Liberals tap Corey Hogan to run against Jeremy Nixon in Calgary Confederation

Liberals drop former NDP MLA Rod Loyola in Edmonton Gateway

The federal election is in full-swing and today’s Daveberta newsletter includes a quick update about candidate nominations in Alberta. I will be back next week with a regular column and more analysis on Alberta in the federal election.

As of this morning, the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party are the only two parties with candidates in all 37 ridings in Alberta. The Liberal Party briefly had a full slate but are down one candidate after their candidate in Edmonton Gateway was removed yesterday (more about that below).

Liberals tap Hogan to run against Nixon in Confederation

University of Calgary Vice-President and co-host of The Strategists Podcast Corey Hogan is running for the Liberal Party in Calgary Confederation.

Hogan fills the vacancy left by previously nominated Liberal candidate Thomas Keeper, who stepped down after he failed to disclose a 20-year-old domestic assault charge that was stayed six weeks after it was laid.

Hogan worked as managing director of the Alberta government’s Communications and Public Engagement Office from 2016 to 2020, and before that as a strategist and campaigner. He was executive director of the Alberta Liberal Party from 2009 to 2011 and ran for the Liberal Party nomination in Calgary-Glenmore ahead of the 2009 by-election.

Hogan’s candidacy adds some energy to a riding that the Liberals expect could be a close race on April 28. He will face former United Conservative Party MLA Jeremy Nixon who is running for the Conservatives. Nixon was also tapped as a last minute candidate when incumbent Conservative MP Len Webber announced his retirement the day before the election was called.

Nixon has a lot of experience running in elections in this part of Calgary. He was the Wildrose Party candidate in Calgary-Klein in 2012 and 2015 provincial elections before first being elected when he ran under the UCP banner in 2019. After he was defeated by NDP candidate Lizette Tejada in 2023 and quickly turned his attention to seeking the federal nomination in Calgary Signal Hill, where he was defeated by David Mackenzie.

Nixon is the brother of Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre UCP MLA and cabinet minister Jason Nixon and the son of Mustard Seed founder Pat Nixon.

Webber was re-elected with a 17.5 per cent margin of victory in 2021, but the riding was home to one of the most hotly contested races in Alberta in the 2015 federal election. That vote saw Webber finish just 2.38 per cent ahead of Liberal challenger Matt Grant. The Liberals are hoping they can close that gap this time around.

Also running in the riding are New Democrat: Keira Gunn, Green Richard Willott, Marxist-Leninist Kevan Hunter, and People’s Party candidate Artyom Ovsepyan.

Hogan joined Ryan Jespersen’s RealTalk to discuss his candidacy:

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Liberals drop Rod Loyola in Edmonton Gateway

Just one week after Rod Loyola resigned as the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Ellerslie and being named as the federal Liberal candidate in Edmonton Gateway, the party announced that he is no longer their candidate in the southeast Edmonton riding. Postmedia columnist Rahim Mohamed writes that the Liberals revoked Loyola’s candidacy after the newspaper asked about a video in which “he praised the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah at a 2009 anti-NATO protest.”