The Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, Conservative Candidate for Calgary Nose Hill, held a press conference at her campaign headquarters in Calgary on Trudeau’s Election Call on Sunday, August 15, 2021. Calgary candidates in next month’s federal election wasted no time getting to work Sunday morning after Justin Trudeau announced […]
Calgary federal election candidates hit the ground running ahead of Sept. 20 vote
Calgary candidates in next month’s federal election wasted no time getting to work Sunday morning after Justin Trudeau announced the Sept. 20 vote.
In the minutes after Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon accepted Liberal Leader Trudeau’s request to dissolve Parliament, triggering a 36-day campaign, volunteers were working the phone lines and distributing signs at Conservative Michelle Rempel Garner’s campaign office in the north Calgary community of Beddington Heights.
The candidate, running for re-election in the Calgary Nose Hill riding, echoed criticisms raised by opposition parties and Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole on the timing of an election, amid the start of a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and other fraught political issues.
“Today, as Justin Trudeau calls this election, medical experts are raising concerns about the rise of the Delta variant. Canadian citizens are in prisons in China. There are major forest fires raging,” said Rempel Garner, who cruised to victory with nearly 70 per cent of the vote in the 2019 election.
“Justin Trudeau has unnecessarily triggered this election, but I will fight for my community. I always have and I always will work to stand up for their rights.”
Meanwhile, at his Tuxedo Park office, Liberal Murray Sigler and volunteers set to work on a campaign in which the Calgary Confederation candidate acknowledged he will be an underdog.
Sigler hopes to help reverse the Liberals’ fortunes in Alberta after the party was shut out of the province entirely in the 2019 vote.
“I’m running because I believe Calgary needs a strong and effective voice in Ottawa, and I believe we need a combination of fiscal conservatism with a small-c and social progress, social justice as well,” said Sigler, a former head of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and Sport Calgary running for public office for the first time.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe we could win. It’s a long shot, but I believe we’ll be an effective voice.”
Calgary last elected Liberal MPs in 2015, when Kent Hehr and Darshan Kang won seats in Calgary Centre and Calgary Skyview, respectively; they were the first two Liberals elected in Calgary since 1968. Both faced allegations of sexual harassment, with Hehr losing his position in cabinet and Kang ejected from caucus over the charges. Both lost re-election bids in 2019.
When asked whether she was concerned the unpopularity of Premier Jason Kenney’s provincial United Conservatives would hurt the federal conservative’s chances this election, Rempel Garner said she has received a strong reception while door-knocking in the community in recent weeks.