Calgary has long been known as a Conservative stronghold in federal politics, but new projections show a handful of ridings may be in for tight races.
338 Canada has indicated “toss-up” races in the ridings of Calgary Confederation, Calgary Centre and Calgary Skyview between the Conservatives and Liberals, according to a statistical model of voting projections based on opinion polls.
Trevor Harrison, a political scientist with the University of Lethbridge, suggests that a red wave of voters heading to the polls in southern Alberta could be a tall order.
“It would be very surprising to see a major upset and would require really some pretty significant gaffes on the part of the Conservatives,” Harrison said.
“Mark Carney being able to sell himself as really a very different actor for the Liberal Party is a bit hard to imagine, but there is a possibility the Liberals certainly could do better than we would have thought a few months ago in maybe the two large cities in the province.”
Meanwhile, other political analysts like Keith Brownsey from Mount Royal University note that there could still be anywhere from four to six seats up for grabs for the Liberals in Calgary alone.
“I think the big story has been the collapse of the New Democratic Party; they’re down eight or nine per cent in the poll aggregators so where is their vote going to go?” Brownsey said.
“There’s only one issue, and that’s Donald Trump and tariffs, and that’s an overlapping issue. Mr. Poilievre has positioned himself rather poorly over the last three years or so by showing support for the convoys in Ottawa and especially for emulating much of Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric and policies, so it seems to voters that’s a fundamental error and he could be in a lot of trouble.”
Martha Hall Findlay, the director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, agrees that the issue of who can take on Donald Trump is particularly front and centre.
“In most elections, voters tend to vote first for a party, second for a party leader, and then only third for the candidate in their specific riding. Not for anybody to take this personally, any of the current candidates, but I think this election is going to be even more weighted toward party and party leader,” she said.
“We do have a new prime minister, but campaigns matter. You know, the debates will matter, so it’ll be very interesting.”
Calgary Centre expected to be highly contested
The riding of Calgary Centre is neck-and-neck according to several pollsters, including 338 Canada, which is currently projecting a narrow Liberal victory with 47 per cent of the vote compared to 45 per cent of the vote for the Conservatives.
The candidates in that riding, Lindsay Luhnau for the Liberals and current seat holder Greg McLean for the Conservatives, are aware of what’s at stake.
In an interview with CTV News, Luhnau noted that the battle of the ballot boxes is first won by knocking on doors.
“We’re hearing from people at the doors that progressives are really uniting behind Mark Carney because they understand that he’s the only choice to stand up to Donald Trump and to really protect Canadian jobs in the Canadian,” she said.
“We actually have a lot of baseline progressives, and then we also see people really turning against the divisiveness that we’re seeing on the federal level and looking for someone who’s really uniting the country.”
Meanwhile, McLean says the Liberals aren’t well positioned to fight against Donald Trump.
“This is a result of 10 years of policy that have led us here, the infrastructure we don’t have to diversify our trade across Canada and across overseas,” he said.
“So, think about the resources we could be exporting that have been held up by this government over the last decade. There’s a lot that’s happened and held back in this province in this country that would have been a great asset if we’d actually met it when we were supposed to meet it, as opposed to much later.”
Canada’s federal election is set for Monday, April 28. Advance polling will be open from April 18 to April 21.
