UCP Wins a Narrow Victory to Secure Second Consecutive Term
Twenty-eight days after the writ period officially began on May 1, Albertans have spoken. Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party will form government for the second consecutive term. While the NDP made significant gains, it was not enough to unseat the UCP.
At the time of writing, the results have yet to be made official; however, the current seat breakdown looks like this.
UCP – 49 Seats
NDP – 38 Seats
If there are no changes to the results, the UCP will be expected to drop one seat in the count as Premier-Elect Danielle Smith announced that MLA-Elect for Ponoka-Lacombe Jennifer Johnson would not be permitted to sit as a member of the United Conservatives as a result of her comments that compared transgender school children to feces in cookie batter.
A Closer Race Than You Think
In 2023, Albertans recorded an unofficial voter turnout of 62.38% (1,763,406 ballots cast) – a dropped from the turnout in 2019 that nearly hit 70%. The United Conservatives won both in seat count and the popular vote, earning 52.56% for a total of 926,918. By contrast, the NDP earned 44.02% (776,188).
While there is a significant difference in earned votes between the two parties, less than 2,000 votes gave the UCP the victory. Let us explain.
As we have all known for some time, Calgary was the battleground for the provincial election. The NDP jumped up from 3 seats in 2019 to now holding 14 across the city. Of course, this proved to be insufficient to flip the city to the degree the party needed to win. Looking at the races in Calgary, the results were much closer than you may think on the surface.
When you combine the results of Bow, North, North East, Cross, and East (all in Calgary), the total vote difference between the five ridings was 1,866 (or 0.01% of votes cast). Of course, this only gets the NDP to 43 seats which is not enough to form government, but it is enough to illustrate just how split the City of Calgary is politically.
Key UCP MLAs Not Returning to the Legislature
Of course, the UCP will be pleased to win another term as government in the Legislature when session resumes this fall. However, as is the case with every election, there were a number of key incumbents that found themselves on the wrong side of their local races that will not be returning to Edmonton.
Danielle Smith will be without a number of key ministers when she assembles her next cabinet. Jason Copping (Health), Nicholas Milliken (Mental Health and Addictions), Jeremy Nixon (Community and Social Services), and Jason Luan (Culture) lost their respective races in Calgary. Tyler Shandro (Justice) also finds himself on this list; however, his riding will come down to a recount as his seat was decided by just 7 votes.
In Edmonton, Kaycee Madu (Deputy Premier and Minister of Skilled Trades and Professions) lost his seat to Nathan Ip, conceding the lone UCP seat in the capital.
Other key loses for the UCP include MLAs Devinder Toor, Whitney Issik, Prasad Panda, and Josephine Pon.
All of the NDP incumbent seats remained orange, including ridings that were vacated by incumbents.
Key New Faces for Both Parties
Both the UCP and NDP were successful in electing new MLAs that will become key contributing members to their respective caucuses. Let’s begin with the new government.
Chantelle de Jonge was able to retain the UCP’s seat in Chestermere-Strathmore. The riding was last held by Leela Aheer, a former leadership candidate for the party and former Minister under Jason Kenney for part of her term. The riding was the subject of some attention during the nomination phase given the internal disagreements between Aheer and the party.
Scott Cyr (Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul) is a former MLA that will be returning to the Legislature after his election night win. He narrowly beat incumbent David Hanson in the nomination race by one vote, but he was able to secure a much more definitive victory in the general election. Cyr served as the MLA in the former riding of Bonnyville-Cold Lake from 2015-2019.
For the NDP, there are a number of key candidates for the party that were able to secure victory. In Calgary, Samir Kayande (Calgary-Elbow) and Court Ellingson (Calgary-Foothills) will join the NDP Caucus in key roles for the party going forward. Kayande comes from the oil and gas industry and will become critical and will likely become the party’s energy critic. Ellingson will be an important addition to the party as he will bring plenty of economic development experience to the party going forward.
In Edmonton, Nathan Ip (Edmonton-South West) was able to win a closely fought contest to secure a sweep of the capital city for the party. Given his experience as a school trustee, it would be unsurprising to find him land a role as the education critic. Kyle Kasawski (Sherwood Park) was similarly able to flip a capital region riding to the NDP. He comes to the party from the energy sector and could also be in the conversation for a critic position.
What Does This Election Mean for Alberta?
We will not be able to discuss this in detail in this issue of The NEWS; however, we will address this question over the coming months as we learn more.
At a high-level view, this election leaves more questions on the table than answers after all is said and done.
Although the UCP secured the win, they saw a significant drop in seats that cannot be ignored. While a smaller caucus is easier for a party leader to manage, Danielle Smith has tough decisions to make about who she will include and exclude from cabinet in an effort to maintain party unity. Smith’s ability to do this will determine if she is able to remain as leader for the entire term.
We are also confident in saying that, given how this election played out, Calgary will once again be the battleground in the next provincial election. Many ridings in the city were close and could have gone either way for both parties (just as the NDP could have won 5 more ridings with a few votes, there were also ridings the NDP narrowly won that could have led to a stronger majority for the UCP). These election results reflect just how divided the city currently is. Many of the candidates who won their seat in the largest city will likely have incredibly tough re-election campaigns when the next writ period arrives, so there won’t be a large margin of error for either party going forward.
Perhaps the second biggest question will be what does the future hold for the NDP? The party ran its largest financed and resourced campaign in its history in a tumultuous political climate but was still unable to secure victory. Rachel Notley announced that she intends to stay on as opposition leader going forward, but questions could rise about whether she will remain leader for the entire term.
Finally, a UCP victory means that much of the status quo will remain. Alberta is expected to continue having a rocky relationship with Ottawa as the governing party has said many times they want to fight for more control over its finances and jurisdiction. We could see referenda discussing the Canada Pension Plan and Alberta Provincial Police Force in the coming years. Additionally, the province continues to fight with Ottawa on firearms legislation and has also indicated a desire to continue fighting the carbon tax.
What Comes Next?
With the UCP securing a win on May 29th, the party’s transition team will move forward with a number of critical tasks to prepare for the fall session (currently set to begin in October).
Of course, Danielle Smith and her team will need to look at which of their candidates were elected and decide who will form the next provincial cabinet. In addition to filling a number of vacancies that came as a result of the election, she will also need to decide if there needs to be a cabinet restructuring (new ministries, remove old ones, or combine existing).
She will also need to begin work on building the sessional agenda, including a Throne Speech as well as the first bills of the fall sitting. During the election, she indicated the first bill would be the Taxpayer Protection Amendment Act which would subject future proposals to increase personal or corporate taxes to a referendum.
