Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wins Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith won the Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection Tuesday, earning a seat in the legislature more than seven years after she left.

Smith defeated four opponents in the southeastern constituency, including former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita.

According to Elections Alberta, Smith earned 54.5 per cent of the vote with all 76 polls reporting.

Lori Williams, associate professor at Mount Royal University, says this wasn’t the decisive win Smith was hoping for.

“This is a premier running in a byelection. You think she would at least do as well as an unknown candidate [Michaela Frey] did in the 2019 general election, and she actually dropped significantly from that number,” Williams said. “Perhaps more to the point, the NDP — and the Alberta Party to some degree — did much better than they did in 2019… The NDP actually won the popular vote in the city of Medicine Hat.”

Williams says Smith sent a number of signals during her byelection campaign that she is trying to appeal to a broader range of Albertans.

“It doesn’t look like that means she’s going to give up on the Sovereignty Act, but it looks like the Sovereignty Act is going to be a much milder version than some would have thought based on her comments during the [UCP] leadership campaign,” she said.

It also appears, according to Williams, that Smith is focusing more on issues that most Albertans care about rather than continuing to point the finger at Ottawa for provincial problems.

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Elections Alberta says 12,695 out of an eligible 34,532 voters cast their ballots Tuesday, a relatively low turnout that Williams says is to be expected during a byelection.

“It’s more [about] the margin, it’s the fact that she underperformed the UCP candidate from 2019 — again, an unknown candidate who did well in a riding that is a conservative stronghold,” Williams said.

“She kind of squeaked a victory through here, and that’s not going to signal strength. It could make it more difficult to address divisions within the party, and of course, we’re seeing some of those divisions bubbling up in a number of areas already. You know, she’s got a lot to work with, and a bit of time to work with all of the money that she has now as premier, and can begin to try to address some of the problems.”

Williams adds Smith’s choice not to run in Calgary-Elbow and moreover, not to hold any byelection in that riding, leaving the seat vacant, “signalled concern” that she couldn’t win.

“Based on those results that we saw last night, it looks like that fears or that concern was probably justified. I think it would have been difficult for her to win in Calgary-Elbow but her failure to call a byelection there has hurt her chances in Calgary quite materially,” she explained.

NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk finished second with 26.7 per cent of the vote, while Morishita, who is also the leader of the Alberta Party, earned 16.5 per cent.

Bob Blayone of the Independence Party and Jeevan Mangat of the Wildrose Independence Party earned 1.8 per cent and 0.4 per cent of the vote respectively.

Smith called the byelection shortly after she won the race to replace Jason Kenney as United Conservative Party leader and premier on Oct. 6.

Elections Alberta says percentages may not add up to 100 per cent because of rounding.

For the results, go to elections.ab.ca.

–With files from The Canadian Press