Edmonton has a history of being more progressive than anywhere else in Alberta. The city has a large public sector, large universities and many working people. Liberals took every seat here in 1993. Today Edmonton is an NDP stronghold: 19 of Edmonton’s 20 seats went to the NDP in 2019. But if Edmonton is awash in orange, many ridings in the “donut” immediately surrounding the city are solid blue. A few are considered to be “races to watch.”
Morinville-St. Albert: NDP cattlewoman could flip this “rurban” riding
Main candidates in 2023:
– UCP: Dale Nally, a former general manager of big-box retail stores and the associate minister of natural gas in Jason Kenney’s inaugural cabinet, became Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction in 2022.
– NDP: Karen Shaw is a cattle rancher and four-term (14 year) councillor for Sturgeon County.
“Karen Shaw has 150 cattle… she’s a true Albertan.” –Vlad Pasek.
This district is one-third urban and two-thirds rural. When the riding was created in 2017, the Alberta Boundaries Commission reasoned that St. Albert and Morinville’s shared francophone heritage made them naturally compatible. In 2019 Dale Nally won the riding with 50 per cent of the vote to the NDP candidate’s 33 per cent (13,435 votes to 8,908).
Vlad Pasek, VP of the local NDP constituency association, says Karen Shaw is rural and has experience in the county. “We need the rural vote. [Maybe rural constituents will] realize that we are for them—the NDP is for them. And his is a good case, because here’s a person that’s real, you know? She has 150 cattle… she’s a true Albertan,” he says. Shaw raises Simmental X Angus cattle at Shaw Farms.
Of course, the district is also urban and industrial, including the NWR Sturgeon Refinery and the western zone of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland—a region that attracted over $40-billion in investments between 2017 and 2020, supporting over 31,000 jobs. Incumbent UCP MLA Dale Nally spearheaded his government’s development of the Natural Gas Vision and Strategy, which created an industry-supported plan to grow the hydrogen, petrochemical, liquefied natural gas and plastics recycling sectors, and he launched the Alberta Petrochemical Incentive Program. Poll aggregator 338 projects 49 per cent of the popular vote will go to the UCP in 2023 with the NDP winning 41 per cent.
“We are the largest hydrogen producer in Canada.” —Dale Nally.
Edmonton–South West: Edmonton’s only UCP seat
Main candidates in 2023:
– Green: Jeff Cullihall works in communications technology and is a climate systems student and educator.
– NDP: Nathan Ip is a three-term Edmonton Public School Board trustee particularly concerned about the UCP’s draft curriculum.
– UCP: Kaycee Madu is a deputy premier of Alberta (along with Nathan Neudorf) and the minister of skilled trades and professions
Kaycee Madu (UCP)
Nathan Ip (NDP)
Kaycee Madu was the only UCP MLA elected in Edmonton in 2019. In 2015 Thomas Dang, the youngest MLA ever to be elected in Alberta, had taken the riding for the NDP. He got almost twice as many votes as PC incumbent Matt Jeneroux—12,352 to 6,316. (Jeneroux went on to become the federal MP for Edmonton-Riverbend.) In 2019 Dang chose to run in the new district of Edmonton-South, and UCP candidate Madu defeated the NDP’s John Archer 10,254 votes to 9,539.
Madu has been embroiled in one controversy or another ever since. As municipalities minister he repealed Alberta’s big-city charters and cut funding to cities by $236-million. He reduced the assessment value of oil and gas infrastructure, lowering the tax revenue of rural municipalities by as much as $291-million. His amendments to the Local Authorities Election Act removed the requirement that municipal candidates disclose their donors prior to election day. When the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association said their relationship with Madu was “broken,” he was shuffled to Justice—the first Black Canadian to serve as a provincial minister of justice.
After receiving a ticket for using his cellphone while driving in a school zone, Madu phoned Edmonton’s chief of police to complain. An investigation found that Madu had tried to interfere in the administration of justice. His call to the chief created a “reasonable perception of interference.” Madu was demoted to minister of labour and immigration. Critics inside and outside government said it was wrong for him to remain in cabinet at all. In fall 2022 Madu again created controversy when he thanked the “freedom convoys” for fighting against “tyrannical” federal COVID restrictions.
The poll aggregator 338 predicts Madu has only a 21 per cent chance of retaining the seat.
