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![\"Alberta](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a590306211e091a78c2faa7jpeg.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to reporters during the Premier’s Breakfast at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Thursday, July 16, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Amanda May Erickson<\/p>\n
Residents in the riding of Calgary-Shaw have been without a legislature representative for about two months, after former United Conservative Party cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz resigned her seat.<\/p>\n
Schulz, who served as Smith\u2019s environment minister from 2023 to the end of 2025, has since become an executive with Whitecap Resources, a major oil and gas producer in Alberta.<\/p>\n
Last month, Smith\u2019s UCP and the Opposition NDP both named candidates for the riding.<\/p>\n
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the premier\u2019s reasoning for holding off on the byelection is \u201cexceptionally bizarre\u201d and that calling it now would pique Albertans\u2019 interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when people pay attention to politics, and we would love it if she called a general election,\u201d Nenshi said.<\/p>\n
He also said he thinks Smith is waiting to call the vote, because she\u2019s afraid her party\u2019s candidate would lose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting a better response than we\u2019ve ever had in Calgary-Shaw,\u201d said Nenshi.<\/p>\n
The riding has voted conservative in all but one election since it was created in 1986.<\/p>\n
The NDP\u2019s Graham Sucha won by 101 votes in the 2015 election, as part of the so-called orange wave that brought the party under former premier Rachel Notley to power after 44 years of Progressive Conservative rule.<\/p>\n
Provincial law requires byelections to be called within six months of a seat becoming vacant, which means a vote in Calgary-Shaw must be announced by mid-November.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2013 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says a byelection in Calgary won\u2019t be called until Albertans have more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-806432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}