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.”
Smith seldom lets her mask of confidence slip when she speaks, which is one reason she is so convincing, particularly for the gullible. However, in this case it is more her actions, not how or what she says, that indicates she feels all is not rosy in Calgary Shaw for her.
It is true that people are not paying as much attention now, but calling the by-election earlier also means voters do not have to trundle off in the snow and cold in November. Although with global warming, sorry one should say the more ambiguous climate change, perhaps it will be another balmy November in Alberta again.
I suspect the biggest problem for Smith, besides some lack of confidence her party will win, is she wants the by-election to happen after the separatism referendum. This might not have been such an issue if a separatist leaning candidate was not chosen by the local UCP members, but to be fair Smith can’t always control her own extremists, as much as she either believes or tries to imply.
Of course, her lack of confidence is also the root reason behind her fiddling with electoral boundaries. So this goes beyond one candidate or one area. I think Smith has at least learned the hard way voters can be unpredictable. Lest we forget, the PCs also seemed to be doing quite well a year or so before the election they lost.
The UCP are wallowing in so much rotten corruption, that Danielle Smith will not call a by-election in Rebecca Schulz’s riding of Calgary Shaw. Summer is not an excuse. It would be a given that the riding of Calgary Shaw will not be won by the UCP candidate, Mike Derry. More people are quite upset with the UCP and Danielle Smith, and that’s why. If I recall correctly, Rebecca Schulz was another UCP candidate who won with a narrow margin of votes in the 2023 provincial election. The UCP and Danielle Smith are in a desparation mode, and are doing anything they can to try and remain in power.
I met an interesting man recently from Russia. He worked in the oil industry in Russia and came to Alberta to work in our oil industry to get away from their Russian Dictatorship. Now he has found that it’s no different here. These Reformers are treating Albertans like morons and helping the rich steal the people’s oil wealth, yet a large numbers of Albertans don’t care and keep re-electing them, just like in Russia. Putin is a hero to them.
While he agreed to me that the oil industry mess created in the Middle East should have nothing to do with the cost of gas in Alberta he also agreed that Diesel is a byproduct of making gasoline and should never have been made more expensive than gas. It proves how badly these Reformers are screwing Albertans doesn’t it? This is what you can expect from an oil industry lobbyist Danielle Smith is helping the rich get richer, while treating Albertans like morons.
I can assure you that people are paying attention to politics this summer. Just ask the premier to flip some fascist pancakes.
Look at my thumb! Gee, you’re dumb! “Edmonton’s police chief repeatedly travelled to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank during his February 2026 trip to Israel and met with an undercover border police unit that had recently executed two unarmed Palestinian men after they had surrendered, according to documents obtained through access to information.“ https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/scoop-edmonton-police-chief-visited
“The RCMP can apply the lessons it learned at an Israeli military seminar last year to “Canadian law enforcement contexts,” according to a briefing document written by Canada’s defence attaché in Israel.“
https://www.readthemaple.com/rcmp-can-apply-israels-gaza-tactics-to-canadian-policing-briefing/
Tommy Douglas’ favourite “light of democracy in a night of darkness” was up to its eyeballs in Pinochet’s Chile, it armed, trained and supported the death squads in El Salvador, and for some reason the man who ran the revenge murder program as the response to the Munich massacre was the Number 2 in Panama, assisting Manuel Noriega until the day the US invaded. Just right for ‘Berta! Elbows up!
Small minded and petty. That pretty much sums up the UCP government and party supporters as a whole. And Danielle Smith as a person. But hey – at least they can sneer at others and attack them with impunity, because the UCP are Christians. And that’s what Jesus would do. Right? Blame immigrants. Remigrate them. I think a few UCP supporters need to dust off their family Bibles and actually crack them open.
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” Leviticus, 19:33 – 34.
Of course, the UCP could just introduce legislation that would give the premier the power to appoint an MLA representative to stand for the riding until the next election, whenever it’s supposed to happen. Mango Mussolini is toying with certain powers and actions that could be applied in 2028 for the 2026 midterm elections. He intends to usurp states’ rights over elections (with the help of a plumber) to disenfranchise the entire electorial system in the US. Queen Danielle must be watching those events to get some idea of something similiar she can do in Alberta, because everyone knows Alberta is broken.
It seems that Albertans are frogs, happily sitting in a pot of water as it starts to come to a boil. Not sure what we’re waiting for, before we take action.
Well, les Canadiens, the frogs in Bonnyville, are not in any way alarmed that one of their own, Sylvestre the Separatist, is doing so much to destroy Canada. His confrere, you know, the lawyer who was facing charges by the Law Society, has recently had his assets seized by the Courts. Not exemplars by any stretch, anywhere, at any time. The water is pretty hot, and it does not serve the locals well.