Alberta NDP candidate Kyle Campbell won the Calgary-Shaw by-election on Monday, September 14, beating the United Conservative Party (UCP)’s Mike Derry in a contest that looked too close for comfort most of the evening as vote numbers trickled onto Elections Alberta’s website.
But the final unofficial result – 7,461 votes for Campbell to 6,879 for Derry – is safe enough for the Opposition party led by former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi to feel entitled crow about a victory in what has historically been a reliably Conservative suburban electoral district. There will be no need for a recount of Campbell’s 47 per cent victory.
Former UCP MLA Rebecca Schulz, whose resignation took effect on May 15, won by big margins in the last two general elections. In the years since the riding was created in 1986, Calgary-Shaw has only once before elected a non-Conservative, in 2015, the year of the Orange Wave led by Rachel Notley.
Not to rain on the NDP’s well-deserved parade, but Derry was a remarkably bad candidate. He was not the choice of the UCP’s leadership and was associated with some of the most extreme elements of the governing party’s base. It’s safe to assume that quiet dissatisfaction with Premier Smith’s divisive separation referendum and such unpopular UCP policies as its support for AI data centres and health care privatization also contributed to last night’s outcome.
Nevertheless, the usual by-election caveats apply: turnout was low, and so are the stakes relatively speaking. That is why by-elections are always an opportunity for Opposition parties to get out a protest vote, as UCP leaders are sure to remind us today.
So no one in the NDP should imagine this is an opportunity to rest on their laurels and assume the UCP won’t run a better campaign with a better candidate during a general election. Indeed, some New Democrats disillusioned with Nenshi’s low-energy, at times seemingly disengaged style of campaigning will view this as a lost opportunity to get a more energetic, more focused leader. Say, Deputy Leader Rakhi Pancholi.
Well, we can assume Nenshi will be going forward as the leader in the next general election. “We lost in this riding in 2019 by 40 points, this was considered one of the safest, if not the safest, conservative seats in Calgary,” he told supporters last night after the results were known. “You all have proved something. There are no safe conservative seats in Calgary.”
Last night’s results also showed the potential for minor-party candidates to act as spoilers in a close election, although who took which votes from whom is not necessarily obvious. Progressive Tory candidate Kyle Joseph posted 978 votes and Alberta Liberal Leader John Roggeveen 602. Together not quite triple the difference between the two leading candidates.
It seems likely the UCP strategic brain trust will assume Joseph’s tally robbed them of victory. One imagines Progressive Tory Leader and former UCP cabinet minister Peter Guthrie will reach a similar conclusion.
Elections Alberta has not yet posted its estimate of the number of eligible voters in the riding at the time of the by-election, but there were just under 40,000 in the 2023 general election. Official results will be published on September 24.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect that Rebecca Schulz resignation took effective May 13.
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