Hello! I’m working on a few longer form writing projects that will be published soon, so today’s Daveberta newsletter includes a few quick updates covering what has recently caught my attention in Alberta politics.
First-term United Conservative Party MLA Nolan Dyck defeated local business owner and separation supporter Robin Coward in the party’s candidate nomination vote in the Grande Prairie riding. Dyck won with 524 votes to Coward’s 162 votes at the September 1, 2026 nomination meeting.
This marks the second big win by an incumbent UCP MLA over an openly separatist supporting candidate in a UCP nomination since the party opened the candidate selection process this summer. Former MLA Jordan Walker defeated separatist organizer and former Wexit Alberta interim leader Kathy Flett by 253 to 136 votes in Sherwood Park last month.
UCP MLA Ron Wiebe was acclaimed and avoided a challenge in Grande Prairie-Wapiti when Karen Peters was disqualified from the race, but Peace River MLA Dan Williams faces a challenge from separatist supporter Dave Long in a September 10 and 11 vote by UCP members.
Separatist organizers have successfully entrenched themselves in the UCP with big wins in provincial board elections at the party’s annual general meeting and in local constituency AGMs and were key players in the push to collect signatures to hold a referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada (Premier Danielle Smith called the referendum after some initial committee-level fumbling).
These nomination results can partly be chalked up to an incumbent advantage, for Dyck and likely for Williams next week, but these two losses might signal some push back against openly separatist candidates by rank and file members outside the party’s most enthusiastic activists.
Here are a few more candidate nomination updates:
The UCP announced Calgary-Fish Creek MLA Myles McDougall, Calgary-Lougheed MLA Eric Bouchard, and Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter have been nominated.
Former UCP President Cynthia Moore has been nominated as the party’s candidate in Calgary-Elbow.
Moore currently serves as chair of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, a role she was appointed to by the UCP government in 2024, and as chair of the Real Estate Council of Alberta.
MLA Gurtej Singh Brar is expected to be nominated as the NDP candidate in Edmonton-Ellerslie on September 11 and former public school trustee Trisha Estabrooks is expected to be nominated for the NDP in Edmonton-Strathcona on September 16.
Former Conservative MP Rob Anders has endorsed former Wildrose Independence Party leader Jeevan Mangat’s campaign for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Acadia.
Anders served as the MP for Calgary-West from 1997 to 2015 and sat on the separatist Wildrose Independence Party’s board of directions during Mangat’s time as party leader.
Alberta Referendum Day is 41 days away.
Elections Alberta issued a statement correcting a series of errors and confusing instructions included in Special Ballot packages that have been mailed to more than 200,000 Albertans ahead of the October 19 referendums. The elections authority also announced the deadline for applying for a mail-in Special Ballot is now September 25 instead of the previously announced October 9.
There has been no shortage of attention on the Alberta separation question that Albertans will be asked on October 19, but a cadre of former and current municipal and provincial politicians have written an op-ed warning of the divisions created by the five referendum questions that frame immigrants as scapegoats for the strain on Alberta’s health care and education systems.
The op-ed published in the province’s Postmedia newspaper was penned by former premier Rachel Notley, former Edmonton mayor Don Iveson, former Lethbridge mayor Chris Spearman former St. Albert mayor Cathy Heron, former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita, former Slave Lake mayor Karina Pillay, lawyer Avnish Nanda, and current High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass (Premier Smith lives in High River).
The immigration referendum questions were a hot topic at the Edmonton launch of Public Interest Alberta’s referendum campaign at the Beverly Heights Community Hall on September 3. The well-attended event in the packed community hall featured a handful of speakers including PIA executive director Brad Lafortune, comedian Henry Sir, Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan, and Senator Paula Simons (who recently wrote about the “Noxious Nine” in Alberta Views Magazine).
More, mostly separation referendum, news:
Separatist leader Keith Wilson released his group’s Alberta Transition Council report, A Practical Analysis of Alberta's Transition from Province to Independent Country, which outlines what they describe as a blueprint for Alberta’s separation from Canada.
Political columnist David Climenhaga penned a column that pokes some pretty big holes in the Alberta Transition Council report. “Despite its title, there is nothing practical about this naïve and utterly unserious document,” Climenhaga wrote.
