Battle River-Crowfoot by-election should be a Poilievre landslide

A Liberal win in this sprawling rural riding would be one in a trillion

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Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative by-election candidate Pierre Poilievre (source: Danielle Smith / Instagram)

With Stampede season soon winding down in Calgary, attention of the political class will quickly turn from the lobbyist receptions, pancake flips, and oil industry cocktail parties to the land of real cowboys. The federal by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot has been called for August 18 and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is the favourite to win this vote and reclaim a seat in the House of Commons after his defeat in Ontario on April 28.

Battle River-Crowfoot is a massive sprawling rural riding spread over more than 52,500 square kilometres. It takes almost four hours to drive from the Town of Tofield on the northern edge of the riding to the Village of Empress in its southeast corner - and it’s worth the drive. From the bald flat prairies as far as the eye can see to the coulees and hoodoos of Badlands that were once home to radical coal miners and now house world famous dinosaur exhibits, it’s a spectacular part of the province that is worth visiting for its nature and history.

Battle River-Crowfoot is also the safest Conservative voting riding in Alberta. Poilievre running here is like Naheed Nenshi running in Edmonton-Strathcona or Danielle Smith running in Brooks-Medicine Hat. It’s an extremely safe bet.

Former MP Damien Kurek, who stepped down to trigger a by-election for Poilievre, was just recently re-elected with 82.8 per cent of the vote, eclipsing the second place Liberal who finished with 11.6 per cent. Kurek is expected to run in the riding in the next general election and was recently hired as a principal with the Upstream Strategy Group, a Toronto and Regina based government relations company.

The Conservatives haven’t earned less than 70 per cent of the vote since before the current version of the riding was created in 2015 and before then the dominant conservative party, whether it be the Progressive Conservatives, Reform Party, Canadian Alliance or the current Conservative Party, has convincingly won the riding in every election since 1958.

On the provincial level this area is solidly conservative with voters almost exclusively electing conservative MLAs from the United Conservative Party, PC Party, Wildrose Party and the Representative Party going back to the 1970s. The only non-conservative exceptions were in the north end of the riding when NDP MLA Derek Fox represented the Vegreville riding from 1986 to 1993, and from 2015 to 2019 when NDP MLA Jessica Littlewood represented Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville and Bruce Hinkley was the NDP MLA for Wetaskiwin-Camrose.

Poilievre and Danielle Smith

Poilievre has been joined on the campaign trail by Camrose UCP MLA Jackie Lovely and Leduc-Beaumont UCP MLA Brandon Lunty and was a special guest at Premier Smith’s Stampede pancake breakfast outside the McDougall Centre in Calgary, reinforcing that there is little daylight between the federal Conservatives and the UCP.

That close relationship and his return to Alberta (Poilievre was born and raised in Calgary but has lived in Ottawa for more than 20 years) could create challenges for Poilievre elsewhere in Canada as Smith continues to tacitly endorse efforts by influential UCP members to trigger a separation referendum next year.

Smith begins her Alberta Next Panel roadshow next week, with stops in Red Deer on July 15 and Sherwood Park on July 16. The tour has not scheduled any meetings in the Battle River-Crowfoot riding.

A Liberal win would be one in a trillion

Back when I worked for the Alberta Liberal Party in the mid-2000s, we joked that the Liberals could run a candidate named Jesus Christ in a riding like this one and when he lost the newspaper headlines would read “Liberals run Christ and still lose!” It’s a bad joke that reveals a lot about the dark humour endemic to opposition politics in Alberta but it’s probably not far from the truth.

The Liberal Party’s best results in this riding happened in the 1968 federal election, when Bassano teacher Noel Sharp, son of then-senior cabinet minister Mitchell Sharp, earned 21 per cent of the vote in the Crowfoot riding.

Surprisingly, Sharp’s high-water mark result wasn’t what gave this riding it’s only Liberal MP in living memory.

On April 20, 1977, seven-term PC MP Jack Horner shocked his constituents when he crossed the floor to the Liberals and accepted an appointment to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet.

Horner, who had the nickname “Cactus Jack,” came from one of the most influential conservative political families in Alberta and Saskatchewan. His father Ralph had served in the Senate, his brother Hugh was deputy premier of Alberta, his other brother Norval and his cousin Albert were MPs in Saskatchewan. The Horner’s remain influential in Conservative politics today with Jack’s grandson Nate serving as Alberta’s Minister of Finance and the UCP MLA for Drumheller-Stettler and Hugh’s son Doug serving as a PC MLA from 2001 to 2014 and finance minister from 2012 to 2014.

Horner’s time in the Liberal cabinet was cut short when his Crowfoot riding was merged with the neighbouring Battle River riding and he was soundly defeated, finishing 59 points behind PC MP Arnold Malone in the 1979 election. Horner ran in a rematch in 1980 and Malone’s margin of victory increased to 61 points.

In this year’s by-election, the Liberals have nominated petroleum engineer Darcy Spady from Three Hills who has farm family roots near Acme.

The NDP have named past provincial and federal candidate Katherine Swampy, who served as a Band Councillor with the Samson Cree Nation before stepping down to run for the NDP in Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin in 2023. Swampy was mostly recently the NDP candidate in the neighbouring Leduc-Wetaskiwin riding in the April federal election.

Is Bonnie Critchley competitive?

Independent candidate Bonnie Critchley (source: bonniecritchleyindependent.com)

Poilievre’s biggest competition might come from an unexpected candidate. Canadian Armed Forces veteran Bonnie Critchley is running a spirited small-c conservative campaign focusing on her long service in the army and her rural roots in the riding - pointing out that Monsieur Poilievre doesn’t have any connection to the riding and hasn’t lived in Alberta for more than 20 years.

Critchley recently joined Ryan Jespersen to talk about her candidacy on his Real Talk show.

Poilievre should be easily elected in this Conservative stronghold but if he is not, that could spell big trouble for his future prospects ahead of a leadership review vote at his party’s convention in Calgary in January 2026.

Battle River-Crowfoot candidates (as of July 9, 2025)

• Jonathan Bridges, People’s Party

• Bonnie Critchley, Independent

• Douglas Gook, Green

• Michael Harris, Libertarian

• Ahmed Hassan, Centrist Party

• Pierre Poilievre, Conservative

• Darcy Spady, Liberal

• Sarah Spanier, Independent

• Katherine Swampy, NDP

• Jeff Willerton, Christian Heritage

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Poilievre not the first former Ontario MP to run in Battle River-Crowfoot

Former Ontario Conservative MP Jeff Watson campaigned against Kurek for the Conservative nomination in Battle River-Crowfoot after longtime MP Kevin Sorenson announced his retirement in 2019. Watson’s federal nomination candidacy came one year after his unsuccessful bid for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Peigan. He lost that race to Tanya Fir, who still represents the southeast Calgary riding and currently serves as Minister of Arts, Culture, and Status of Women.

Watson represented the southwest Ontario riding of Essex from 2004 to 2015 before moving to Calgary in 2016.

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Edmonton’s mayoral frontrunner skips crucial vote to go on vacation

With municipal elections happening in October, Edmonton’s mayoral race is taking shape and taking unexpected turns.

A heated few weeks at Edmonton City Council culminated with retiring councillor Sarah Hamilton launching a profanity-laden attack against her colleague Jo-Anne Wright, and perceived mayoral race frontrunner and Better Edmonton Party leader Tim Cartmell leaving on vacation just before the end of public hearings and missing a crucial vote to amend the city’s controversial zoning bylaw.

A motion from Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to reaffirm some of the most controversial parts of the current bylaw passed in a 6-5 vote, meaning that Cartmell’s vote would have made the difference had he shown up in-person or joined the meeting over Zoom.

The week before Cartmell left for vacation, he proposed halting infill development in the city with a dramatic motion that he was told ahead of time was likely illegal. Cartmell then posted a video on social media tut tutting his council colleagues before leaving for an undisclosed vacation spot that his campaign says has no internet connectivity.