Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
With the countdown to the Alberta referendum started, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s governing caucus will be out in stronger numbers than usual at the Calgary Stampede.
Dozens are expected in attendance, after months of lobbying by his few Alberta MPs.
“This year, months in advance, I mentioned it to my caucus mates,” Corey Hogan, the MP for Calgary Confederation, told CBC News in an interview.
“It’s important to show up at this particular moment.”
Last year — his first as a sitting MP — Hogan said he only sent an email out to caucus a month ahead of Alberta’s marquee summer event when hotels were largely full and logistics would have been a hassle.
This year, he said he and his two fellow Alberta caucus colleagues, Matt Jeneroux of Edmonton Riverbend and Eleanor Olszewski of Edmonton Centre, have been heavily encouraging their peers to come to the Stampede.
Though he would not share names, Hogan said he has a list of 37 MPs who will attend, which he said could climb to 45.
The Stampede often sees prime ministers attend, including Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper.
But it’s rarer for nearly a fifth of Liberals, a political party that has not traditionally fared well with Alberta voters, to turn up at the event.
“It’s obviously an evolved Liberal Party,” Hogan said, pointing to Carney’s own roots in Alberta.
An opinion poll commissioned by CBC News in late April also showed Carney to be more popular than not just Trudeau in Alberta, but also multiple current political leaders, including his Conservative and NDP rivals Pierre Poilievre and Avi Lewis, as well as the province’s conservative Premier Danielle Smith.
Carney has visited Alberta multiple times, though not since Smith announced the question Albertans will be asked to answer on Oct. 19, about whether the province should remain a part of Canada or eventually hold a vote on separation.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre delivered a national unity speech in Calgary earlier this month. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
Poilievre travelled to Calgary earlier in June to deliver a speech on unity.
It is not clear how many of the Liberal MPs attending are in Carney’s cabinet.
Canadian Identity and Heritage Minister Marc Miller and Justice Minister Sean Fraser will be going, while offices for Immigration Minister Lena Diab and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said their plans are not firmed up yet.
Push comes as PMO hires adviser for Alberta
The federal government has also hired a senior adviser on Alberta, Morgan Breitkreutz, as The Globe and Mail first reported on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) told CBC News “the government’s focus on major projects and energy, which are strong priorities in Western Canada, has increased the volume of engagement in the region,” pointing specifically to the Alberta memorandum of understanding outlining steps toward building a new pipeline as “highly consequential.”
The statement said “the role is meant to provide a dedicated point person to manage engagement with external partners in Alberta, though it is supported by many members of the team in PMO and across government.”
Key dates related to the Alberta MOU also intersect both with the timing of the Stampede — which runs from July 3 to July 12 — and the referendum itself.
By Canada Day, the provincial government is supposed to present its plan to build a pipeline for consideration as a project in the national interest under the federal government’s Building Canada Act.
Ottawa is set to make a decision on that file by Oct. 1, just 18 days before the Alberta referendum.