On Monday, the Alberta provincial riding of Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills gave us a clear, unmistakeable snapshot of the elusive Alberta-separatist Sasquatch — and it turns out
he’s about the size of a Yorkshire terrier
. In 1982, Olds-Didsbury, as it then was, became
the only Alberta riding ever to elect a separatist legislator
, the still-living and still-radical Gordon Kesler. In 2025, Kesler’s latter-day successor, Conservative MLA and Assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper, resigned to take a job as Alberta’s official agent in Washington.
This forced a byelection and gave the allegedly resurgent Alberta separatist movement an electrifying opportunity to repeat history. Could the new-christened Republican Party of Alberta (RPA) duplicate the separatist coup of 1982 on the same conservative ground?
The party sent its leader, the
UCP operative Cameron Davies, to contest the byelection. Davies, who had Kesler’s endorsement,
that he would be content with 20 per cent of the vote, given that the “Republicans” only adopted their new brand in February. Speculation that the RPA might vault into second place was widespread, and, after all, the New Democrats have finished as low as sixth in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills this century (namely, in 2004’s election, in which the Separation Party of Alberta finished fourth).
Well, for better or worse, it seems it’s not 1982, or at least not early 1982, anymore. According to unofficial returns, Davies and the Republicans drew a not unimpressive 2,705 votes, but New Democratic candidate Bev Toews pulled in 3,061, and the UCP’s Tara Sawyer, an ex-chairperson of the Grain Growers of Canada, scooped up 9,363. With a “Wildrose Loyalty” die-hard candidate in the mix, Davies came up short of his hopes with a vote share under 18 per cent.
No doubt the Alberta Republicans will argue that this is a floor, not a ceiling, but the Olds-Didsbury area is their heartland, and byelections are ideal moments for protest voting if there’s any appetite for it. Two other byelections were held last night in Edmonton ridings, and the Republican candidates didn’t reach two per cent of the total there.
There was
when Danielle Smith’s UCP government made changes to the statutory cutoff for “citizen initiative” petitions that allow proposals for legislation to be put to a province-wide referendum.
that Alberta separatists would be given their day if they could reach the new, lowered cutoff for signatures.
But they still need 177,000 Albertans to sign a petition asking for a referendum, and the underwhelming RPA performance in Olds hints that they might have trouble hitting even that mark. Premier Smith, whose numbers in the polls
have enjoyed a resurgence lately
, might actually have preferred the dimensions of that Sasquatch to turn out a little more threatening to Eastern Canada when exposed to the byelection flash.
National Post
