BOW VALLEY – With the departure of Jason Kenney as leader of the United Conservative Party, and the political upheaval caused by the provincial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to predict what the future holds for the provincial riding of Banff-Kananaskis.
“It is going to be tricky going into the next election because much will depend on who the new leader is and how much unity the party has,” said Lori Williams, associate professor in the department of Economics Justice and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. “And how they can distance themselves from the record of the Kenney government.”
The previous Banff-Cochrane riding was held by the NDP from 2015 to 2019, before flipping over to the UCP in the 2019 election as Banff-Kananaskis with Miranda Rosin serving as MLA.
The riding could be seen as going in either direction, with the UCP having strongholds in rural areas such as the Municipal District of Foothills and Rocky View County, while the NDP has typically seen more success in communities like Banff and Canmore.
The NDP selected Sarah Elmeligi – a Canmore-based bear biologist and conservation planner – who spent roughly seven months campaigning for the candidate role and is now visiting areas of the riding prior to the next provincial election.
Rosin's advocacy has recently helped bring increased CT scan hours to the Canmore General Hospital that could see fewer ambulances making patient transfers to Calgary and much-needed infrastructure repairs to the tune of $17.5 million for the Canmore Nordic Centre were announced in the last provincial budget.
The make-up of the riding can also make it difficult to predict which way it will swing in the next election.
“We aren’t really talking about people who are committed NDP or UCP voters, we are talking about people who are looking for a government to respond to their concerns,” Williams said. “For a lot of those folks, they are looking for good government, good policies, and a nice vision for the province. They are likely to go to whoever provides the best options with respect to what the future will hold.”
The loss of a leader of a party can also have an impact on individual ridings like Banff-Kananaskis.
“It can have an effect on individual ridings when you have someone resigning for the reasons Jason Kenney did, the deep unpopularity, certainly in some quarters,” Williams said.
The leadership review, which Kenney won with just over 50 per cent of the vote, saw more than 34,000 mail-in ballots. The high engagement in the leadership review could be seen as good news for the party, according to Rosin.
“The high participation would suggest that Albertans believe in the UCP movement and want it to succeed and want us to have a united front going into the next election,” she said. “After seeing the results showing how divided the party was, the vote will let us hit refresh with a fresh start and a new leader and a new face.”
Rosin also feels that Kenney made the right decision to stay on in the interim until a new leader is chosen.
“It ensures continuity between government files and the transfer of information,” Rosin said. “He is the intergovernmental affairs minister; he has a lot of files on the go right now and meetings. He wants to ensure continuity goes on and the progress Alberta is making on those files and those relationships continue.”
A new leader can revitalize a party, but whoever that leader is, they will have their work cut out for them to unite the party after it fractured under the leadership of Kenney. In the next election, there may also be greater scrutiny on the individual candidates, rather than the party as a whole.
“We aren’t talking about a Ralph Klein type of election where the names of candidates were barely visible on signs,” Williams said. “It was Ralph’s Team, and no one really cared who the local candidate was.”
Williams states that the next leader needs to be someone who can bring everyone together.
“Unless the UCP brings in some kind of leader that brings everyone together, that has them looking to the future and not the past, I think every MLA is going to be called to account for what they did under Kenney’s leadership.”
A leader that can reunite the party was also the hope of Rosin, especially after the fracturing that occurred over the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think our next leader needs to have to be someone who can bring the Conservatives back together again,” Rosin said. “COVID-19 fractured us, a lot of difficult and controversial decisions that had to be made, that no one liked, including those who made them.”
With the next election scheduled for 2023, Rosin will be in a tough spot to also bring together voters within the riding, according to Williams.
“She had municipalities and towns that say they needed more protection for workers and visitors,” Williams said. “She had some who were dead set against any mandates at all. I think it is a challenge ahead for her.”
While Rosin has not stated who she will put her support behind in the leadership election, the fact she disagreed with Kenney on policies could aid her in the provincial election.
“That could be helpful in putting distance between her and the government,” Williams said. “The problem is she angered constituents and received letters from council for not being respectful of the science and healthcare risks faced by people in those municipalities.”
The best course of action for Rosin, according to Williams, is to keep a relatively low profile heading toward the election.
“It might be best for her to keep a low profile and hope her party is successful in appealing to voters,” Williams said. “The kinds of problems she has are similar to Jason Kenney; some thought she went too far, some thought she didn’t go far enough.”
Rosin, for her part, feels that the worst for the party is behind them and things are looking positive for the future.
“I think Albertans spirits are turning around,” Rosin said. “I think the mood is changing and Albertans are feeling more optimistic, and we need a leader who can continue that positive movement.”
