A byelection to replace recently departed Yellowhead MP Rob Merrifield has been set for Nov. 17.
The election comes in the wake of Merrifield’s speedy departure from parliament, Sept. 17, after Premier Jim Prentice appointed him Alberta’s senior trade representative in the United States.
With a new Member of Parliament set to be sworn in in just over a month, major political parties are already scrambling to field candidates for the Yellowhead riding.
The Conservative party was the first to throw in its hat, having already held an internal election and landed on former RCMP officer Jim Eglinski as its candidate.
The 65-year-old is the former mayor of Fort St. John, B.C., and in 2001 moved back to Alberta. He was the Conservative riding association president for Yellowhead before deciding to run in the election.
He singled out growth and long-term prosperity as key issues of his campaign.
Although he won’t be officially named until Oct. 18, Hinton town councillor Ryan Maguhn will represent the Liberal Party. The 34-year-old high school teacher was born and raised in Hinton, and returned to live there in 2005.
“There’s a lot of changes that need to occur, a lot of problems that need solving,” he said in an interview Oct. 13, citing support of veterans and a stronger connection to the riding as issues he plans to campaign on.
According to the NDP’s Eric Rosehthal, the party is still searching for a candidate, and while no one has officially come forward, he hopes to have someone selected by the end of the week.
The Green Party has no riding association in Yellowhead, and no official spokesperson could be reached by press time, but former candidate Monika Schaefer said she didn’t believe the party had yet found someone to run.
Because the country-wide federal election looms just around the corner—being scheduled for Oct. 19, 2015—voters in Yellowhead county will be hitting the polls twice over the next year.
This is because when Merrifield vacated his seat Sept. 17 there was still more than a year until the next election. According to the Canada Elections Act, when a candidate leaves his or her seat with more than a year until the next federal election, a byelection must be called to fill it.
Before his departure, Merrifield had won the Yellowhead riding in the previous five elections. (He slammed his competition in the 2011 election, netting more than 75 per cent of votes.) Yellowhead is a traditionally Conservative riding, with a Tory representing it in Parliament for the last 11 years, and a mix of Reform, Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance representatives holding the seat for as long as it has existed.
But the next federal election might be a completely different story.
Every 10 years, after the census is conducted, the number of electoral districts and their boundaries are revised to reflect population shifts and growth. This process was last completed in October 2013, resulting in six new seats in Alberta.
That change means the Yellowhead riding will look slightly different in the 2015 election. A large part of the Northeast section of the riding will be chopped off, meaning Whitecourt and towns further north will no longer be included.
Additionally, the riding will snake further south than it currently does.
These changes will mean a slightly changed voting demographic in the riding, leaving future results in question.
Trevor Nichols
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