As many pundits predicted, the result of Alberta’s 2023 provincial election rested on the ridings in cow-town, with a small handful of races in Calgary being decided by fewer than 500 votes.
The final result in the legislature saw Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) retain its majority with 49 seats to Rachel Notley’s NDP winning the remaining 38.
Despite it not being enough to secure victory, the NDP in their hard fought campaign did manage to gain seats in Calgary, once a UCP stronghold.
In the last election in 2019 the NDP only managed to walk away with three seats in Alberta’s most populous city, but this time they won 14 of Calgary’s 26 ridings.
Dust continues to settle in Calgary
Some of these results were so close that they likely will be reviewed in a recount.
The closest of all was the riding of Calgary-Acadia which the NDP won with 10,954 votes to the UCP’s 10,957 votes, a difference of just seven votes.
The loss of Calgary-Acadia in such a close race is surely an upset for the UCP. The seat had been held by Smith’s minister for justice, Tyler Shandro.
Another closely contested Calgary race that the NDP managed to narrowly win was that of Calgary-Glenmore where Nagwan Al-Guneid defeated incumbent UCP MLA and Environment Minister Whitney Issik by just 30 votes with 12,679 to Issik’s 12,649.
READ MORE: Cutting corporate taxes didn’t help investment in Alta.
The NDP also managed a breakthrough in rural Alberta. The UCP was expected to secure all of Alberta’s rural ridings, but the NDP managed to pry away the riding of Banff-Kananaskis with Sarah Elmeligi defeating incumbent UCP MLA Miranda Rosin.
The final gain of note for the NDP was that they managed to make their domination of Edmonton complete, winning the one riding held by the UCP going into the election.
UCP Deputy Premier and Skilled Trades Minister Kaycee Madu lost their seat handily with 10,742 to the NDP’s Nathan Ip’s 14,368.
Smith’s scandals cost UCP
The UCP under Smith gained their smallest majority since 1971. Their ability not only to form government, but to form a majority government at that, does not tell the story of how close this race really was and how an NDP victory was a real possibility.
Under Jason Kenney, the UCP had managed to gain 38 seats in the 2019 election, but Kenney was brought down in a bitterly fought challenge to his leadership in the spring of last year.
UCP members revolted against Kenney’s heavy handed leadership style as well as a block of anti-vaxx, anti-lockdown members who opposed Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean won a by-election to become a UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche on a platform to unseat Kenney. Jean led the campaign for a referendum on Kenney’s leadership.
Kenney promised that he would stay on as leader if he received more than 50 per cent of the vote. While Kenney did gain just over 51 per cent of the vote, in the end, he felt there was not enough support for him to remain.
The same anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown forces within the UCP that took down Kenney eventually helped elevate Danielle Smith to the leadership and the office of premier of Alberta.
Since her election as leader in October of 2022, Danielle Smith had a string of damaging public scandals.
READ MORE: Limiting debate, UCP rams through ‘Sovereignty Act’
Smith’s signature piece of legislation she campaigned on, the so-called Sovereignty Act was panned as a constitutional crisis waiting to happen.
Smith had to make multiple “clarifications” and apology after apology for statements she had made in the past, whether it be comparing those who received vaccines to Germans who supported the Nazi party in the 1930s, or for saying that the unvaccinated were the most discriminated group of people in history.
Finally, and most seriously, Smith was embroiled in a scandal where it appeared that she used her power as premier to attempt to interfere in criminal cases against those involved in the so-called ‘Freedom’ blockades at the Coutts border crossing.
Most notably, a phone call between Smith and pastor Artur Pawlowski was leaked where Smith assured Pawlowski that she was discussing his case with prosecutors regularly. Pawlowski was charged with breaching a previous release order and with mischief for his actions at the Coutts border crossing in early 2022.
In this case, Alberta’s ethics commissioner found that Smith violated rules around conflict of interest.
Thanks to last night’s election, the UCP’s political fortunes are secure, at least for the time being. Danielle Smith and her political baggage, however, cannot feel that same security.
Her party and the conservative movement in Alberta has shown itself quite capable of toppling a leader for short-term political expediency; just look at what happened to her predecessor.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
