Alberta New Democrats for Carney? It's more complicated than that

At the height of the debate about oil pipelines last decade, relations became so strained between the Alberta NDP and the federal wing that ex-premier Rachel Notley wouldn't even say she was definitely voting for Jagmeet Singh's party in 2019.

Tensions appear to have thawed. Notley, now in private life, has publicly endorsed the Edmonton Centre NDP candidate in the current campaign.

But as many Albertans can testify in early spring, sometimes strange things reveal themselves once the ice melts.

Some orange stalwarts are now seeing Liberal red. 

Stephanie McLean, a cabinet minister in Notley's 2015-19 Alberta government, is a Liberal candidate on Vancouver Island. Three-term MLA Rod Loyola quit the Alberta NDP caucus to run under Mark Carney's banner in Edmonton Gateway, although the party has since rejected him.

And Shannon Phillips, a top Notley lieutenant and former environment minister, publicly endorsed the Liberal candidate in Lethbridge, home of her former riding.

"I've never been much of a federal Liberal," the lifelong New Democrat posted on her social media page. She went on to stress her longtime friendship with candidate Chris Spearman, and that she's choosing "friendship over partisanship."

In an interview, Phillips said that many Lethbridge residents who'd supported her are also voting Liberal, but not because they're friends with Spearman. It's partly a strategic vote to stop the Poilievre Conservatives, partly a vote for Carney, she said.

"People just want to stop Poilievre and that's why you're seeing the progressive vote across the country collapse into the LPC (Liberal Party of Canada)," Phillips said.

Last time out, in 2021, Liberals secured the votes of only 15 per cent of Albertans, a distant third behind the perennially dominant Conservatives and the Singh NDP. But Liberal backing in the province has roughly doubled to 30 per cent, according to the polling averages calculated by CBC's Poll Tracker — while NDP is polling around nine per cent, or half what they got in the last federal contest.

At the organizational level, many provincial New Democrats are sticking with their federal affiliates. At least quietly.

In Edmonton, MLAs Janis Irwin and Sarah Hoffman have been out canvassing with NDP candidates Blake Desjarlais and Trisha Estabrooks (the one Notley, a former MLA, came out for). These two provincial politicians figure prominently in campaign photos the federal contenders have posted to social media.

But you won't see similar images on the Instagram accounts of Irwin and Hoffman. There's a reason for that.

Under new guidelines for New Democrat MLAs, they're permitted to campaign for federal candidates but are encouraged not to announce endorsements or post about it on social media, a provincial caucus spokesperson confirmed.