Alberta premier explains it’s the middle of summer and you don’t have time for politics … seriously!

Danielle Smith says there will be no by-election just yet to replace Rebecca Schulz who resigned as the MLA for Calgary-Shaw back on May 15 because Albertans are too busy in the summer. Or something. 

“In the middle of summer people probably aren’t paying that much attention to politics,” Alberta’s premier babbled to reporters yesterday. 

If they haven’t got time to think about politics in the dog days of summer – so known by bored journalists in years past when they weren’t waiting on the edge of their seats to see who gets laid off next – when will they?

Oh, you know, in the fall, maybe, when everybody’s busy getting back into their winter routines. So, maybe after Labour Day? Or …who knows? Not us. And quite possibly not Ms. Smith either. The law says the by-election must be called by mid-November. 

Say what you will about Ms. Smith, she’s got brass! Every day is a masterclass in gaslighting, and yesterday was no exception. “We probably want to call it closer to when people are returning to normal,” she explained. Probably. 

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called the premier’s stalling “bizarre” and accused Ms. Smith of being afraid to call the election because she thinks her United Conservative Party candidate would lose. 

He’s right about her motive, of course, although this kind of behaviour is too on-brand to be called bizarre. When it comes to delaying by-elections to her team’s advantage, Premier Smith has form. She’ll want us all focused on her separation referendum and her nine racist immigration and risible constitutional referenda on Oct. 19, so it was unlikely she’d ever have risked a timely by-election that could suggest her opposition has momentum before that. 

It probably doesn’t help her that the UCP Calgary-Shaw Constituency Association has nominated a candidate who quacks like a separatist and waddles like a separatist even if he hasn’t quite said that he’s a separatist. At any rate, the NDP said at the end of last month, Mike Derry “is certainly an extremist and voters need to know if he’s a separatist.” 

“Derry’s campaign was managed by long-time activist of the far-right, Craig Chandler and received prominent public support from leaders in Alberta’s separatist, anti-Canada movement,” the June 25 NDP news release continued, noting that the successful candidate was endorsed by Darrell Komick, who ran unsuccessfully in 2023 to be the party’s president on a pro-independence slate. “If he chose to campaign alongside one of the leading advocates for Alberta separatism within today’s UCP, Calgary-Shaw voters deserve to know whether he shares those views,” the release said.

The NDP has nominated Calgary-based employee-benefits manager Kyle Campbell as its candidate in the by-election. 

As for Ms. Schulz. She’s experienced a soft landing at Whitecap Resources, an oil and gas corporation and, as such, an appropriate resting place for a former UCP environment minister, one supposes. 

Back in 2022, readers will recall, the Calgary-Elbow riding went without an MLA for a full nine months after Conservative MLA Doug Schweitzer resigned on Aug. 31 that year, until the general election on May 29, 2023. There were legal grounds for this because of Alberta’s fixed-election-date law, which suspends the normal six-month by-election requirement in the year before a scheduled general election. 

What made it offensive was that Ms. Smith called a by-election to seat herself in the UCP-safe Brooks-Medicine Hat riding, and told the good people of Calgary-Elbow they’d have to do without an MLA. 

She claimed she wasn’t calling the Calgary-Elbow by-election to save money. “We’re only going to have one by-election, so we’ll be able to save on that expense,” Ms. Smith said on the CBC’s Power and Politics TV program on Oct. 7, 2022, to jaw-dropping disbelief back in Wild Rose Country. 

“I think it’s important for me to be there to introduce my legislation and so we’re going to try to limit the expense by having it, the only one by-election, and I’m very hopeful that I’ll be there” (in the Legislature, that was) “by the end of November,” Ms. Smith told host David Cochrane.

So why not just run in Calgary where a seat was open and a sitting MA didn’t have to be persuaded to quit, Mr. Cochrane wondered. “Well,” Ms. Smith responded, “there’s, uh, only one by-election that’s, uh, going to be held and so, the, to me it’s, uh, it’s, I really like representing a rural riding.”

When the general election finally rolled around, the Calgary-Elbow seat was won by the NDP’s Samir Kayande.

Mr. Nenshi’s own 82-per-cent victory in the June 23 Edmonton-Strathcona by-election last year was delayed for six months by Ms. Smith after former MLA and NDP leader Rachel Notley resigned the seat and left politics. 

This was also widely understood to have been done to keep Mr. Nenshi out of the Legislature for as long as possible, not that the Premier ever admitted that either. As Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail put it at the time, “Premier Danielle Smith delayed calling the vote for as long as she could (six months under provincial statute) – just to show how small-minded her government can be.”

Meanwhile, no surprise to anyone, Mr. Nenshi announced yesterday that he will seek a seat in Calgary in the next general election. 

“While I’ve been thrilled every day to serve as your MLA,” Mr. Nenshi told citizens of the riding in a statement on social media, “I will be seeking election in a Calgary riding in the next general election.” This has been widely understood to be his plan since he was nominated as the NDP candidate for last year’s by-election. 

“This will open up Edmonton-Strathcona for a new representative from this beautiful community,” Mr. Nenshi said. “I am informing you today so that the incredible constituency association in this riding has time for a healthy and robust nomination process to select a candidate and a future MLA worthy of representing you.”

“As for me, I will seek election in a Calgary riding, to represent the communities in which I grew up and where I’ve made much of my professional and political life,” the former Calgary mayor said. “To give Albertans the government they deserve, we need to win more seats in Calgary, and I’m happy to be part of that battle.”

The UCP Government, he added, is “in the middle of an illegitimate and corrupt process to redraw the electoral map. There will be legal challenges. Once we have a finalized (and hopefully fair!) map, I’ll announce which Calgary riding.”