I always used to laugh when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto and Nenshi was mayor of Calgary. Based purely on the stereotypes of each city I think many would have assumed the opposite.
Calgary is a young, diverse, metropolitan and socially progressive city. I think Carney's hold on Alberta could be more durable than many expect.
One of the most interesting things about Canada that differentiates us from the Americans is Canadians willingness to vote across party lines and support two different parties both federally and provincially.
Danielle Smith may be premiere here for many more years but she may be sharing the space with quite a few Liberal MPs.
Thanks, Evan, for your efforts at deconstructing the myths about wackjob conservative AB.
I grew up in progressive Edmonton, and your nuanced analysis rings true.
I would just add two points:
- REdmonton has been voting 100% NDP provincially for many, many years.
Conservative provincial governments, based on rural seats, mask the increasingly polarized regions of AB, especially around urban vs rural divisions.
-Federal ridings in Edmonton often split the left vote; e.g., Edmonton Griesbach 2025, where the NDP incumbent (an indigenous, two-spirit MP) and Liberal Patrick Lennox (security expert and author of book on Canada-US relations) split the vote to allow a blowhard CPC to win the seat.
Matt Jeneroux, former CPC and now Liberal MP for Edmonton Riverbend, is very popular locally.
In 2025, he won the riding with about 50% to the Libs' 45.
He has an excellent chance of keeping the riding for the Liberals next time.
Good needed qualifiers that ring true. In addition, please consider that only 6% of Albertans work in O&G (Alberta Labour stats). At its greatest contribution, O&G has only been 25% of Alberta’s revenue - and for a handful of years. It generally hovered around 18%.
Put another way, 94% of Albertans work in activity outside O&G, contributing 80% of the Alberta economy.
My point is this - O&G is a part of Alberta’s economy, but far short of the totality of it. It is useful for those interests, and the political party it has captured and corrupted, to claim it is Alberta, and all care and consideration be surrendered as it’s claimed due.
This is false. I am beyond weary of lazy characterization of Alberta = O&G.
A third of the Alberta electorate can be consistently MIA - these lazy shites can’t be arsed to show up for municipal, provincial or federal elections. This slothblock is the key to the stability of the politics in this province.
I did some quick research that confirmed your numbers on direct GDP but also suggests that another quarter of the economy is indirectly supported by O&G. In other words if the O&G industry suddenly stopped selling their products the GDP of Alberta could drop anywhere from 35 to 50 percent within a year. It’s significant.
P.S. Just read this morning that the IEA is expecting a big global oil (supply) surplus in 2026.
Is Edmonton really all that progressive or is it more dependent on public sector employment? I grew up across a mix of Edmonton, Calgary and rural Alberta and found Edmonton to generally be traditional in its views, both social and otherwise, especially compared to Calgary. Perhaps that is because Edmonton is less transient and attracts more people from rural Alberta whereas Calgary has long attracted more people from ON, BC and internationally. I did my first three degrees at U of A, which on the surface would be about the most conventionally progressive setting in the province. Yet I was probably exposed to more novel experiences and diverse thinking in my first year working in dt Calgary. Commercial centers are always more dynamic and more interesting than ones built around government institutions.
A lot of Edm is working class, transient (Gateway to the North and all that), has a university of left-leaning social sciences (vs U of C). Sure, many govt workers, too, which means higher education. Ottawa, an even more government town, is also very liberal/progressive, a reflection of its attracting educated people from across the country and the world.
This discussion makes us think about the reasons behind NDP-Liberal vs Conservative voters. The NDP's success in Edm is likely a combination of blue collar and highly educated people, which is a coalition the federal NDP seems to have lost. Calgary is certainly dynamic and more affluent but also more tied to O&G.
This is the challenge the prov NDP and fed Libs face: how to break through the Conservative tradition there.
Lots of historical patterns but demographic change bring new opportunities as well!
Wow you are in the ball park with article! Alberta wants to be part of the overall fabric of Canada 🇨🇦 and we are strongly Centrist- we could be big at resource development in many many ways! Carney is on our highly skilled minds and we are interested!
Completely wrong. People might feel like they are progressives but once you dig into it, they aren’t. Yes they can parrot popular cultural phenomena but they really don’t get it. They are as ignorant as any Albertan from a 100 years ago. And I’m talking about Edmonton. Do you think Danielle Smith is an anomaly? Do you think PP is an anomaly? They’re not. Sure they have grievances. They have always had grievances. Look at the make up of the Province. Most are there because they were escaping grievance. And Lo and behold, new environment - more grievance. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
The author understands Alberta better than most political commentators. That being said, Carney bet the farm on the MOU. If all regulatory roadblocks aren't removed from energy exports, all hell could break loose.
Worth noting that this isn't the first time we've seen a Liberal PM benefitting from knowing or at least appearing to understand the province.
JT was as much of a Sinclair as he was a Trudeau, and targetted BC (mostly Metro Van, but 2015 also saw huge inland gains including flipping Kelowna) very well. Those foundations helped Carney in 2025 for sure.
Similar could apply to Carney as well with AB. Alberta is where he's at home, lot more than Ontario, and optics still suggest him so. Even better news is that a Lewis-led NDP would really help LPC on AB and SK.
It's not just Easterners who have a certain view of rural Alberta. I was visiting Conservative-voting friends in Calgary a few weeks before the '23 provincial election. I commented on the large number of NDP signs in their suburban neighbourhood and said something about how Calgary didn't feel all that different to me from parts of the GTA during a provincial election. My friend's wife shook her head vigorously and basically said to me, you have no idea what people are like in rural Alberta. I tried to tell her that I couldn't imagine they were all that different from people in rural Eastern Ontario, where I've spent a lot of time, but she wasn't buying it.
There are 2 rural Albertas. One resembles rural rest of everywhere else with stagnant and aging populations, and little economic dynamism. The other is an anomoly being younger, attracting newcomers and only beginning to realize its economic potential. The former is hostile to a Liberal party that focuses on social issues, the later is hostile to a Liberal party that impedes growth.
Alberta is not like other provinces. As an immature society that has relentlessly chased population and investment throughout its entire history, growth is as embedded in its culture as protecting the French language is in Quebec. As the most successful driver of growth, oil and gas development has become an obvious symbol.
The political party that best calibrates to growth generally comes out on top. That means winning Calgary, the satellite communities that ring Calgary and Edmonton and the growing rural areas. Unfortunately, the UCP has overly targeted the other rural constituency, when it doesn't need it.
Alberta also has a strong anti-establishment streak often disguised as conservatism. This is where Carney is most vulnerable. If he naturally governs too aggressively, by securing a majority through floor crossings for example, he could be seen as arrogant. If he doesn't balance unblocking western industries with "catalyzing" growth in the Laurentian heartland, he will see as yet another federal Liberal who expects Alberta to take one for the team on every issue. Delusional or not, Calgary often views itself as the country's second (albeit much smaller) economic and political pole. That more or less sets up the federal Liberals to loose in Calgary if they win in Toronto.
I always used to laugh when Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto and Nenshi was mayor of Calgary. Based purely on the stereotypes of each city I think many would have assumed the opposite.
Calgary is a young, diverse, metropolitan and socially progressive city. I think Carney's hold on Alberta could be more durable than many expect.
One of the most interesting things about Canada that differentiates us from the Americans is Canadians willingness to vote across party lines and support two different parties both federally and provincially.
Danielle Smith may be premiere here for many more years but she may be sharing the space with quite a few Liberal MPs.
Smith is history!
Nenshi and Ford were both incompetent in substance despite the differences in style
Thanks, Evan, for your efforts at deconstructing the myths about wackjob conservative AB.
I grew up in progressive Edmonton, and your nuanced analysis rings true.
I would just add two points:
- REdmonton has been voting 100% NDP provincially for many, many years.
Conservative provincial governments, based on rural seats, mask the increasingly polarized regions of AB, especially around urban vs rural divisions.
-Federal ridings in Edmonton often split the left vote; e.g., Edmonton Griesbach 2025, where the NDP incumbent (an indigenous, two-spirit MP) and Liberal Patrick Lennox (security expert and author of book on Canada-US relations) split the vote to allow a blowhard CPC to win the seat.
Matt Jeneroux, former CPC and now Liberal MP for Edmonton Riverbend, is very popular locally.
In 2025, he won the riding with about 50% to the Libs' 45.
He has an excellent chance of keeping the riding for the Liberals next time.
Good needed qualifiers that ring true. In addition, please consider that only 6% of Albertans work in O&G (Alberta Labour stats). At its greatest contribution, O&G has only been 25% of Alberta’s revenue - and for a handful of years. It generally hovered around 18%.
Put another way, 94% of Albertans work in activity outside O&G, contributing 80% of the Alberta economy.
My point is this - O&G is a part of Alberta’s economy, but far short of the totality of it. It is useful for those interests, and the political party it has captured and corrupted, to claim it is Alberta, and all care and consideration be surrendered as it’s claimed due.
This is false. I am beyond weary of lazy characterization of Alberta = O&G.
A third of the Alberta electorate can be consistently MIA - these lazy shites can’t be arsed to show up for municipal, provincial or federal elections. This slothblock is the key to the stability of the politics in this province.
I did some quick research that confirmed your numbers on direct GDP but also suggests that another quarter of the economy is indirectly supported by O&G. In other words if the O&G industry suddenly stopped selling their products the GDP of Alberta could drop anywhere from 35 to 50 percent within a year. It’s significant.
P.S. Just read this morning that the IEA is expecting a big global oil (supply) surplus in 2026.
Is Edmonton really all that progressive or is it more dependent on public sector employment? I grew up across a mix of Edmonton, Calgary and rural Alberta and found Edmonton to generally be traditional in its views, both social and otherwise, especially compared to Calgary. Perhaps that is because Edmonton is less transient and attracts more people from rural Alberta whereas Calgary has long attracted more people from ON, BC and internationally. I did my first three degrees at U of A, which on the surface would be about the most conventionally progressive setting in the province. Yet I was probably exposed to more novel experiences and diverse thinking in my first year working in dt Calgary. Commercial centers are always more dynamic and more interesting than ones built around government institutions.
A lot of Edm is working class, transient (Gateway to the North and all that), has a university of left-leaning social sciences (vs U of C). Sure, many govt workers, too, which means higher education. Ottawa, an even more government town, is also very liberal/progressive, a reflection of its attracting educated people from across the country and the world.
This discussion makes us think about the reasons behind NDP-Liberal vs Conservative voters. The NDP's success in Edm is likely a combination of blue collar and highly educated people, which is a coalition the federal NDP seems to have lost. Calgary is certainly dynamic and more affluent but also more tied to O&G.
This is the challenge the prov NDP and fed Libs face: how to break through the Conservative tradition there.
Lots of historical patterns but demographic change bring new opportunities as well!
Wow you are in the ball park with article! Alberta wants to be part of the overall fabric of Canada 🇨🇦 and we are strongly Centrist- we could be big at resource development in many many ways! Carney is on our highly skilled minds and we are interested!
This is hopeful Evan. Thanks
Completely wrong. People might feel like they are progressives but once you dig into it, they aren’t. Yes they can parrot popular cultural phenomena but they really don’t get it. They are as ignorant as any Albertan from a 100 years ago. And I’m talking about Edmonton. Do you think Danielle Smith is an anomaly? Do you think PP is an anomaly? They’re not. Sure they have grievances. They have always had grievances. Look at the make up of the Province. Most are there because they were escaping grievance. And Lo and behold, new environment - more grievance. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Excellent in more ways than one...
The author understands Alberta better than most political commentators. That being said, Carney bet the farm on the MOU. If all regulatory roadblocks aren't removed from energy exports, all hell could break loose.
Worth noting that this isn't the first time we've seen a Liberal PM benefitting from knowing or at least appearing to understand the province.
JT was as much of a Sinclair as he was a Trudeau, and targetted BC (mostly Metro Van, but 2015 also saw huge inland gains including flipping Kelowna) very well. Those foundations helped Carney in 2025 for sure.
Similar could apply to Carney as well with AB. Alberta is where he's at home, lot more than Ontario, and optics still suggest him so. Even better news is that a Lewis-led NDP would really help LPC on AB and SK.
It's not just Easterners who have a certain view of rural Alberta. I was visiting Conservative-voting friends in Calgary a few weeks before the '23 provincial election. I commented on the large number of NDP signs in their suburban neighbourhood and said something about how Calgary didn't feel all that different to me from parts of the GTA during a provincial election. My friend's wife shook her head vigorously and basically said to me, you have no idea what people are like in rural Alberta. I tried to tell her that I couldn't imagine they were all that different from people in rural Eastern Ontario, where I've spent a lot of time, but she wasn't buying it.
There are 2 rural Albertas. One resembles rural rest of everywhere else with stagnant and aging populations, and little economic dynamism. The other is an anomoly being younger, attracting newcomers and only beginning to realize its economic potential. The former is hostile to a Liberal party that focuses on social issues, the later is hostile to a Liberal party that impedes growth.
Alberta is not like other provinces. As an immature society that has relentlessly chased population and investment throughout its entire history, growth is as embedded in its culture as protecting the French language is in Quebec. As the most successful driver of growth, oil and gas development has become an obvious symbol.
The political party that best calibrates to growth generally comes out on top. That means winning Calgary, the satellite communities that ring Calgary and Edmonton and the growing rural areas. Unfortunately, the UCP has overly targeted the other rural constituency, when it doesn't need it.
Alberta also has a strong anti-establishment streak often disguised as conservatism. This is where Carney is most vulnerable. If he naturally governs too aggressively, by securing a majority through floor crossings for example, he could be seen as arrogant. If he doesn't balance unblocking western industries with "catalyzing" growth in the Laurentian heartland, he will see as yet another federal Liberal who expects Alberta to take one for the team on every issue. Delusional or not, Calgary often views itself as the country's second (albeit much smaller) economic and political pole. That more or less sets up the federal Liberals to loose in Calgary if they win in Toronto.