Three ridings to watch in Calgary

Conservatives vulnerable

Calgary has long been barren ground for non-conservative parties — the Liberals have been shut out for four decades and the NDP has always come up empty-handed in the city — but it could hold a few battlegrounds in the federal election expected to be called this weekend.

HERE ARE A FEW CITY RIDINGS TO WATCH

Calgary Centre could be the most likely breach in the Conservatives’s city stronghold. Conservative MP Joan Crockatt barely beat Liberal candidate Harvey Locke in a 2012 byelection that also saw the Greens run a strong campaign with Chris Turner. This time Turner isn’t running, and well-known former Liberal MLA Kent Hehr has been campaigning hard for the Grits since last year. Crockatt, meanwhile, has been front-and-centre at the numerous good news announcements from the Conservative government over the last week. The NDP will hold a nomination meeting next week. The Greens have nominated engineer Thana Boonlert.

Another former Liberal MLA is carrying the party’s banner in Calgary Skyview. Darshan Kang won the Liberal nomination last year to take on incumbent Tory MP Devinder Shory. Both candidates will bring formidable political organizations to the riding formerly known as Calgary Northeast, which Shory won with 56 per cent of the vote in 2011. Consultant and former soldier Ed Reddy is running for the Greens. The NDP will nominate its candidate on August 15.

Redrawn riding boundaries have created the new seat of Calgary Confederation, which has no incumbent MP. The riding’s inclusion of inner-city neighbourhoods and the University of Calgary has made it a target for the Liberals, who have lawyer Matt Grant vying for the seat. But the Conservatives have their own high-profile former MLA as a contender. Len Webber, who left the Progressive Conservative caucus in protest of Alison Redford’s leadership in 2014, has, like Grant, been running since last year. The NDP’s contested nomination will be held August 22.