CANDIDATE ANNOUNCED
Collette Smithers will run for Alberta Party in Cypress-MH
A second Alberta Party candidate has been named to seek election in deep southeastern Alberta.
Colette Smithers, who sought a Medicine Hat city council seat in 2017 and is a member of several local networking efforts and agency boards, will run as the Alberta Party candidate in the riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat.
That makes three declared candidates in the race to represent the southern half of Medicine Hat and areas of Cypress County mainly south of the TransCanada Highway.
She told the News on Monday that her candidacy will provide another choice for voters between what she said were two extremes offered by Alberta’s two largest parties.
“My concern for the region and the province in general is the introduction of fear and division into our conversations,” she told the News.
“With the New Democrats we see fiscal concerns and on the UCP side, we’re seeing absolutely cruel and austere policy. “We don’t deserve either.” The party, which bills itself as a holder of the middle ground, has three sitting MLAs and says it’s in position to deliver sound fiscal management while providing progressive management of social issues.
Local issues that are top of mind for Smithers, she says, include support for the oilpatch and agriculture sectors, pipeline development and moving ahead with renewable energy projects.
On social issues, she sees a clear difference in her party’s positions.
“I don’t see any freedom or protections in (UCP efforts to) out gay kids from GSAs or limiting women’s health care,” she stated, referring to accusations that conservatives would make abortion less available.
In the election expected this spring, incumbent MLA Drew Barnes is seeking a third term, now under the UCP banner, and NDP Peter Mueller was formally named as that party’s candidate at a nomination meeting this month.
Two candidates are named thus far for the Brooks-Medicine Hat: UCP candidate Michaela Glasgo and Jim Black of the Alberta Party. The NDP has not yet nominated an individual to run in the riding that includes north Medicine Hat, north Cypress County, and the County of Newell, including the City of Brooks.
Smithers had been a member of the area’s New Democrat joint constituency association executive until last year, when she resigned for what she described as personal reasons.
Smithers earned abut 3,600 votes for city council seat in the 2017 election, placing No. 15 in the contest where the top eight vote-getters are elected.
In early 2018 she joined the board of the City Centre Development Agency, and is also listed as director with Thrive, a private agency that aims to reduce poverty. She has been an organizer and promoter of several initiatives that support professional development for women.
The Alberta Party has completed 10 nomination processes in 2019, adding to 52 completed competitions in 2018.
Five party candidates, including leader Stephen Mandel and four others in Calgary and Edmonton ridings, are currently barred from running by Election Alberta regulations relating to late financial filings. They are taking court action seeking they be allowed to run this spring.
NDP candidate in Forty Mile
Former Taber town councillor Laura Ross-Giroux will represent the NDP in the riding of Taber-Warner in the coming provincial election, Alberta’s electoral office states.
That riding will include the County of Forty Mile, which was drawn out of the CypressMedicine Hat riding when boundaries realigned last year.
Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter will also run in the riding under the UCP banner.
Ross-Giroux sat of Taber municipal council from 2013 to 2017, and is the former president of the Alberta Libraries Trustees Association. She is employed as a marriage commissioner.
No other parties have filed nomination contest forms for the riding with Alberta Elections, which posted the NDP paperwork last week.