Federal byelection in Alberta draws more than 14,000 early voters
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Elections Canada says an estimated 14,452 voters made their way to the advance polls.
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is running in Battle River—Crowfoot after losing his Ottawa-area seat in the April election to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy.
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Damien Kurek resigned his seat in the riding after winning more than 82 per cent support in the April 28 election.
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CBC
13 minutes ago
- CBC
What's at stake for Pierre Poilievre in this Alberta byelection?
Monday is byelection day in the central Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is trying to regain a seat in the House of Commons. Kathleen Petty, the host of CBC's West of Centre podcast, breaks down what it could mean for Poilievre and the House when it resumes next month.
Global News
4 hours ago
- Global News
Byelection day in Alberta nears for vote with 214 candidates, including Poilievre
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and 213 others vying for a seat in the House of Commons will be in the spotlight Monday, as voters in a rural Alberta riding head to the polls. Two political science professors say Poilievre is expected to handily win the byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot, a sprawling eastern Alberta riding stretching from Edmonton to Calgary. The riding and its previous incarnations have been a Tory stronghold for a century. They say the only question is: by how much? 'In every election from 2004 to 2025, the vote share garnered by the Conservatives' winning candidate has been at least 80 per cent,' said Julie Simmons with the University of Guelph in Ontario. The one exception was in 2021, when Conservative incumbent Damien Kurek got 71 per cent of the vote, largely due to the right-wing People's Party of Canada eating up some of his votes, Simmons said. Story continues below advertisement 'This is just certainly an exceptionally strong riding for the Conservative Party,' she said. Lori Williams, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said Poilievre needs to not only win the riding but do it 'decisively,' so electors can trust he'll be a good Opposition leader and pass his January leadership review. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'He absolutely needs to sail over this hurdle,' she said. 'But if he clears this one, he's then got to clear the, 'How am I going to be an effective Opposition leader in this climate? How can I be pro-Canadian and critical of the government?'' The byelection was called in June after Kurek, who won the seat again in the April general election with 83 per cent of votes, stepped down to allow Poilievre to run. Poilievre lost his long-held Ottawa-area seat to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy. Simmons said if Poilievre sees less than the average percentage of votes Conservatives have received in the last few elections, it could be because of vocal challengers like Independent candidate Bonnie Critchley. The military veteran has described Poilievre as a parachute candidate who only wants to represent the riding to progress his political career. Poilievre was born and raised in Calgary but has lived in Ottawa for the last two decades. Story continues below advertisement A majority of the candidates on the ballot are part of the Longest Ballot Committee, a protest group calling for various changes to Canada's election system. They could also put a dent in Poilievre's vote share, Simmons said. 'For some people, this might be a protest vote against the Conservative Party,' she said. Other candidates include Darcy Spady, from the energy sector, for the Liberals. The NDP's Katherine Swampy is a former band councillor for Samson Cree Nation. Also running for the seat is Libertarian Party candidate Michael Harris, who wants to win so a referendum over whether Alberta should separate from the rest of Canada can make headway. Thick coil-bound, 32-page laminated booklets listing the record 214 candidates are to be available at voting stations. Elections Canada has said, for the first time ever in Canadian history, it's using a blank ballot because there are too many candidates to put on the piece of paper. Voters won't be marking a box with an X. Instead, they must hand write the name of their preferred candidate in a blank space. If a voter misspells a candidate's name, Elections Canada said it will still be counted. More than 14,000 people out of almost 86,000 registered voters cast votes in advance polls. Story continues below advertisement A spokesperson for Poilievre's campaign has said the party leader plans to be in Camrose, the riding's largest municipality, on Monday Elections Canada said counting on election night is expected to take longer than usual.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel's plant raises questions about its future, despite heavy investment
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The fatal explosion last week at U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh-area coal-processing plant has revived debate about its future just as the iconic American company was emerging from a long period of uncertainty. The fortunes of steelmaking in the U.S. — along with profits, share prices and steel prices — have been buoyed by years of friendly administrations in Washington that slapped tariffs on foreign imports and bolstered the industry's anti-competitive trade cases against China. Most recently, President Donald Trump's administration postponed new hazardous air pollution requirements for the nation's roughly dozen coke plants, like Clairton, and he approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15 billion acquisition by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel's promised infusion of cash has brought vows that steelmaking will continue in the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh long synonymous with steelmaking. 'We're investing money here. And we wouldn't have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren't absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley,' David Burritt, U.S. Steel's CEO, told a news conference the day after the explosion. 'You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.' Will the explosion change anything? The explosion killed two workers and hospitalized 10 with a blast so powerful that it took hours to find two missing workers beneath charred wreckage and rubble. The cause is under investigation. The plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America and, along with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, is one of a handful of integrated steelmaking operations left in the U.S. The explosion now could test Nippon Steel's resolve in propping up the nearly 110-year-old Clairton plant, or at least force it to spend more than it had anticipated. Nippon Steel didn't respond to a question as to whether the explosion will change its approach to the plant. Rather, a spokesperson for the company said its 'commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong' and that it sent 'technical experts to work with the local teams in the Clairton Plant, and to provide our full support.' Meanwhile, Burritt said he had talked to top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that 'this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.' U.S. Steel officials maintain that safety is their top priority and that they spend $100 million a year on environmental compliance at Clairton alone. However, repairing Clairton could be expensive, an investigation into the explosion could turn up more problems, and an official from the United Steelworkers union said it's a constant struggle to get U.S. Steel to invest in its plants. Besides that, production at the facility could be affected for some time. The plant has six batteries of ovens and two — where the explosion occurred — were damaged. Two others are on a reduced production schedule because of the explosion. There is no timeline to get the damaged batteries running again, U.S. Steel said. Accidents are nothing new at Clairton Accidents are nothing new at Clairton, which heats coal to high temperatures to make coke, a key component in steelmaking, and produces combustible gases as byproducts. An explosion in February injured two workers. Even as Nippon Steel was closing the deal in June, a breakdown at the plant dealt three days of a rotten egg odor into the air around it from elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, the environmental group GASP reported. The Breathe Project, a public health organization, said U.S. Steel has been forced to pay $57 million in fines and settlements since Jan. 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant. A lawsuit over a Christmas Eve fire at the Clairton plant in 2018 that saturated the area's air for weeks with sulfur dioxide produced a withering assessment of conditions there. An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he 'found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.' The Clairton plant, he wrote, is 'inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design.' U.S. Steel settled, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades. Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, said U.S. Steel has shown more willingness to spend money on fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe. Will Clairton be modernized? It's not clear whether Nippon Steel will change Clairton. Central to Trump's approval of the acquisition was Nippon Steel's promises to invest $11 billion into U.S. Steel's aging plants and to give the federal government a say in decisions involving domestic steel production, including plant closings. But much of the $2.2 billion that Nippon Steel has earmarked for the Mon Valley plants is expected to go toward upgrading the finishing mill, or building a new one. For years before the acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley was on the chopping block. That left workers there uncertain whether they'd have jobs in a couple years and whispering that U.S. Steel couldn't fill openings because nobody believed the jobs would exist much longer. Relics of steelmaking's past In many ways, U.S. Steel's Mon Valley plants are relics of steelmaking's past. In the early 1970s, U.S. steel production led the world and was at an all-time high, thanks to 62 coke plants that fed 141 blast furnaces. Nobody in the U.S. has built a blast furnace since then, as foreign competition devastated the American steel industry and coal fell out of favor. Now, China is dominant in steel and heavily invested in coal-based steelmaking. In the U.S., there are barely a dozen coke plants and blast furnaces left, as the country's steelmaking has shifted to cheaper electric arc furnaces that use electricity, not coal. Wednesdays What's next in arts, life and pop culture. Blast furnaces won't entirely go away, analysts say, since they produce metals that are preferred by automakers, appliance makers and oil and gas exploration firms. Still, Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant really will survive much longer, given its age and condition. It could be particularly vulnerable if the economy slides into recession or the fundamentals of the American steel market shift, he said. 'I'm not quite sure it's all set in stone as people believe,' Briem said. 'If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?' ___ Follow Marc Levy on X at
