'No democracy': Frustration with Conservatives as Calgary candidates appointed without contest

Several federal Conservative activists in northeast Calgary are criticizing their party after they'd organized and sold memberships for a year or longer in hopes of running in the election, only to watch the party appoint other candidates at the last minute in two key ridings.

There were no incumbent Conservative candidates in the new riding of Calgary McKnight or in Calgary Skyview, the lone city riding the Conservatives lost last election.

That made them hotly coveted among several local party activists and experienced politicians — but some of them are publicly expressing frustration that the party chose candidates without holding nomination contests.

And they wonder whether it will motivate the swaths of northeast voters they'd courted to refuse to support the Conservatives.

"I think this is not a fair way of treating a loyal member of your party, the person who is selling thousands of memberships, the person who's trying to make sure he can secure the seat for the party in the next election," said Naeem Chaudhry, a taxi company owner who'd hoped to run in McKnight against Liberal candidate George Chahal.

As The Hill Times reported earlier this week, Chaudhry and Ranvir Parmar both say they had been preparing their campaigns since late 2023, and formally applied last summer to be nomination contestants for the new Calgary riding. But in early March, both received letters from a party official that their applications were incomplete and they were therefore ineligible to run.

Neither received specifics about the problems with their candidate papers. Nor were they allowed to appeal.

"I don't know what's going on behind the doors, but there's no transparency," Parmar told CBC News.

Dalwinder Gill, a real estate agent, was named to carry the Conservative banner in McKnight on March 23, the eve of the election call. So was Amanpreet Singh Gill (no relation) in Calgary Skyview.

In that riding, at least eight candidates had been door-knocking, holding fundraisers and selling memberships in hopes of winning the nomination. They include Jag Sahota, who was Skyview's MP from 2019 to 2021, and Josephine Pon, a former provincial MLA and cabinet minister for the UCP.

Conservative hopefuls waited for several months for the party to schedule a nomination race, but that never happened. They learned that Amanpreet Singh Gill was being appointed shortly before the news became public.

Kamran Chaudhry (no relation to Naeem), who was also seeking the Skyview slot, criticized the party for appointing somebody who he says hadn't done any visible campaigning in the riding until his late-March announcement as the candidate.

"Right now, we're all just shocked. We put a lot of time and effort into this."

Tanveer Taj had also been seeking the Skyview nomination since September.