The new party system rules come with financial incentives for candidates to affiliate themselves with a party.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
As Alberta voters prepare for this month’s municipal elections, Calgary and Edmonton will have political parties on the ballot for the first time ever – a test run of a pilot project introduced last year by Premier Danielle Smith’s government.
But there has so far been tepid interest among candidates to jump into the party system, which the province created with the goal of increasing transparency and making candidates’ positions clearer to voters.
Calgary mayoral incumbent Jyoti Gondek and former councillor Jeromy Farkas, two front-runners, are running independently. Sonya Sharp, a sitting Calgary councillor, is running for mayor with a centre-right party called Communities First and is also in contention.
In Edmonton, the only leading candidate with party affiliations is sitting councillor Tim Cartmell with the Better Edmonton Party, while the remaining contenders are running independently.
“It’s almost like they threw a party and nobody came,” said Trevor Harrison, a retired University of Lethbridge political science professor.
Alberta towns, villages and cities push for tabulator option in local votes
The new municipal parties aren’t allowed to be affiliated by name with provincial or federal organizations. Still, detractors, including several independent candidates, say parties will bring divisiveness to city hall.
The association representing Alberta municipalities last year called on the government to abandon its push for the system, citing polls that suggested Alberta residents have an unfavourable view of the change.
“I think the provincial government, in introducing this, hoped for something much more robust. Clearly, they were hoping a party favourable for them would suddenly emerge and seize the two cities,” Prof. Harrison said.
The new rules also come with financial incentives for candidates to affiliate themselves with a party.
All candidates were already allowed to accept up to $5,000 from individuals, and now unions and corporations are allowed to donate as much. On top of that, parties can now accept the same amount and distribute those donations to their candidates.
However, there is a new $5,000 cap on how much donors can spend in cumulative donations across all candidates, which limits their fundraising capabilities.
Cynthia Moore, who is working on independent Calgary mayoral candidate Jeff Davison’s campaign, said conservatives in the city have failed to coalesce around a single party.
The conservative-leaning A Better Calgary party doesn’t have a mayoral candidate under its banner, and as such, has endorsed Mr. Davison. However, the party has come into conflict with Communities First, partly because the two are running candidates in the same wards.
As provinces meddle more in municipal issues, cities raise concerns about political overreach
Ms. Moore was instrumental in creating the provincial United Conservative Party, and was president from 2021 to 2023. She said many political observers initially believed parties would “level the playing field” for conservative candidates, who she argued have for years competed against a more organized progressive municipal wing.
“I don’t think the party system necessarily has resonated with people,” Ms. Moore said.
Janet Brown, a pollster in the province, said her recent data suggest that is true.
“I thought maybe people would warm to the idea quickly … they’d appreciate the shorthand of what a party provided to them,” said Ms. Brown. “But that hasn’t happened. People have just continued to be opposed to political parties.”
Municipal parties have existed in Vancouver and Montreal for years.
Kennedy Stewart, mayor of Vancouver from 2018 to 2022, said he’s not surprised Calgary and Edmonton haven’t immediately taken to the system. But if the party structure is adopted for the long haul, Mr. Stewart said it’s likely they will become entrenched in the politics of Alberta cities.
“Parties eventually take over everything,” he said. “Once you put stuff like this in, it’s hard to take it out.”
The Alberta government hasn’t said whether the pilot will continue after the election or how it will measure its success.
With this year’s municipal elections just over a week away, new leadership could be on the horizon in Alberta’s two major cities after a challenging four years for city politicians.
In Calgary, Ms. Gondek’s first term has been overshadowed by several crises, most notably a water-main break last year that forced residents to significantly cut back their water consumption over the summer and fall months. She also faced an unsuccessful citizen-led recall petition to force her out of office. Recent polling suggests she remains a front-runner.
Edmonton will meanwhile have a new leader regardless of the election’s outcome. One-term mayor Amarjeet Sohi is vacating the position after an unsuccessful bid to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government during the spring federal election.
The races in both major cities remain a wide-open race ahead of election day on Oct. 20. Ms. Brown, the pollster, said voters remain astonishingly undecided at such a late stage of the campaign.
“That’s what you would expect at the beginning of an election campaign, not the end.”