It’s not hard to guess why Environment Minister Sonya Savage, who was energy minister in Jason Kenney’s government, has decided not to seek re-election on May 29 (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Friday’s revelation that neither Finance Minister Travis Toews nor Environment Minister Sonya Savage would be running for re-election in the expected May 29 provincial vote quickly gave way to speculation about who, or at least what kind of candidate, would replace them in the short spell remaining till the election writ is dropped, presumably on May 1. 

Finance Minister Travis Toews in happier times, with former premier Jason Kenney – if Mr. Kenney had stuck around, Mr. Toews would have as well (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

Whoever the candidates turn out to be, they won’t be enemies of Premier Danielle Smith plotting an insurgency against the leader like Brian Jean did last year when he used the by-election in Fort McMurray-Cold Lake as a platform to try to topple Jason Kenney as premier and replace him as leader of the United Conservative Party. 

As readers know, Mr. Jean may have succeeded at the first half of that mission but failed miserably at the second – proving once and for all that sometimes half a loaf isn’t better than none. 

The UCP quickly published a statement on social media Friday afternoon quoting Premier Smith thanking the two departing senior ministers – neither of whom had mentioned her, let alone said anything nice – for their service. 

The two social media statements did say, however, that there would be no nomination candidate election in either Ms. Savage’s Calgary-North West riding or Mr. Toews’s northwestern redoubt of Grande Prairie-Wapiti. 

“I will be working with the party and the constituency association to appoint a UCP candidate through Section 8 of our Candidate Selection Process so the candidate can get to work immediately keeping Calgary-North West a UCP stronghold on May 29,” the premier said in her statement about Ms. Savage’s departure

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

“Given the proximity to the coming provincial election, I will be working with the party and the local constituency association to locate and appoint a new candidate for the constituency of Grande Prairie-Wapiti under Section 8 of our Candidate Selection Process, so that the new candidate can hit the ground running and assure a UCP victory in this constituency when votes are cast on May 29,” said the statement about Mr. Toews’s decision

The emphasis was added by me in both statements. 

Says Section 8 of the UCP’s rules: “If deemed to be in the best interest of the Party, and in consultation with the PCSC, the Leader may appoint up to four (4) Candidates in four (4) constituencies.” (PCSC means the Party Candidate Selection Committee; I can’t explain, however, why the UCP capitalizes so many words.) 

Now, as it happens, Ms. Savage was acclaimed as the UCP’s candidate in Calgary-North West back in August, when Jason Kenney was still premier and she was both still minister of energy and the chair of Mr. Toews’s leadership campaign. That probably tells you everything you need to know right there about Ms. Savage’s change of heart. 

As for Mr. Toews, he’s played his cards close to his vest since he narrowly lost the UCP leadership race to Ms. Smith on Oct. 6, but nobody really expected him to stick around and face being kicked out of cabinet, demoted, or, perhaps worst of all, having to serve another term as finance minister with the prospect of needing to explain why the big surplus he announced on Feb. 28 had turned into another big deficit. (Answer: Oil prices, same as always in Alberta.) 

Former leadership candidate Brian Jean (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Because probably any old UCP candidate can win in Grande Prairie-Wapiti, the burning question is who Ms. Smith will appoint in Calgary-North West. 

Two strategies suggest themselves – and it’s quite possible they’re mutually exclusive: 

1.     Appoint someone with the imprimatur of the far-right, anti-vaccine, pro-Convoy Take Back Alberta crowd that now basically runs the UCP and at whose pleasure Ms. Smith serves.

2.     Appoint someone high-profile and popular enough that they can beat the NDP in a Calgary riding. 

This spawned a rumour Ms. Smith would appoint Trade, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Rajan Sawhney, another former UCP leadership candidate who announced on Feb. 17 that she would not be seeking nomination or re-election in her Calgary-North East riding.

Trade Minister Rajan Sawhney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

Rumors at the time had Ms. Sawhney planning a run for the House of Commons, but, as they say, a week is a long time in politics. 

Ms. Sawhney at least praised the premier in her farewell tweet thread in February and has knuckled under Ms. Smith’s command. 

At the same time, she was one of the more progressive sounding candidates in the UCP leadership race, which might help in Ms. Savage’s riding. However, it also got her soundly defeated by UCP members, second last of the seven candidates with only the other progressive-sounding candidate, Leela Aheer, doing worse. 

But her appointment would at least insure that no inconvenient genuine Red Tory could take a run at the Calgary-North West nomination, causing the TBA cadres to grow restive.

Some UCP members may also be plotting to overturn Kenney lieutenant Jason Nixon’s nomination in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre to make way for a candidate more to their liking, but internal party democracy is obviously a one-way street in a party dominated by Danielle Smith and the TBA.

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37 Comments

  1. Given that the Take Back Alberta crowd is fairly pro Smith and vice versa, I suspect the candidates selected will probably fit in with their criteria and views.

    I suppose it is possible they will find someone a bit more moderate to better fit the Calgary riding, but if they do it will probably be a Schweitzer type moderate that occasionally says nice things but really doesn’t object to the implementation of more right wing or fringe ideas. So I suppose in that regard Sawhney could be a possibility, but I feel she decided to leave the Danielle Smith show some time ago, despite some nice words after the leadership.

    One of the things that could keep or attract more moderate Conservatives is the possibility of winning power and getting into cabinet. However, while Smith has not made the UCP plummet in the polls, it is also not that certain at this point the UCP will actually win with Smith. I suspect even if Smith does, she will not be as inclusive of those who do not share her views, as she was after she won the leadership and she needed a more united party before the election.

    I suspect the Nixon battle is one UCP does not want to reopen at this point. Perhaps an important reason for appointing candidates for the two most recent departing MLA’s is to avoid having such internal battles so soon before an election. So Smith will likely let that one play it out and the voters will decide.

  2. TBA (Take Back Alberta) is active, and is infiltrating the UCP ranks, who are already saturated with pseudo Conservatives and Reformers. They will use their bad influence to make more harmful neoliberal policies, just like Ralph Klein did. Even worse oil royalty rates, and worse corporate tax rates, more pricey shenanigans, that will cost us billions of dollars, more lost jobs, more people living in poverty, more costly insurance and utilities, damaged public healthcare and public education, and a compromised environment. There are people, such as myself, who remember how bad Ralph Klein was. The UCP are just the same way. When others are warned, they get insults hurled at them, including being labeled communists. This is as stupid as it gets. We certainly didn’t see this under Peter Lougheed.

  3. In my comment yesterday I pointed out that the UCP nomination meeting for Grande Prairie Wapiti wasn’t even scheduled until April 3, so it is pretty hard to believe the UCP’s claim that there are exceptional circumstances that require them to invoke Section 8* (Thanks for providing the background, David.) I am guessing Section 8 was the Plan B all along, if Travis Toews chose not to run.

    *Has Section 8 reminded anyone else of Corporal Max Klinger? How appropriate that Ms. Smith should also try it.

    1. Bob: Thanks for reminding me of that fact. I’d meant to add it to the story, and now I have. DJC

      1. For the clarification of readers, I should add that “Section 8” was also a category of discharge from the United States military, used for a service member judged mentally unfit for service.

    2. GP-Wapiti constituents!!
      Do you know of someone that would be willing to be a MLA?
      *Selected candidates need to have been relatively quiet on their social media platforms and be familiar with the area politics* .
      Send us a message if you have any ideas!!!

      *these are the requirements???

    3. Mr Raynard & DJC: Gentlemen, I’m afraid you’re both incorrect. The UCP has no nomination meeting scheduled in Grande Prairie-Wapiti. It does have one on April 3rd in the adjacent urban constituency of Grande Prairie, the seat held by outgoing UCP MLA Tracy Allard, who self-disclosed several weeks ago that she has been diagnosed with Parkinson Disease and announced she also is not running again. There are four candidates running for the UCP nomination in Grande Prairie, including current City Councillor and erstwhile mayoral candidate Gladys Blackmore.
      https://everythinggp.com/2023/03/17/four-candidates-running-for-ucp-nomination-in-grande-prairie/
      https://daveberta.ca/alberta-election/

      The Grande Prairie constituency — Electoral District #63, according to Elections Alberta — is largely coterminous with the City of Grande Prairie on its northern, western & southern boundaries, but its eastern boundary is largely defined by the CN Rail line and Resources Road parallel to it, and a couple of city streets and avenues in the northeast corner. The map is here: https://www.elections.ab.ca/uploads/2023_ED63_GRANDEPRAIRIE_PUBLISHED.pdf

      Grande Prairie-Wapiti, ED #64, includes that remaining portion of the City of Grande Prairie not included in ED #63, plus a huge swath of rural Alberta encompassing the County of Grande Prairie No. 1, those small towns within its borders such as Beaverlodge, Sexsmith and Wembley, and extending southward along Highway 40 to just before Grande Cache. The maps of GP-Wapiti can be downloaded here: https://www.elections.ab.ca/uploads/2023_ED64_GRANDEPRAIRIE_WAPITI_PUBLISHED.pdf for the entire ED, and the detail map of the urban portion is here: https://www.elections.ab.ca/uploads/2023_ED64_CITY_GRANDEPRAIRIE_PUBLISHED.pdf.

      1. Thanks, Jerry. Easy come, easy go! That graph is gone again. I always say my readers are my editors. I seldom say, my editors sometimes disagree. When in doubt, as the Canadian Press used to say, take it out! DJC

  4. OMG, what a choice for Ms. Sawney. Try your luck with the CPC and PP’s Republican attack-dog “I hate you all” tactics? At least it’s a guaranteed win in the Kingdom of Oilberduh. Or “buy local” and join the Take Back Alberta Party? She’d be buying a serious chance of defeat by PO’d Calgarians in the process.

    The sooner the United CP becomes the Broken CP, the sooner the CPC snaps off the radical right (let Maxime Bernier have ‘em)—the better for Confederation.

  5. On the rumour front, out in the comfortably conservative environment of west Calgary, there is speculation that Demetrios Nicolaides, MLA for Calgary Bow, has federal aspirations as well. With CPC MP Ron Liepert announcing he will not be running again in the federal riding of Calgary Signal Hill (which encompasses the provincial riding of Calgary Bow), this seems to present an opportune time for the most famous PhD graduate of the University of Cyprus (voted by TripAdvisor as one of the top ten island based universities of the eastern Mediterranean) for Mr. Nicolaides to progress to federal politics. However there is the inconvenient fact that a federal election may not be called until 2025, and one needs to remain in the public eye, thus the necessity to run again (and hopefully win) at the provincial level. If said scenario unfolds and the UCP is re-elected, this allows our present Minister of Advanced Education to ideally maintain his cabinet status, but then resign two years into the term as things will likely (ok definitely) have gone to pieces by then, and move on to the federal stage.

  6. How closely associated with TBA is Brian Jean? Were his efforts to unseat Kenney just a Samson-in-the-Temple phenomenon, or was this part of a coordinated campaign with the insurrectionists? He didn’t succeed in grasping the brass ring in the subsequent leadership campaign, and it’s easy to attribute his actions to a simple desire to topple the man who originally defeated him in what appeared (to everyone) a compromised contest (and, to be fair, to a desire to make the winner of that contest pay for his perceived lack of ethics). It looks as though TBA didn’t want him as leader, which argues against this thesis, but we really haven’t heard much from him on how he feels about the new dispensation.

    1. Lars: Personally, I think this was a Samson-in-the-Temple phenomenon, for the reasons you suggest. That said, we don’t have enough information to be really certain. DJC

  7. So, my sister called and asked if I knew who–Marco Van Huigenbos was, did a quick refresh and told her he was one of the 3 charged at Coutts, and also found a tweet from him from 2 days ago….

    “the largest scandal in Alberta currently is Albertans getting involved in their democratic systems !
    This must be stopped ,it’s a travesty . Free thinking is a dangerous crime #tba #abpoli #ucp

    WTF is putting it mildly…I am still sputtering…

      1. Just below this comment are comments about using insects to make flour for pasta, Bill Gates bashing, World Economic Forum bashing and one from Jamie Salé. The algorithm has decided that’s where he belongs.

        1. Abs: Sounds like the Algorithm my be on to something. That said, I’m still going to give him the benefit of the doubt … for now. DJC

          1. DJC, I would like to believe that it was sarcasm, but given the Conservative agenda of taking over the education system and the media:ie Post et al, I’m of the opinion that he probably does believe that….

            ” If men were wise ,the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them . If they are not wise ,the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny” —William Blake

            I’m not sure if that’s quite the appropriate quote, but I couldn’t find the one I was looking for, but close enough I think…

    1. I did see a tweet describing Marco van Huigenbos as the CFO of TBA. He is an unrepentant convoy supporter who seems to believe the usual rightwing lies that the four charged with conspiring to kill police officers are really political prisoners framed by police.
      I would not trust him. He is definitely involved in TBA and I believe he made donations to both Smith and Toews for the leadership race,

      1. His twitter bio calls him the CFO for TBA @marco_huigenbos

        Contributor to UCP leadership:
        https://efpublic.elections.ab.ca/efLCContestOFS.cfm?MID=LC_2022UCP&OFSFID=89&PARTYID=16

        He is a contributor of $2500 each for Smith and Toews but not for Jean. I did not check the others’ lists.

        He seems to handle money a fair bit. He tweeted a long time ago that he was handling a GiveSendGo I think it was, and providing money to the families of some of the men charged with conspiracy to murder.

        From Nov. Not sure if this fundraising was for the Coutts convoyers charged with mischief which includes Marco, or the ones charged with conspiracy to murder, or all of them.
        https://twitter.com/marco_huigenbos/status/1588974977176702977

  8. I’m skeptical about a Sawhney anointment in Calgary-North West. If she does “knuckle under” by accepting it after having already announced her intention not to run in Calgary-North East, the riding the single-term UCP MLA represented since the party won its first contest for power in 2019, she will signal capitulation to the Take-Back-Alberta faction which installed Danielle Smith as leader—that is, if Sawhney insists she’s as moderate as she’s occasionally sounded, who would believe her—who could believe she could temper Smith’s extremism in a re-elected UCP government? Yet if a moderate, centre-right Tory candidate doesn’t get nominated by the Smith-n-Wexit gang, the NDP candidate is probably favoured all the more. After all, the Dippers did sprout a Red Tory wing under which erstwhile centre-right chicks were incubated during the party’s four years in power, and it paid off in a substantially bigger caucus that it ever had as an opposition party, now officially the Loyal Opposition.

    Calgary-North West is a bellwether riding with regard the rise and fall of the ProgCon party, moving the deck chairs around the middle of the spectrum in concert with the province’s general electoral mien. Although the NDP has never won this riding—not even in 2015 when it upset the longest-governing party in Canadian history and won 62% of the seats in the Assembly— the chronological and schematic trend looks pretty good for 2023.

    The upcoming contest will be this riding’s 13th since it was created for the 1979 general election which was Progressive Conservative Peter Lougheed’s 2nd one as incumbent premier (and his last). In that year the party still hadn’t fully absorbed remnant support for the Social Credit party whose long-running government it defeated in ‘71: in ‘79, the Socred runner-up took 21% of this riding’s vote. PC government was also broad enough to moot Liberal support which had been inconsequentially dormant, arguably since WWI. In fact, Liberal candidates did not contest the riding in ‘79 and ‘82 (the NDP got 8% and 11% of the vote, respectively). The PCs’ won 75% in its second candidacy here (‘82), the highest it ever got in the riding. Until 2019 (when the party had already been two years euthanized), Calgary-North West PCs had won only two pluralities, in 2008 and 2015, both proving ominous harbingers of change.

    Perhaps of every party but certainly of conservatives, enthusiasm for a dynasty’s founder does not inhere well, as it seems in Calgary-North West during the next four elections under PC premier Don Getty— when turnout in the riding gradually sank to 46% in ‘89. At ‘82’s zenith, won by PC MLA Shiela Embury, some of the riding’s rural heritage (the riding was created when the area was annexed into the City of Calgary) was evinced by the guttering Socred vote (2%) and the Western Canada Concept (11%), but many voters began to entertain big-tent alternatives as Getty’s government wore out its welcome. The NDP benefited, seeming to fit somewhere in the desired tent: it became the Loyal Opposition for Getty’s last two terms, winning 27% (runner-up) and 14% in Calgary-North West (‘86 and ‘89, respectively). However, the long-dormant Liberals also availed the opportunity to resurrect in the riding, Frank Bruseker coming in 3rd in ‘86, winning a plurality in ‘89, and his incumbency in ‘93, the only times the riding elected anybody other than a ProgCon—except for the last election in 2019 when the UCP won with an outright majority (57%—almost identical with its province-wide popular vote). And when there was no ProgCon party anymore.

    1993 ushered in the PC premiership of the smug, “small-c” market-fundamentalist, former-Calgary mayor, and high-functioning alcoholic, Ralph Klein. His four terms weren’t particularly tumultuous in Calgary-North West. Bruseker sat in the Liberal Loyal Opposition for one of its two terms (he himself lost his seat in ‘97). Liberal candidates were riding runners-up for four elections in a row, three of which PC Greg Melchin won by convincing majorities. But the riding reveals much about the 14-year Klein regime: priorly the NDP won double-digit popular votes, but in ‘93 it tanked to 3% and didn’t top 4% for the next five elections (ie, 6 in a row at 3% or 4%). Whereas the Liberals also appeared as an alternative to the flagging Getty regime, in Calgary-North West they seemed more of a bulwark against Klein’s controversial style and policies —a bulwark NDP voters appeared to support by tactical voting. All the stops had to be pulled out against Klein’s government.

    The riding reveals other features of the Klein Years. While the PC party usually won government with a majority of popular-vote, Klein’s last two of four terms were pluralities. Calgary-North West MLA Melchin won his terms by majorities, but turnout shrank from 63% in ‘93 to 43% in 2004. Conspicuously, fringe candidates reappeared to contest the riding in every election during the Klein years, adding up to no more than 8% of the vote and including the ghost of the Socreds, the Alberta Alliance, and even a rare sighting of the Greens. But in 2004, the NDP candidate got less than half of the combined fringe-party vote —only 3%. Klein seems to have inspired contention from more particularist parties but, like a post-personal Macedonian or Hunnish cult, the partisan right soon became even more troubled upon his exit. However, the NDP did not much benefit —a least not for two of the post-Ralph-world terms.

    The Calgary-North West Liberal vote, definitely consequential after its modest resurrection in ‘86, began to waver in 2008, and tanked to single digits in 2012 and thereafter. PC premier Ed Stelmach won with a majority of the vote in 2008, but the earth was starting to quake under his party, most significantly because tumult within had precipitated the creation of the Wildrose party. Under Stelmach, turnout in Calgary-North West sank to its lowest level ever—41%. While fringe parties kept sniffing around the riding, Wildrose came in 3rd in 2008—the year it absorbed Alberta Alliance and received defecting PC MLAs— and riding runner-up in 2012—the year it lost the general election it was supposed to win. It became official opposition. Yet the NDP languished.

    The battle for Alberta now presented as between centre-right and far-right, without much in the middle. When Danielle Smith led half her Wildrose caucus across the floor to join the hapless ProgCons, fans who bought tickets for just that kind of champing donnybrook became very cranky and disillusioned. And suddenly the Dippers looked like a great way to punish both kinds of Cons.

    The 2015 Dipper win was remarkable. A three-way splint in Calgary-North West made the Dipper candidate runner-up against an enter extremely low PC plurality (33%). Importantly, the NDP edged Wildrose while the Alberta party and the Liberal candidates shared the remaining 11%. It was the last time a ProgCon would run in the riding.

    Sonya Savage won the riding for the UCP with 57% of the vote, yet enthusiasm for the UCP wasn’t so high as to preclude four fringe challengers who, not counting the Liberals paltry 1%, made up 10% combined for far-right candidates. But the NDP improved upon its previous showing with 32% of the vote—only 1% shy of the winning PC vote in 2015. Savage’s dropping out sends a loud massage to her constituents: Smith’s UCP ain’t yo daddy’s PCs.

    So many things have changed since the riding’s creation in 1979, but the biggest factor for riding voters now is the Smith-commandeered UCP. ProgCon orphans couldn’t have known what a mess Jason Kenney would make of the UCP’s first government, but they’re a damn-sight more sure what Danielle Smith will do—and that isn’t making them feel any better. Or, in other words, they might have hoped Kenney would govern like a centre-right Tory, but they don’t hold onto any hope from Danielle—not now. It’s somehow more than ‘once-burnt, twice shy.’

    Can the NDP convince the voters of Calgary-North West to elect its candidate in just 64 days from today? Unless—on a very long shot—Smith anoints the kind of moderate this riding consistently seems to prefer—without her TBA backers having a cow—, it would seem the Dippers should have a pretty good shot at it. After all, Rachel Notley showed that her single term government can do it better than the UCP has ever done—and that was before the UCP totally lost its mind and elected the destroyer of right-wing parties for its leader. Some say the NDP is really a lot like the Lougheed ProgCons. Well, if not, maybe more like centrist welfare Liberals, remembering that, in this riding, the Liberals were the only party to beat a party of the right. Or maybe Calgary-North West itself has changed—it happens (I remember in the early 70s, you couldn’t even see the City from its boundaries).

    Still not centrist enough for the Reddest of Tory? I close with this fact: the NDP is the only partly which has contested Calgary-North West riding in every single election it has existed. Only difference now is, it’s ready to govern. Again.

  9. It’s very likely that TBA is on the move to oust Brian Jean and everyone else who ran against Danielle Smith for the leadership. It’s very likely that Smith has a lot of fellow travellers she wants to appoint to various nominations before the election deadline. Or, if matters prove be problematic, she will just delay the election by repealing the fixed Election Day law, maybe moving the election to sometime in mid-August, when voters will be too occupied with their summer fun to care about the UCP’s antics. That is unless World War Three suddenly breaks out. Then, Smith’s weird political voodoo will be moot.

  10. Wouldn’t you like to know when Sonja Savage knew about the oil spill and what she did about it? Is she leaving because she is worried about being involved in a law suit by the First Nations Band who are so concerned about it? Wouldn’t you like to know?

  11. Regardless of who is appointed by the UCP to represent Savage’s riding, they will surely get elected. Perhaps, the better question should be, “What kind of UCP selected potted plant will get elected in that riding. I’m not even kidding, but I wish I were. Alberta voters are brain-dead.

    1. Athabascan You got that right. The American oilmen that I was involved with called us the dumbest people on the planet for letting them steal our oil resources for next to nothing.

  12. Sigh. I fear we are just beginning the “Floridization” of Alberta with compliant judges, selective law enforcement and much more cash for charter and home schooling (OMG, David had a penis? said no one.)

    Once the TBA folks complete the take over and rebranding of the UCP, will Alberta Peace Officers move on from issuing traffic tickets to reviewing school curricula and book de-listing? Me worry.

    1. Note to readers: The David referenced in Where to Flee’s comment is a famous statue by that Michelangelo guy. That’s the last I want to hear from anyone about this. DJC

  13. Prepare for the appearance of TBA sock puppets my friends, perhaps of the Joe Fresh variety.

  14. “So what kind of UCP candidates will replace Finance Minister Travis Toews and Environment Minister Sonya Savage?”
    Even shittier ones! If you can believe that? My next pay-cheque is my wager!

  15. Like the leader of the UCP, the corporate class will select who will take over Sonya’s job behind closed doors. They own the party. As is customary will all former right politicians, Sonya will now move on and be given a seat on the board of directors of one of the financing corporations of the party (Suncor, Imperial Oil, Enbridge, Telus, Shaw et al) for doing their dirty work. We live in a corporatocracy, not a democracy.

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