Southern Alberta has a colourful electoral history—people in the Crowsnest elected communists in the 1930s—but for a few decades the region has been solidly Conservative or Wildrose blue. Lethbridge is the exception, with Liberals holding Lethbridge-East from 1993 to 2011, and the NDP’s Shannon Phillips representing Lethbridge-West since 2015 (and widely expected to hold the seat in 2023).
Livingstone-Macleod: Cracks in a conservative stronghold
Main candidates in 2023:
– UCP: Chelsae Petrovic is the mayor of Claresholm and a former nurse.
– NDP: Kevin Van Tighem is a biologist, former Banff National Park superintendent, writer and former Alberta Views columnist.
Livingstone-Macleod is a riding where people were furious at the UCP for proposing new coal strip mines.
This riding extends from High River in the north to Waterton Lakes in the south, with the Rockies forming its western edge and the Blood Reserve running down its right. One-time local MLA and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith famously crossed the floor in 2014 and subsequently lost her PC nomination race here. Voters stuck with Wildrose in 2015. In 2019, with new boundaries and with conservatives briefly reunited, Tim Hortons franchisee Roger Reid won the riding for the UCP over rancher and NDP candidate Cam Gardner (71 per cent vs. 21 per cent).
Things may be changing. Just a short walk south of the diner owned by now-premier Smith in High River is the town library, which on the night of November 29, 2022, saw its meeting room overflowing with NDP supporters. Many declared they were former conservative voters. This might seem surprising. But the Kenney government’s attempt to reinstate open- pit coal mining in the eastern slopes was fiercely opposed by local ranchers and town dwellers alike (also: Corb Lund). After Reid said he wouldn’t run again, Nadine Wellwood was acclaimed for the UCP. She was then promptly disqualified by her own party for equating vaccine passports with the Nazis and expressing support for Vladimir Putin. Reid said he wouldn’t vote for her. Even the founder of the far-right Take Back Alberta denounced Wellwood: “We can’t begin praising tin pot dictators.” Claresholm mayor Chelsae Petrovic eventually won a new, contested UCP nomination race.
The NDP has an active and organized local constituency and a strong candidate in Kevin Van Tighem. Resentment about the UCP’s coal plan continues to smoulder, with Smith in late 2022 refusing to specify whether she supported new or expanded coal mines, saying only: “I’ll meet with the involved ministers and discuss all the available options.” Poll aggregator 338 is calling Livingstone-Macleod a “safe” UCP seat. But that party seems to be trying as hard as possible to give conservatives in the area a reason to make a statement in 2023—to vote NDP perhaps, or just to stay home.
Lethbridge-East: Could this riding flip again?
Main candidates in 2023:
– NDP: Rob Miyashiro is a two-term Lethbridge city councillor.
– UCP: Nathan Neudorf is the incumbent MLA and a deputy premier. He formerly worked in commercial construction.
Nathan Neudorf was the infrastructure minister and one of two deputy premiers.
Lethbridge-East stretches from the city’s northern edge to its southern outskirts and from downtown to the east industrial fringe. Like a typical Alberta riding, it has old and new communities and lots of commercial activity. But it’s notable for its independence from oil and gas. The average riding in Alberta has four times as much employment in energy as Lethbridge-East does, which in turn has twice as many manufacturing jobs per capita. Big employers here include Sunrise Poultry, Southland Trailers, Kawneer (windows and doors) and Cavendish Farms, McCain and PepsiCo (fries, fries and Doritos, respectively). Concerns about oil and gas and “just transitions” don’t resonate the same way in Lethbridge-East. With food-processing instead so vital, the UCP government announced in 2021 it would spend almost a billion dollars on irrigation canals to expand the 4.2-million acres of farmland east of the riding in what is branded as “Canada’s premier food corridor.”
Oil and gas concerns don’t resonate the same way here.
The race to represent the NDP was hotly contested. Rob Miyashiro won against three other candidates. MLA Nathan Neudorf was then named by Danielle Smith as Infrastructure Minister and one of two deputy premiers—an indication, perhaps, that he needs all the extra profile he can get.
