What's at stake in the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election?
Pierre Poilievre is going to win. The only real question is: by how much?
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will return to the House of Commons after he wins the federal by-election happening in the sprawling rural riding of Battle River-Crowfoot on Monday, August 18.
The by-election marking Poilievre's return to Ottawa also marks a return to Alberta after he left his hometown of Calgary more than 20 years ago to work as a political staffer in Ottawa and run in a riding just outside the capital city. After spending 21 years as an Ottawa-area MP, Poilievre was defeated by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy in Carleton on April 28, which many believe was a result of his strong support of the anti-vaccine trucker convoy that harassed residents of the capital city in January and February 2022.
Poilievre's association with the convoy crowd will probably not hurt him in Battle River-Crowfoot, which is the second strongest Conservative voting riding in Canada. An overwhelming 82 percent of voters in the riding re-elected former MP Damien Kurek in the recent federal election. Kurek's landslide win was not an unusual result for the Conservatives in this riding. Candidates running for the Conservative Party and its predecessor parties, the Alliance and Reform Party, have earned more than 70 percent of the vote in this riding in every election since 1997.
Battle River-Crowfoot was handpicked by Poilievre for a by-election because it is one of the safest Conservative voting ridings in the country. Poilievre is going to win. The only real question is: by how much?
Despite the Liberal Party’s historic win on a national level, the Liberals aren’t going to win this by-election. It won’t even be close. Liberal candidate Darcy Spady, originally of Three Hills, is on the ballot and only has to get more than 12.5 percent of the vote to give his party its strongest showing in the riding in 45 years.
It’s notable that Prime Minister Mark Carney has not visited the riding since the by-election was called, something that former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau always made a point of doing, even when Liberal Party candidates were not expected to win (Trudeau drew a crowd of 1,300 during a by-election event in Medicine Hat in 2016).
If Poilievre has a real challenge in this race, there is a lot of speculation that it might come from independent candidate Bonnie Critchley. The armed forces veteran who has stylized herself as the independent and local conservative choice has earned a lot of attention in this race for calling out Poilievre as an outsider and parachute candidate in the riding.
Critchley has a point. Poilievre isn’t from this part of Alberta and it’s unlikely that he or his family are going to relocate their home to Drumheller or Camrose. And given Battle River-Crowfoot’s geographic distance from Ottawa and the competitive ridings that the Conservatives will need to win the next election it is unlikely that Poilievre will spend much time in the riding. It seems more likely that Kurek will act as a shadow MP until he is expected to run in the next election when Poilieve is expected to find another riding to run in.
It’s hard to say where Critchley will land on election night, but any double digit second place finish would be respectable.
And as for the Longest Ballot Committee? The group that succeeded in getting more than 200 independent candidates from across the country nominated to run in this by-election have been outflanked by Elections Canada. By turning the longest ballot into the shortest ballot, it’s now very likely that there will be multiple candidates on the LBC slate who will get zero votes.
Fun facts about former MPs from Battle River-Crowfoot
Last month I wrote about former Crowfoot Progressive Conservative MP Jack Horner crossing the floor to the Liberals in 1977 and joining Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet. But another former MP from this riding has a pop culture connection.
Kevin Sorensen represented the riding as an Alliance and Conservative MP from 2000 until his retirement in 2019. Sorenson’s father, Ralph Sorensen, served as the Social Credit MLA for the Sedgewick-Coronation riding from 1971 until he was defeated in 1975 by PC Party candidate Harry Kroeger. Kroeger is the grandfather of musicians Mike Kroeger and Chad Kroeger of the rock band Nickelback.
Jack Ramsay was the Reform Party MP for the Crowfoot riding from 1993 until 2000. Ramsay was leader of the separatist Western Canada Concept from 1982 to 1988 and was the WCC candidate in the Chinook riding in 1982 and in Camrose in 1986. He ran for the Reform Party in Crowfoot in the 1988 election, earning 32 percent, marking the party’s second best showing in that election. Ramsay sat as an Independent MP in 2000 after facing numerous criminal charges and allegations from his time as an RCMP officer. He ran as an Independent candidate in 2000 and was defeated by Sorenson.
Je n'aime pas le français, dit le député de Red Deer-Sud
Fresh from calling on King Charles III to be removed as Canada’s Head of State and comparing the monarchy to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Red Deer-South UCP MLA and Parliamentary Secretary of Constitutional Affairs Jason Stephan now wants Alberta to scrap official bilingualism, writing that “Alberta doesn’t need French” and calling it outdated and ineffective.
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