FIRST READING: Stunning byelection upset may portend Alberta conservative fracture

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Ever since its creation in 1986, the suburban riding of Calgary-Shaw has voted for conservatives. In the year of the provincial riding’s creation, the conservative candidate won by 61.5 per cent. Nearly 40 years later, in the last general election, the conservative candidate won by a comparable 56.3 per cent.

Even the teenagers in Calgary-Shaw vote conservative. On occasions when the riding’s two high schools have participated in straw polls during provincial elections, the results have always been blowout Progressive Conservative victories.

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Until this week, the only time Calgary-Shaw hasn’t gone for a conservative was due to a wild anomaly in 2015. That election, 30.7 per cent of the riding voted for the Progressive Conservatives and 30.4 per cent voted for the Wildrose Party, thus allowing NDP candidate Graham Sucha to slip into power with a vote share of just 31.27 per cent (he’d lose the riding by 40 points after just one term).

But with the Alberta NDP on Monday clinching a decisive byelection victory that nobody saw coming, it may represent the first material sign of a conservative bloc that is being fractured by the question of Alberta independence.

“The NDP has won Calgary Shaw, one of the most conservative big city ridings in this country. Every single UCP riding in Calgary is now at risk,” was the immediate reaction of longtime Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid.

Early results show that NDP candidate Kyle Campbell won the riding by 46 per cent, the party’s best result in Calgary-Shaw. NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called it a “political earthquake,” and described Campbell’s headquarters as being filled with incredulous cries of “oh my God we won!”

More crucial to the victory, however, was a measurable collapse in support for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party.

In the 2023 Alberta general election, the UCP won Calgary-Shaw with a comfortable 56.3 per cent of the vote. This time around, just 43 per cent of Calgary-Shaw voters showed up for the UCP candidate.

According to former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, UCP voters were being turned off by the Alberta independence cause.

“Folks planning to vote ‘to send a message’ by starting the separation process: please take note of the NDP’s win tonight in the most conservative part of urban Canada,” Kenney wrote in a social media post reacting to Monday’s upset.

On Oct. 19, Albertans are set to vote in a preliminary referendum on the issue of Alberta independence.

“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?” reads the draft ballot question.

Kenney has long been one of Alberta’s most vocal anti-independence voices, and he wrote on Tuesday that the separatist campaign was causing “patriotic conservative voters to support the Liberals and NDP.”

“A vote to separate is a vote to help the NDP win the next provincial election,” he said.

Among the pro-independence camp, the prognosis was similar – although for different reasons.

Corey Morgan, a Calgary-based separatist commentator who literally wrote The Sovereigntist’s Handbook, also claimed that the issue of independence swung Calgary-Shaw for the NDP.

But he blamed the result on Premier Smith’s strategy of approving the Oct. 19 referendum while actively campaigning for a federalist victory. The result being, he said, that a not-insignificant cohort of pro-independence UCP supporters are now souring on the party.

“She’s walking both sides and she’s pissing off both sides,” Morgan said in a Tuesday YouTube video.

But he also cautioned fellow separatists against the notion that Smith should endorse independence outright.

“This byelection showed that would be political suicide,” he said. “There isn’t enough bloody support for a party to do that yet.”

Although Smith’s office didn’t directly credit the independence issue for the Calgary-Shaw loss, a spokesperson did make reference to a “split” in conservative sentiments.

“A split of the conservative vote along with a low overall turnout were the primary reason for the byelection result,” Sam Blackett, a spokesperson for the premier, said in a statement.

Although the Alberta independence cause has enjoyed a notable renaissance since Prime Minister Mark Carney won the 2025 federal election, polls have consistently shown that outright independence remains broadly unpopular among voters.

An Abacus Data poll published this week found that 64 per cent of Alberta voters intended to vote against the “proceed” option in the Oct. 19 referendum.

And even among those who plan to endorse a second vote on independence, just two-thirds said they were committed to voting yes. “That puts the separatist vote at 18 per cent of Albertans,” read an accompanying analysis.

But the separatist/federalist split is almost entirely reserved to Albertans who vote conservative.

Last month, an Angus Reid Institute poll found just 33 per cent of Albertans endorsing a “binding” referendum on separation, with 61 per cent favouring the “Alberta should remain a province of Canada” option.

But among those Albertans who voted UCP, the ratios were swapped, with a clear majority of 60 per cent favouring the ballot option for a binding independence referendum.

One of the most telling indicators from the Calgary-Shaw results is the 978 voters who marked a ballot for the “Progressive Tories,” an upstart political party that has framed itself as an explicitly anti-independence conservative option.

Had all those 978 voted UCP instead, it would have been enough to deny the NDP the riding.

Canadian federal politics has been dominated this week by a “will they/won’t they” drama playing out between Ottawa and the European Union.

Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that Prime Minister Mark Carney was seeking to make Canada an “associate member” of the EU. This caused Carney to publicly deny the report, saying he’s actually seeking a “unique alliance” with the European body, rather than associate membership.

Then, on Wednesday morning, EU President Ursula von der Leyen publicly invited Canada to be an “associate member.” Only for this to garner backlash from EU member states, who complained it’s not von der Leyen’s call to decide which non-EU countries are allowed special attention. “First and foremost the member states should be the ones to express what kind of relationship the EU wants to have with any third country,” one Eurocrat told the Daily Mail. 

Conversely, the same argument could be made for Carney; his courtship of the EU being one of several international entanglements he is seeking without any kind of Parliamentary approval. 

Lost in all of this is what any of these terms mean. Canada and the EU already enjoy free trade. Since most EU countries are members of NATO, there is already heavy coordination between the Canadian Armed Forces and its European counterparts (Canada’s largest single military deployment, in fact, is in Europe; there are about 2,220 Canadian troops in Latvia).

Canadians also enjoy visa-free travel with the EU; a Canadian passport is good for 90 days anywhere within Europe’s free movement “Schengen Area.”  

So as to what associate EU membership actually entails, the best guess so far is that it might mean easier academic exchanges or work visas. Or, like a lot of international agreements struck under the Carney government, it might also mean nothing whatsoever.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

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