Voters will need a scorecard to keep track of all the players
Byelections, defections and election rumours have Albertans confused
In Calgary- Shaw, a former Wildrose MLA who defected to the government is being challenged for the Tory nomination by a former Wildrose leadership candidate, who says the floor- crossing is a major issue for voters.
A few ridings away in CalgaryElbow, the Liberal candidate in a byelection that took place less than five months ago has just joined the NDP.
And in Edmonton- Centre, veteran MLA Laurie Blakeman is running again for the Liberals — and two other parties to boot.
Welcome to Alberta politics in 2015, where you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
“People are going to be confused,” said Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams.
“I think voters are going to have a really tough time keeping track who is who.”
Williams says the current game of political musical chairs is the result of two votes — last October’s four byelections that observers dubbed a “mini- election” and the spring election Premier Jim Prentice is almost certain to call despite legislation setting the vote for next year.
The Tory sweep of the four byelections was the catalyst for Wildrose turmoil that set off the mass defection of 11 of that party’s MLAs across the floor, she said. The varying results for the other opposition parties also set off a new round of discussion about how to best take on a resurgent Progressive Conservative machine.
That process has taken on a new urgency as Prentice — whose party now holds 70 of the legislature’s 87 seats — repeatedly signals that an election is coming soon, said Williams.
“Everybody is scrambling,” she said.
Blakeman has long called for greater co- operation among centre- left parties to counter the Tories. When Liberal Leader Raj Sherman — himself a former PC — stepped down in January, Blakeman’s bid to be the interim leader of the Grits was sunk by her intent to strike a deal with the Alberta Party.
Undaunted, she hatched a oneoff arrangement in her own riding, where she will run as a Liberal but be endorsed by the Alberta Party and Greens.
The deal has been blessed by interim Liberal Leader David Swann, but it was a step too far for Susan Wright, who ran for the Liberals in Calgary- Elbow last fall.
She announced on her blog on the weekend she is now supporting Rachel Notley’s NDP.
“Definitely it was important to me the NDP were getting some traction, but more importantly, I don’t see how the Liberals can reconcile their party with the Alberta Party because the Alberta Party is PC- lite,” she said.
Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, a former Liberal political staffer, finished a close second to Tory Gordon Dirks in the Calgary- Elbow byelection and has pitched his own co- operation plans that have been rejected by the Liberal executive.
In yet another twist that has occurred since last fall, Tim Grover, who ran for Wildrose in the Edmonton-Whitemud byelection, became the Alberta Party’s executive director in January.
MRU’s Williams said the turbulence among the opposition parties is mirrored to a certain extent in the long- governing PC party, which is still working to fully assimilate the Wildrose defectors.
Three of the floor- crossers have bowed out of politics while three others have won Tory nominations.
The other five former Wildrosers still face challenges for their PC nominations, most notably former leader Danielle Smith in Highwood.
In Calgary- Shaw, ex- Wildrose MLA Jeff Wilson must battle four opponents — Mark Dyrholm, Trudy Hauser, Kent Ladell and Ted Sutton — two of whom also have Wildrose connections.
Hauser was nominated as the Wildrose candidate in Banff- Cochrane for the last provincial election but resigned before the writ was dropped.
Dyrholm, a Calgary chiropractor, took on Smith for the Wildrose leadership in 2009.
In an interview this week, Dyrholm said he had little involvement with Wildrose after the leadership contest and rejoined the PCs last year to vote for Prentice as leader.
An associate of conservative activist Craig Chandler, Dyrholm said he jumped into the CalgaryShaw race when Chandler pulled out because he didn’t want a floorcrosser to win.
“Even though I chose not to be part of the Wildrose Party, I didn’t do it by betraying the grassroots,” he said.