Liberals have ‘real chance’ to win seats in Calgary: political analyst 

“You don’t need to tell me what Alberta is like, I’m from Alberta, I know this province,” said Mark Carney during his campaign stop this week in Calgary.

The Liberal leader made his first campaign visit to Alberta this week, holding an event in Calgary on Tuesday evening followed by another Wednesday morning.

With Carney spending more time in a traditionally conservative city, one political analyst says the Liberal Party has a very real shot at picking up seats in Alberta and in Calgary.

“Most aggregators have the Liberals at about 28 per cent here in the province,” says political analyst John Santos. “The previous high watermark that they set recently was about 25 per cent in the 2015 election, and that netted them four seats in Alberta, two of which were in Calgary.”

Carney speaking directly to his Alberta audience, said this week he believes Canada and Alberta can be an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy, adding the federal government’s system of investment tax credits will help with that.

“They will unlock more solar, more wind, more nuclear— both large scale and small modular,” Carney said. “More geothermal, more hydrogen and more biofuels. More projects that will create good careers for tens of thousands of Canadians.”

As for his relationship with politicians in the province, back in March, Alberta premier Danielle Smith said she provided Carney with a specific list of demands the next Prime Minister of Canada must address within the first six months of their term, to avoid “an unprecedented national unity crisis.”

In a recent spat, Carney joked in B.C. over the weekend about Canadian premiers appearing on Fox News, the conservative U.S media outlet, saying it would be a “bad idea” to put Smith on the network to advocate for cross-border diplomacy.

The premier responded by saying Carney has issues with “strong conservative women.”

Smith has previously expressed frustration with Carney’s unwillingness to end the proposed cap on oil and gas emissions. Carney publicly said in his Alberta visit that he wasn’t in favour of the cap, and has since confirmed his government would keep it.

“I’m not gonna spend my time writing letters back and forth,” Carney says. “I’m gonna put in place things that work, that’s what we’re focused on, and I’ll make a final point which is we are going to move forward as a country when we come together — federal, provincial, industry, labour, First Nations.”

Santos says if the Liberals can manage to win seats in Calgary then there’s a good chance there one of the candidates would be a cabinet minister.

“Should there be any Liberals elected in Alberta, and should the Liberals win, they would almost certainly be included in cabinet,” he says.

This week marks the third week of the federal election campaign. Canadians head to the polls on Apr. 28.