Rahim Mohamed: Falling UCP fortunes in northeast Calgary could spell trouble for Danielle Smith
Opinion by Rahim Mohamed • National Post
The latest batch of polls indicate that the race is too close to call , with a clear regional divide in each major party’s support. With Edmonton holding firm as an New Democratic fortress and the United Conservative Party ascendant in rural Alberta, the election’s outcome will inevitably be decided within Calgary’s 26 electoral districts.
The UCP won 23 of those seats in 2019, but many of those seats are now up for grabs . The governing UCP looks to be in good shape in south Calgary, but will have a tough slog in the city’s inner trenches. One area that will be critical to the UCP’s electoral math is Calgary’s highly diverse northeastern quadrant.
Home to the city’s highest concentration of recent immigrants , northeast Calgary has been a bellwether in recent provincial elections. In 2015, Rachel Notley’s NDP netted four of the northeast’s five seats en route to winning its first ever provincial government. (The area gained a sixth seat in a redistribution two years later).
In 2019, the upstart UCP, led by Jason Kenney, turned the tables, winning all but one of the quadrant’s seats and notching its own majority government victory. The UCP won the newly created northeastern riding of Calgary-Falconridge by just 96 votes , making it the closest race in the province that year.
And the pendulum appears to be swinging once again. A new poll conducted by respected Calgary pollster Janet Brown shows the UCP lagging the NDP by a 15 per cent margin in the northeast quadrant (trailing its citywide average by 10 points). The NDP now looks poised to sweep the quadrant outright.
And there’s good reason to believe the UCP is coming to terms with its grim electoral prospects in the quadrant. Incumbent Calgary-North East MLA and cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney (one of Premier Danielle Smith’s most important lieutenants in Calgary) announced in February that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election in the district, only to be reassigned earlier this month to the more winnable Calgary-North West.
Opinion by Rahim Mohamed • National Post
Yesterday
With Alberta’s next provincial election less than 40 days away, one thing that’s all but guaranteed is that election night will be a nail-biter.
University of Calgary students stand in line to sign up to receive information about the upcoming provincial election, on March 27.
With Alberta’s next provincial election less than 40 days away, one thing that’s all but guaranteed is that election night will be a nail-biter.
University of Calgary students stand in line to sign up to receive information about the upcoming provincial election, on March 27.
The latest batch of polls indicate that the race is too close to call , with a clear regional divide in each major party’s support. With Edmonton holding firm as an New Democratic fortress and the United Conservative Party ascendant in rural Alberta, the election’s outcome will inevitably be decided within Calgary’s 26 electoral districts.
The UCP won 23 of those seats in 2019, but many of those seats are now up for grabs . The governing UCP looks to be in good shape in south Calgary, but will have a tough slog in the city’s inner trenches. One area that will be critical to the UCP’s electoral math is Calgary’s highly diverse northeastern quadrant.
Home to the city’s highest concentration of recent immigrants , northeast Calgary has been a bellwether in recent provincial elections. In 2015, Rachel Notley’s NDP netted four of the northeast’s five seats en route to winning its first ever provincial government. (The area gained a sixth seat in a redistribution two years later).
In 2019, the upstart UCP, led by Jason Kenney, turned the tables, winning all but one of the quadrant’s seats and notching its own majority government victory. The UCP won the newly created northeastern riding of Calgary-Falconridge by just 96 votes , making it the closest race in the province that year.
And the pendulum appears to be swinging once again. A new poll conducted by respected Calgary pollster Janet Brown shows the UCP lagging the NDP by a 15 per cent margin in the northeast quadrant (trailing its citywide average by 10 points). The NDP now looks poised to sweep the quadrant outright.
And there’s good reason to believe the UCP is coming to terms with its grim electoral prospects in the quadrant. Incumbent Calgary-North East MLA and cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney (one of Premier Danielle Smith’s most important lieutenants in Calgary) announced in February that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election in the district, only to be reassigned earlier this month to the more winnable Calgary-North West.
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The UCP’s declining fortunes in northeast Calgary can be attributed to multiple factors. For one, the quadrant is still reeling from a destructive June 2020 hailstorm, which generated an estimated $1.5 billion in damages. The event coincided with increases in home and auto insurance premiums, adding to the woes of local residents. (The provincial government declined to provide funding to cover insurance deductibles).
The numbers may also reflect lingering scars from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a controversial November 2020 interview on Calgary’s RED FM, then-premier Jason Kenney appeared to blame the northeast’s South Asian multi-generational households for an uptick in COVID transmission. Kenney’s comments spurred multiple calls for him to apologize to Calgary’s South Asian community.
But the numbers, more foundationally, underscore the loss of one of the biggest upsides that Kenney brought to the UCP fold: a singular talent for ethnic outreach. Going back to his Harper government days, Kenney has built a political brand on his unmatched ability to cultivate relationships within Canada’s manifold ethnic communities.
There are, in fact, few figures in the country’s history who’ve garnered a following with so many pockets of new Canadians. Kenney’s tireless outreach work earned him the affectionate monikers “Smiling Buddha” and “minister of curry in a hurry” during his time in Ottawa.
Kenney, accordingly, was a frequent visitor to Calgary’s northeast throughout his time in Alberta politics. And he wasn’t just on hand for the major festivals and religious holidays. He was also spotted regularly at small, intimate gatherings — sometimes comprising just a handful of attendees.
Longtime RED FM host Rishi Nagar opened up about Kenney’s popularity in the northeast in a spring 2022 interview with the Calgary Sun , saying, “Whenever there is a photo-op with the premier, (people) forget everything. A picture is important. If I have a picture with Jason Kenney I will hang it in my family room.”
Danielle Smith, who has never sought office at the federal level, barely even scratches the surface of her predecessor’s visibility in ethnic communities. She will also have a tough time explaining her dealings with far-right Street Church pastor Artur Pawlowski to northeast Calgary’s cosmopolitan electorate.
Alberta’s fast approaching provincial election is set to be a game of inches, with Calgary’s highly competitive northeast quadrant likely to take centre stage. When the votes are counted, the UCP may end up sorely missing the cross-cultural appeal that former-leader Jason Kenney brought to the party.
National Post
Rahim Mohamed is a freelance writer based in Calgary.
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