Poilievre Is Parachuting into Rural Alberta to Win Back His Seat

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has jumped out of the plane, strapped on a parachute, and is aiming for a giant swath of land in eastern Alberta. After losing his seat in the recent general election to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy, Poilievre—a career politician raised in the suburbs of Calgary—is returning to his home province in hopes of representing one of the most rural and conservative ridings in Canada. The electoral district of Battle River—Crowfoot was created in 2012 after a riding boundary redistribution. Geographically, the area is bigger than Switzerland, stretching across the distance between Calgary and Edmonton, just east of Highway 2, all the way to the Saskatchewan border. Three-term member of Parliament Damien Kurek officially resigned his seat there in June, after winning more than 80 percent of the vote in April. Prime Minister Mark Carney has called a by-election for August 18. According to the 2021 census, the riding features a population just north of 100,000, spread across dozens of small communities. It has a population density of just over two people per square kilometre—a far cry from the 111.5 of Poilievre’s former riding of Carleton. Only 6 percent of the population identified as a visible minority. It’s home to many farming communities and the much-maligned (or beloved, depending on whose dad you ask) rock band Nickelback. The area also boasts Canada’s last still-standing wooden coal tipple, along with the town of Drumheller, famous for the Royal Tyrrell Museum and accompanying dinosaur kitsch. It also includes the town of Wainwright. Battle River—Crowfoot is also arguably one of if not the most staunchly conservative ridings in Canada. Since the Conservative Party’s creation in 2003, it has never received less than 80 percent of the vote there (or in its predecessor riding, Crowfoot) except once, in 2021, though Kurek still rolled to victory with more than 70 percent of the vote.

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But while Poilievre is largely expected to coast to victory in the by-election, planting a federal leader into one of Canada’s most conservative ridings in the midst of a surge in Alberta separatism may not be so simple for the long term. Clark Banack, director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities at the University of Alberta, lives in the riding. He says the electoral district has such a long and solid Conservative voting history due to two key pillars of Albertan—and particularly rural Albertan—identity: freedom and populism. “There’s that idea of individual freedom and freedom from government overreach . . . it’s rooted in the idea of the frontier and in the particular type of evangelical Christianity that took root here,” he says. “Then the other side is that they’re populist in the sense that people here believe in the virtue of the ordinary people and the capacity of ordinary people to solve problems, to be able to make good decisions, for their communities, for their province, for their country,” he says. “And for citizens here, it’s the Conservatives, however imperfectly, that represent these types of cultural concerns far better than the Liberals or certainly the New Democratic Party.” That sentiment is part of what makes Battle River—Crowfoot the definition of a “safe seat” for Poilievre to run in. Lisa Young, a University of Calgary political science professor, had initially speculated that the Conservatives might try to run Poilievre in his hometown of Calgary. “Either they couldn’t get somebody to step aside for him or there was concern that Calgary wasn’t solidly conservative enough,” she suggests. “And so they ended up going to an electoral district where the support for the Conservatives is absolutely overwhelming.” Banack says that while Poilievre is vying to replace a beloved member of the local community, and some residents might feel resentment at a federal leader dropping in from out east to replace him, many others who are deeply invested in the Conservative Party will feel a sense of pride at having a federal leader represent them. “They understand that our system is set up in a way that [Kurek had] very little room to voice those local concerns in any kind of meaningful way,” he says. “Even though most everyone understands [Poilievre is] not local, he is at least a representative that will theoretically have some clout within this system that tends to freeze out the vast majority of members of Parliament.” But Poilievre will have to navigate a difficult dance between his prospective new riding’s federal, provincial, and individualistic interests. Alberta has seen a resurgence in separatist rhetoric in recent months, largely coming from right-wing voters in rural areas like Battle River—Crowfoot who are upset with the federal Liberal Party. Premier Danielle Smith, pressured by the interest in these sentiments in the further right corners of her party, has played ball with the separatists. She recently launched a new panel focused on ways Alberta can assert autonomy and shield its economy from what she calls federal overreach, and she has promised some sort of referendum on Alberta’s autonomy in the coming year. Banack suggests the media is fixating too much on Alberta separatism—he points to the recent poor showing from a separatist party candidate in a provincial by-election—and says Poilievre could benefit from the anti-Liberal sentiment being stoked at the provincial level, so long as he treads carefully. “He’s not going to lose this riding, but he wants to be the Prime Minister of Canada,” Banack says. “He’ll have to be careful not to offend all those voters he needs in central Atlantic Canada by moving, you know, too far down the ‘Alberta is sorely mistreated’ route.” No one is pretending this is a long-term arrangement—even Kurek himself said when resigning his seat that he looks forward to running in Battle River—Crowfoot again in the next federal election. So the people of the riding seem to be getting a short-term loan of the Tory leader. Banack suggested that the party is wholly focused on getting Poilievre into the House of Commons and will likely sort out his long-term political home after that. “I don’t think Pierre Poilievre has the long-term ambitions of moving to Wainwright and living out his days here,” Banack says. “I don’t think anybody anticipates that being the case.”The post Poilievre Is Parachuting into Rural Alberta to Win Back His Seat first appeared on The Walrus.