Battles emerging for federal NDP nominations in Alberta

A new trend is emerging on the Alberta political landscape as New Democrats are battling it out to win nominations to run in the upcoming federal election.

The NDP's historic victory in the provincial election this spring has given the party new hope federally, in a province that sent 27 Conservative MPs and one New Democrat to Ottawa in 2011.

Now, more ridings are seeing nomination races to represent the NDP.

"Here we have a situation where people are actually contesting to run for the nomination, which suggests that they think that there's perhaps more relevance or a greater chance of them making a difference in the next federal election and that's a new phenomenon for Calgary," said Lori Williams, associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University.

In the ridings of Calgary-Confederation and Calgary-Forest Lawn, there are three- to four-person races for the NDP nomination. In the last federal election in 2011, the party scrambled to find people to run, according to political blogger Dave Cournoyer.

​"In a number of ridings the NDP were parachuting candidates in from Edmonton to run in Calgary ridings because they couldn't find anybody, and that was at the last minute," he said.

Federal hopefuls elected as MLAs

This time around, the party sees more opportunity, but in some cases it's also scrambling, but for different reasons, according to Williams.

"Many of the people who were planning to run federally won provincially and so they've got to find new candidates, which has put them a little bit behind in terms of getting those nominations."

The party says it intends to run a full slate of candidates in Alberta, which will have 34 seats this time. So far, the NDP has only seven candidates nominated, but insists it is ready.

By comparison, the Conservatives have 33 candidates nominated, with one to go in Edmonton-Leduc, where long time MP James Rajotte has decided not to run.

"Alberta being the stronghold for (the) federal Conservative party it's no surprise that the federal Conservatives have most of their candidates nominated," said Cornoyer.

Liberals hoping for a breakthrough

This time around, the Liberals are also hoping to make breakthroughs, and are "doing fairly well", he said, having nominated 23 candidates in Alberta.

The party says two further nomination meetings — the final two in Calgary — take place before August including a three-way nomination race in Calgary Midnapore.

"After these, we will have nine more to go in order to reach a full slate of 34 candidates across the province," the party said.

The nomination process is continuing for the Green Party in the province, which also intends to run a full slate of 34 candidates. So far 23 people have been nominated, with three currently in the nomination process and eight candidates to go.

Cornoyer points out the importance of completing the nominations, so candidates can begin the work of getting elected.

"The advantage of getting candidates nominated early is that the candidates then have an opportunity to campaign in the ridings, an opportunity to door knock, to go to community events and to get their names known, and actually organize in the riding," he said.

And with news that a federal election could be called soon, that matters more, he says.

"The closer to the election that you get, the less opportunity you have to go out and door knock and actually meet people in your community and identify voters and get sign locations and fundraise — all those things that are important when you run an election campaign."