Canadian by-elections 2021-2022

[Njall]

Results are coming in in the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election:

14/63 Polls Reporting:

Brian Jean (United Conservative): 552 (66.0%)
Ariana Mancini (New Democratic): 150 (17.9%)
Paul Hinman (Wildrose Independence): 91 (10.9%)
Abdulhakim Hussein (Liberal): 20 (2.4%)
Michelle Landsiedel (Alberta Party): 13 (1.6%)
Brian Deheer (Independent): 6 (0.7%)
Steven Mellott (Independence Party): 4 (0.5%)
Marilyn Burns (Advantage Party): 0

[Njall]

29/63 Polls Reporting:

Brian Jean (United Conservative): 1290 (66.7%)
Ariana Mancini (New Democratic): 318 (16.4%)
Paul Hinman (Wildrose Independence): 239 (12.4%)
Abdulhakim Hussein (Liberal): 31 (1.6%)
Michelle Landsiedel (Alberta Party): 26 (1.3%)
Brian Deheer (Independent): 21 (1.1%)
Steven Mellott (Independence Party): 6 (0.3%)
Marilyn Burns (Advantage Party): 2 (0.2%)

[Njall]

With only a handful of polls outstanding (plus the advance polls), things have barely shifted at all. Easy win for Brian Jean. The NDP candidate underperformed by a decent amount though - I had been expecting the NDP to get at least 25% but right now they're not even at 17%.

[Njall]

Only a negligible difference in the grand scheme of thing, but my guess is a small band of straight ticket Liberals (excuse the American terminology) which prove to be greater in number than supporters of the Alberta Party itself, rather than the two leaders its had. And unlike last election none of the parties really functioned as an establishment option or perpetuated the dissatisfaction that surrounded itself with Notley at that time.

What was particularly weird about the Liberal candidate's vote count was that the entirety of his lead over the Alberta Party candidate came from the Fort McMurray advance polls. Despite getting less than 2% on election day, he got 11% in the Fort McMurray advance polls, placing ahead of Paul Hinman by a decent margin. Unless that's due to a data entry error, I would have to assume that that was the result of the Liberal candidate being well-connected to a closely-knit ethnocultural community whose impact is much more noticeable in a low-turnout by-election.

If you subtract the Fort McMurray advance polls, the two parties are basically tied: 78 votes for the ABP, 71 votes for the Liberal.


In terms of other interesting observations, there was a swing (compared to 2019) towards the UCP in Fort McMurray but towards the NDP in Lac La Biche. This despite Fort McMurray being a much bigger urban centre. If I had to guess, I would assume that that trend was due to Brian Jean's specific popularity and recognition in Fort McMurray (not to mention that his old provincial riding from 2015-2018 didn't extend down to Lac La Biche).

Jean also performed very well in the polls covering First Nations reserves and Metis Settlements. The NDP basically always wins the former, and usually overperforms in the latter if they don't win outright. This time though, Jean won all of those polls, albeit on pretty low turnouts. On the Goodfish Lake Reserve, for example, Jean got 75% of the vote, despite the 2019 UCP candidate having only gotten 11% there (the NDP won it with 75% in 2019). And Jean got more raw votes from the Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement in this low-turnout by-election than the 2019 UCP candidate got in the general election.

[Njall]

I find it funny how the dormant/dead Alberta Liberals got more than the Alberta Party.

Edited by me: "I find it funny how the dormant/dead Alberta Liberals got more than the dormant/dead Alberta Party."

I honestly had to look up the name of the current Alberta Party leader.  I remembered that Stephen Mandel stepped down, but had no recollection of the current leader's name.  When some Canadian who posts in this forum can't remember a party leader's name, that is a pretty reliable indication that that leader is unknown (i.e. people who post here have above-average knowledge of Canadian politics).

I purposely left off the Alberta Party leader's name here.  If anyone could remember it without looking it up, let us now.  (Just type "I can" -- please don't post the name in reply here, to spoil the memory test for others...)

Fwiw, I think he has more local-level name recognition than national-level, given his prior elected experience. He was President of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association for the last four years so he was in the media relatively often, and he has ties to lots of local elected officials across the province.

On that note, I can remember his name lol. But I'm a very politically-engaged Albertan with numerous former PC and Liberal friends who are active in the ABP.

[Njall]

Njall, how active is the Alberta Liberal Party or is it dead like I think it is?

It's very near-dead. Really the only things keeping it going at all are its name (which tends to give it 1-3% of the vote by default from voters who either think it's the LPC, or see it as a slightly more credible protest vote) and the fact that its long history means that it still has a certain amount of wealthy and/or committed party stalwarts, like former Senator Daniel Hays, who continue to fund it. Because of those donors, it's still reliably able to bring in around $100K-$125K per year.

Aside from that, their metrics are dismal. In 2019, their leader (David Khan) was their best-performing candidate, and he didn't even hit 6% of the vote despite running in the riding being vacated by the one remaining Liberal MLA. Only three candidates, including Khan, got over 3% of the vote, and they only ran candidates in 51 of the 87 ridings. Khan resigned as leader just over a year ago, and they have yet to announce a leadership contest. And based on their latest available financial statements from 2020, they took in $1,080 in membership fees, which at $10/person would indicate that they only had 108 members that year. In my experience, many of the folks who remain active in the ALP are the absolute strongest LPC partisans, in other words the handful of LPC supporters who are so committed to the Liberal brand that they can't imagine supporting any other party like the NDP or Alberta Party provincially.

[Njall]

Njall, how active is the Alberta Liberal Party or is it dead like I think it is?

Also, is the by-election result a good result for the Wildrose Independence Party or is it a bad one since their leader ran in it?  

I have to imagine that the Brian Jean factor hurt the WIP. If I were a right-winger who wants to see Kenney out but wouldn't vote NDP, electing Brian Jean seems like a much better way to do that than voting for a fringe party.

Yeah. I think the WIP result here was pretty neutral to be honest. It confirms what polls have been showing in terms of them being the best-positioned hard-right alternative to the UCP by far, but at the same time it also indicates that they still have their work cut out for them if they want to be able to win seats. There's also the very relevant Brian Jean factor to consider in this race - I would have been very curious to see how the WIP (and NDP for that matter) would have performed in a rural by-election almost anywhere else in the province.

[Njall]

Is this the right place to say that Kenney has resigned after barely winning an internal UCP vote?

He hasn't resigned his seat, and the caucus has decided that he will stay as leader and Premier until the leadership race is over. Given that we're literally a year (and 9 days) from the next election, I'd be surprised to see a Calgary-Lougheed by-election.