The announcement of Justin Trudeau’s resignation plan yesterday leaves Alberta’s United Conservative Party with the conundrum of what to do about the timing of the Edmonton-Strathcona by-election, in which Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi intends to run to replace his predecessor, Rachel Notley.
Given the timing of Notley’s resignation last month, the by-election will have to be held before June 30, so Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP), which gets to set the by-election date, can’t just put it off forever.
Meanwhile, it’s understood that the federal Liberals will try to wait until they have selected a new leader to replace Trudeau and then call a swift election in the spring while there’s still hope for a bit of dead-cat bounce in their dismal polls – not enough to win the election, maybe, but possibly enough to stanch the electoral bleeding.
So whether the UCP likes it or not, it’s now quite possible the federal general election and the provincial by-election will have to be fought in the same approximate time frame.
They probably don’t like it. For all the UCP’s posturing about how Trudeau should call an election right now, they’re loyally relying on federal Conservative talking points for that blather.
From the UCP’s strategic perspective, it would have been better if the federal election were delayed until October, close to the province-wide municipal election, when many Albertans’ well-known irrational hatred for the Trudeau family could have been put to work to help them unseat Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, a former federal Liberal cabinet minister.
Well, that’s water under the bridge now.
Meanwhile, Edmonton-Strathcona, as the provincial riding is called, and hyphen-free Edmonton Strathcona, the federal riding that entirely surrounds it, have their own political dynamic.
These days, both ridings are NDP Country. Notley, first elected as MLA in 2008, was re-elected with ease in 2012, 2015, and 2019. In 2021, MP Heather McPherson had the strongest mandate in any NDP riding in Canada.
Both provincial and federal NDPs have well-organized and competent electoral machines in the two ridings – often, naturally, utilizing the same volunteers to get out the riding’s solid NDP vote.
So, realistically, federal and provincial Conservative parties – which also share a cadre of right-wing volunteers – don’t have much hope of success regardless of the timing of the provincial by-election.
And anyway, Smith is likely to be too focused on using public resources to campaign for the federal Conservatives to want to have to worry about a by-election in a safe Edmonton NDP riding that Nenshi is likely to win anyway.
Still, if there’s any potential for monkeying around, the UCP will monkey around. That’s just the kind of party they are.
If there were a chance they could use voter enthusiasm for the federal Conservatives in Edmonton to embarrass the NDP in the inner-city riding, for example, that might tempt them to time the by-election to line up as closely as possible with the federal general election.
Even if Nenshi only won by a noticeably smaller margin than Notley used to do, that at least could be touted as a victory of sorts – or provide an opportunity for old-fashioned mockery and abuse, anyway.
On the other hand, that kind of timing could end up benefitting McPherson, whose persistent patch of orange on the Alberta electoral map unreasonably irritates federal Conservatives.
So, will the UCP get the by-election out of the way quickly on the assumption Nenshi will probably win anyway and leave their volunteers free to focus on going after McPherson?
Or will they hope some of the disdain for Trudeau so common in Alberta can be made to stick to both Nenshi and McPherson and try to line the elections up?
Alternatively, do they try to leave it till after the federal election – the timing of which, alas for them, they don’t control – to keep the NDP volunteers double-tasking as long as possible?
What will they do? Beats me! But for the moment, it probably beats them, too.
Meanwhile, at a news conference at which Smith defiantly announced plans to double Alberta’s oil production, the premier crankily accused Trudeau of “one of the most irresponsible and selfish acts of a government in Canadian history” for not calling an election to the maximum advantage of Pierre Poilievre and the federal Conservatives.
After all, she seemed to argue, the delay in electing a government with a mandate may exacerbate the damage from grievous attack on the Canadian economy planned by her great friend and political model Donald Trump! Whether or not there’s any justification for her argument, you have to admit that’s kind of a weird flex.
Don’t worry, though, the UCP will soon figure out what is likely to squeeze the most days of pathological rage and hatred for the prime minister from their party base and do that.
After all, that fury is apparently the only thing that gives meaning to the lives of many UCP voters. And – who knows? – without Trudeau to keep them in a continual state of agitation, they might drift off into unproductive speculation about New Jersey drone sightings and weird English fog!
F-Trudeau flags, once a leading Alberta industry, set to go the way of the beaver pelt
Canada may be broken, as Poilievre keeps saying, but by God it’s been a great few years for the makers and sellers of F*#k Trudeau flags, banners, hats, and bumper stickers.
For close to a decade now, the makers of offensive flags and other paraphernalia have done a land-office trade in Alberta.
Now that thriving industry is about to go the way of the beaver pelt, which, as oil is now, was once the principal export of this patch of real estate. As will likely be the case with oil, Alberta never ran out of beaver pelts – although it’s hard to blame Justin Trudeau for that.
So yesterday was not just a sad day for Canada’s soon-to-depart prime minister, but for the captains of Alberta’s flag industry as well, which is sure to be flagging soon.
Well, all good things come to an end, and eventually all tattered flags must all come down the pole or off the back of the rusty pickup truck.
As University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young observed on her Substack, that’s going to have to happen soon in Alberta, too – but not just yet.
When it does, though, someone will need to be blamed. Alberta will blame Trudeau, who obviously hates our flag industry and wants to destroy it.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
