As of press time there was still no Liberal or New Democrat opposition for incumbent Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pearl Calahasen. Seeking her fifth term, Calahasen swung into action as soon as the writ was dropped for the Nov. 22 provincial election – as did her 82 counterparts provincewide.
Signs went up immediately for the Tory incumbent, and she has an itinerary that includes at least one visit to every community in the riding.
“She’ll be spending probably about four days in Slave Lake over the course of the campaign,” says her campaign manager Gerry Allarie.
In the 2001 provincial election, Calahasen, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, defeated her Liberal challenger by about a three-to-one margin.
What sort of opposition will she have this time?
Premier Ralph Klein’s election call was hardly a surprise, but Alberta’s two other major parties are slow off the mark. As of last Friday, Kevin Taft’s Liberals and Brian Mason’s New Democrats had nobody running in the Lesser Slave Lake Constituency. But not, said Liberal media liaison Kieran LeBlanc, for lack of trying.
“We’re working really hard,” she told The Leader on Thursday.
At the end of last week the Liberals were still lacking about 13 candidates province-wide. The New Democrats had 62 listed on their website, newdemocrats.org.
With the Liberals and NDs struggling to find candidates, perhaps Calahasen’s stiffest challenge will come from elsewhere. The Alberta Alliance Party has a full slate of 83 candidates, including Val Rahn of the High Prairie area. She declared a week or so prior to the election announcement (see story in the Oct. 27 Lakeside Leader). The other declared candidate at this point is Ian Hopfe of Wabasca, representing the Alberta Green Party.
The Alliance looks like an Alberta version of the federal Reform/Alliance Party. It emphasizes MLA accountability, referendum and recall, health care and tax reform. The party also favours action to reduce utility bills for Albertans, something it shares with the Liberals, New Democrats and probably most of the parties running. For more on the Alliance check out albertaalliance.com.
Hopfe ran for the Greens in the recent federal election, picking up over 1,500 votes. It’s the second run at a provincial seat for the 26-year-old computer technician.
The Greens have a platform of unusual policies aimed at achieving their idea of a sustainable economy. It’s available at albertagreens.ca. The party did pretty well in the federal election, earning something like five per cent of the popular vote nationally. According to party organizer Mark MacGillivray, Albertans gave the Greens the second highest percentage of popular vote of any province. He predicts good things in this election.
“We have every expectation of electing one MLA this time,” MacGillivray says.
As for other parties, there are several, but no indication as to whether they will run candidates in Lesser Slave Lake. There’s the Alberta Separation Party, whose main goal is obvious. The Alberta Party looks like another Reform clone. There’s even a Reform Party, led by someone named David Salmon. Former Slave Laker Emil van der Poorten leads the Alberta Equity Party, about which more later if we can find it out.
The Marijuana Party is back in business, at least according to Kerry Diotte of the Edmonton Sun, who wrote a column about them last week. The Communist Party perseveres as well, calling for greater public ownership of industries, and antagonism towards the U.S.A. and such. The Social Credit Party, under Laverne Ahlstrom stands a pretty good chance of having a local candidate. The party that ran Alberta from 1935 to 1971 wants back in and is the only one (apart from the Tories) to have already campaigned in Slave Lake in the past few months. See what the Socreds are up to at socialcredit.com.
Nominations close at 2:00 p.m. on Nov. 8. There is no word yet on a candidates’ forum for Slave Lake.

Copyright © 2000 The Lakeside Leader. All Rights Reserved.
No part may be reproduced without written permission.

View our Privacy Statement.
Send website suggestions to the Webmaster