Liberal leader will challenge Kenney
Calgary lawyer promises to showcase his party as ‘the moderate alternative’
Liberal Leader David Khan says he knows he’s taking a risk running in the Calgary- Lougheed byelection but believes he can succeed even if he doesn’t emerge as the new MLA for the riding.
On Friday, Khan joined the United Conservative Party’s Jason Kenney as the second party leader seeking to use the Dec. 14 byelection as a springboard into the legislature.
While Kenney is seen as a prohibitive favourite in the south Calgary contest, Khan said in an interview that he can beat the former MP.
Even if he doesn’t prevail, though, the race is still worth running, said the Calgary lawyer.
“The residents of Calgary-Lougheed and the wider residents of Alberta are going to have a real opportunity to see the differences between me and the Alberta Liberals and Kenney and the regressive UCP, and we’re going to get to a provincial stage, even a national stage, to highlight those differences in how we can do better for Alberta,” said Khan.
“But let’s be clear, I want to win the seat.”
The provincial Liberals took less than five per cent of the vote in Calgary-Lougheed in the 2015 provincial election. The NDP candidate came within 500 votes of knocking off Dave Rod- ney, then a Progressive Conservative, but with the formation of the UCP there is no longer a vote split between the PCs and Wildrose.
Rodney resigned his Calgary-Lougheed seat last month to help clear a path for Kenney into the Alberta legislature.
But Khan notes that in the last provincial byelection, in Calgary-Greenway, the Liberals finished ahead of the NDP and came close to winning the seat.
“We’re going to use this as an opportunity to showcase that we are the moderate alternative to the far-right UCP and the NDP mismanagement,” said Khan. “We’re going to show we’re the moderate choice.”
The Liberals currently hold only one seat in the legislature, with former leader David Swann in Calgary-Mountain View.
Khan won the Liberal leadership this summer. He has run twice before for the party, in Calgary-Buffalo in the 2015 general election and in Calgary-West in a 2014 byelection.
This weekend, the NDP will acclaim physician Phillip van der Merwe as its candidate. The party also plans a mass door-knocking event across the province on Saturday to spread the word about the government.
Kenney, meanwhile, will open his campaign office on Sunday.