nomination in the new Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche district. Former Lac La Biche County Councillor Gail Broadbent-Ludwig announced her candidacy last month and this week former Wood Buffalo mayoral candidate Allan Grandison entered the contest. The largest donor to Grandison’s October 2017 mayoral campaign came from City Centre Group, the company operated by the family of former MLA and Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean.

Sherwood Park – Jason Lafond has withdrawn from UCP contest.

Spruce Grove-Stony Plain – Brendan Greene has withdrawn from the UCP nomination contest in this district west of Edmonton. Greene was the Green Party candidate in Sturgeon River-Parkland in the 2015 federal election.

Vermilion-Lloydminster-WainwrightBenjamin Acquaye is seeking the UCP nomination. Acquaye is an instructor with the Department of Business at Lakeland College in Lloydminster.

If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them to the list. Thank you!

Categories
Alberta Politics

Alberta Election Update: Lorne Dach running for re-election in Edmonton-McClung, Mickey Amery seeks UCP nomination in Calgary-Cross

Photo: Lorne Dach, Allie Tulick, Roop Rai, and Mickey Amery.

Here are some of the latest updates to the list of candidates running for party nominations ahead of the 2019 Alberta provincial general election:

Banff-Kananaskis – Scott Wagner is seeking the United Conservative Party nomination in this district. Wagner was the Wildrose Party candidate in this district in the 2015 election, where he placed a distant second to New Democratic Party candidate Cameron Westhead. Wagner also ran for the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in the Macleod district ahead of the 2014 by-election.

Former Progressive Conservative MLA Ron Casey, who was unseated in 2015, is now the president of the local Alberta Party association in this district.

Calgary-Cross – Lawyer Mickey Amery is seeking the UCP nomination in this east Calgary district. Amery is the son of former PC MLA Moe Amery, who represented the Calgary-East district from 1993 to 2015. The senior Amery recently withdrew his federal nomination campaign against long-time Conservative Member of Parliament Deepak Obhrai in Calgary-Forest Lawn.

Calgary-GlenmoreAllie Tulick has been nominated as the Green Party candidate in this district. Tulick is the former president of the Lakeview Community Association and spokesperson for YYC Cares.

Calgary-North East – Roop Rai will challenge Gurbachan Brar for the NDP nomination in this new north east Calgary district. Rai works as a constituency assistant to Calgary-McCall NDP MLA Irfan Sabir and was her party’s candidate in the 2016 by-election in Calgary-Greenway.

Edmonton-Manning – Jitender Sahni has withdrawn from the Alberta Party nomination contest.

Edmonton-McClung – MLA Lorne Dach will seek the NDP nomination on October 10, 2018. Dach was elected in 2015 in his fourth time as the NDP candidate in this affluent southwest Edmonton district. He currently serves as deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. If nominated, he will face Alberta Party leader Stephen Mandel and UCP candidate Laurie Mozeson in the next election.

Edmonton-Mill Woods – Heather Sworin is seeking the UCP nomination. She is the Human Resources Manager of the CodeHatch Corporation. Walter Espinoza is seeking the Alberta Party nomination and James Moore has withdrawn from that nomination contest.

Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche – Gail Broadbent-Ludwig will challenge recently elected MLA Laila Goodridge for the UCP nomination in this new district. Goodridge was elected earlier this year in the Fort McMurray-Conklin distirct, which will redrawn to include Lac La Biche County when the 2019 election is called.

Broadbent-Ludwig is Treasurer of the UCP, president of the Lac La Biche & District Chamber of Commerce and served on Lac La Biche County Council from 2009 to 2013. She was a candidate for mayor of Lac La Biche County in 2013 and 2017. Her most recent campaign for mayor in October 2017 was overshadowed by anti-Islamic comments made by her husband on Facebook. She finished second in the election to incumbent Mayor Omer Moghrabi.

Leduc-Beaumont – Jan Becker has withdrawn from the Alberta Party nomination.

If you know any candidates who have announced their intentions to stand for party nominations, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I will add them to the list. Thank you!