The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - April 27, 2025


Albertans cast advance ballots in record numbers


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

170.53642

Word Count

1,562

Sentence Count

81

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Canada's federal election will occur tomorrow, on Monday, April 28th, and True North will
00:00:15.000 be providing content from across the nation.
00:00:17.560 As for this show, we'll take a quick look at what we learned from advanced polling and
00:00:21.560 the large proportion of Albertans that voted ahead of election day.
00:00:25.320 The Edmonton Centre riding will also be an interesting riding to watch this election,
00:00:29.600 as this will determine who takes over Randy Boissoneau's seat after he was forced to
00:00:33.880 step down in November by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following Boissoneau's many
00:00:38.920 scandals.
00:00:39.920 We'll also explore how China is turning to Alberta for oil due to its ongoing trade war
00:00:45.040 with the United States, and remind you about Mark Carney's ties with China.
00:00:49.600 My name's Isaac Lamoureux, and I'll cover all of these stories on the Alberta Roundup
00:00:53.200 today.
00:00:54.200 Let's hop into that first story now.
00:00:55.700 So while there's not much time left to speculate about the election results, as we'll know who
00:00:59.480 Canada's next Prime Minister is by tomorrow, Alberta is looking like it will be more blue
00:01:04.400 than the rest of the country.
00:01:06.280 As of Thursday's projections, 338 Canada projects that Alberta would see 31 out of 37 federal
00:01:12.960 districts go Conservative, with 5 to the Liberals and 1 to the NDP.
00:01:17.760 While I know it may be surprising that the NDP will win a seat given their party's downfall,
00:01:22.840 this is of course projected in Edmonton Strathcona, an NDP bastion both federally and provincially.
00:01:28.760 Rachel Notley dominated the seat provincially between 2008 and 2024, and it has been similarly
00:01:34.560 held federally since then.
00:01:36.560 Currently, in Alberta, the Liberals hold two seats, as do the NDP, while the Conservatives
00:01:41.440 hold 30 for a total of 34 districts.
00:01:44.240 However, Alberta will be home to 37 districts this federal election.
00:01:48.560 Two of the districts expected to lean towards the Liberals are in Calgary, while one is in
00:01:52.800 Edmonton, in the Edmonton Centre riding.
00:01:55.360 Then, 338 Canada has three Calgary ridings as toss-ups between the Liberals and Conservatives.
00:02:00.360 Edmonton has five toss-ups between the two parties.
00:02:03.360 Every single riding outside of the two major cities in Alberta is considered to be a safe
00:02:08.440 Conservative seat.
00:02:09.360 Still, no other region is projected to have a Conservative representation like Alberta.
00:02:14.400 In second place is the Prairies, which is projected to have 19 out of 28 federal districts be Conservative,
00:02:20.040 followed by seven Liberal ridings and two NDP ridings.
00:02:23.160 Overall, however, 338 Canada is projecting a Liberal majority as of Thursday.
00:02:29.040 But some have raised concerns about Canada's most popular poll aggregator.
00:02:32.880 Juneau News conducted its own poll, showing the Liberals and Conservatives were in a dead
00:02:36.800 tie at 39% as of Wednesday.
00:02:39.560 Juneau News' poll was conducted by one persuasion among 1,507 Canadians, with a margin of error
00:02:46.120 of 2.5%, 19 times out of 20.
00:02:49.480 Juneau News also ran a seat model, which projected a Liberal minority.
00:02:53.920 Some have suggested online that the record-breaking numbers at advanced polling proves that Canadians
00:02:58.840 are eager for change and that the polls may be wrong, similar to what happened with Kamala Harris
00:03:04.160 in the United States.
00:03:05.520 Elections Canada estimated that around 7.3 million Canadians casted their advanced ballots
00:03:11.440 between April 18th and 21st, which was a new record and a 20% increase in turnout at advanced
00:03:17.400 polls compared to 2021.
00:03:19.680 As for the provinces that saw the biggest representation of voters show up in advance, I ran some rough
00:03:24.360 calculations based on slightly outdated total electoral lists, but the Atlantic region actually
00:03:29.480 came out ahead, with around 33% of PEI voters showing up in advance, followed by 32% of those
00:03:36.040 in New Brunswick, and around 27% of Albertan voters casted their ballots in advance.
00:03:41.400 The lowest percentage of a population that voted in advance was in Nunavut, where only around 4.5%
00:03:47.000 of residents went in advance. Maybe that's because they aren't expecting big waits on election day.
00:03:52.680 Over the advanced polling period, some Canadians reported waiting for hours in line.
00:03:57.800 We saw a few interesting advanced polling stories come out of Alberta.
00:04:01.320 Firstly, the polling station in Crossfield saw such a high turnout that the station ran out of ballots.
00:04:08.520 A spokesperson for Elections Canada told True North that they were notified of the shortage
00:04:13.080 and that it was rectified within the hour.
00:04:15.880 There were also complaints about two Northern Albertan villages from residents who had their
00:04:20.680 polling stations removed and had to end up driving long distances to their closest station.
00:04:25.800 Elections Canada also revealed that they were still short hundreds of volunteers in four
00:04:30.280 Alberta ridings. Hopefully the problem can be sorted and no issues occur on election day.
00:04:35.800 But moving on to our next story now, we'll take a quick look into a specific Albertan riding.
00:04:41.240 Despite resigning from cabinet in November, Randy Boissoneau did not vacate his seat as the MP for
00:04:47.080 Edmonton Centre. However, he did announce in March that he would not be seeking re-election.
00:04:52.200 Despite the many controversies that plagued Randy, the new Liberal candidate, Eleanor Olszewski,
00:04:57.640 will be in a tight race with Conservative candidate Saeed Ahmed.
00:05:01.480 Going back to polling, as of Thursday, 338 Canada has the writing at 43% votes Liberal,
00:05:06.680 38% Conservative, and 16% NDP. The poll aggregator gives the Conservatives a 22%
00:05:13.720 chance of winning the writing. The Liberals replaced Boissoneau, who had the controversy
00:05:18.040 surrounding his company, getting federal contracts, and his false Indigenous claims. However, they
00:05:23.640 replaced him with Olszewski, a senior lawyer, army reservist, and pharmacist. Saeed Ahmed is a senior
00:05:29.480 official in the Alberta Department of Health and came to Canada after being born into famine and civil war
00:05:35.160 in Somalia. Since the last election, the writing's boundaries have shifted, meaning the Conservatives
00:05:40.360 would have actually won by 700 votes under its current boundaries. The NDP also did pretty well
00:05:46.200 in the last election, and are expected to perform much worse this time around. The writing of Edmonton's
00:05:51.480 downtown core has a younger population than average, with only 16% of people being 65 or older. Nearly 3 in
00:05:58.440 10 households in the writing make $100,000 yearly or more, and a third of the population are visible
00:06:04.440 minorities. Definitely a hot seat to watch, and we'll see whether that seat will flip from the
00:06:09.720 Liberals to the Conservatives, or whether people will forget about Randy. But hopping into our next
00:06:14.680 story, which is about China turning away from US oil and ramping up Canadian imports. According to
00:06:21.000 Bloomberg, Chinese refiners have slashed US oil purchase by roughly 90% in recent months, while setting
00:06:28.200 new records for Canadian imports. In March alone, 7.3 million barrels were shipped from Canada's Pacific
00:06:34.840 coast to China, a figure expected to grow further this month. Conversely, Chinese oil imports from the
00:06:41.560 US have fallen from 29 million barrels in June to 3 million barrels monthly. Bloomberg said that the
00:06:47.720 turning point came after the Trans Mountain Expansion Project opened last May, increasing Albertan oil
00:06:53.240 exports to British Columbia's Pacific coast, and expanding access to Alberta's oil sands for Asian
00:06:59.160 buyers. China still imports more oil from Russia and the Middle East than from North America. Still,
00:07:04.680 Canadian oil sands provide reliable and quality crude oil that China's refineries can process,
00:07:09.640 while reducing China's reliance on coal and other climate-damaging energy sources. The surge in Canadian
00:07:15.320 oil exports comes amid rising scrutiny of Liberal leader Mark Carney's anti-oil stance and ties to China.
00:07:22.040 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith previously called out Carney for his continuous flip-flop on Canada's
00:07:27.240 energy future and his vague, non-committal responses on key issues. She said, quote,
00:07:32.840 So it would appear Carney is now just fine with Canada continuing to be 100% reliant on the United
00:07:38.520 States to purchase all of our oil and gas, and to purchase all of the fuel used by Ontario and Quebec
00:07:43.880 from the US through Line 5. Carney had previously told Smith he opposed Bill C-69, dubbed the No More Pipelines
00:07:50.840 bill, only to reverse course later and defend it. He also flip-flopped on supporting an oil and gas
00:07:56.120 production cap, changing his position within days. Smith previously said, quote,
00:08:01.160 This has been the same story for the last 10 years. Liberals come to Alberta, smile for the cameras,
00:08:06.200 tell everyone how much they are going to work with Alberta and support the energy sector. Then they
00:08:10.520 leave, go home, and proceed to do everything in their power to roadblock and scare away investment from
00:08:16.040 the energy sector. Conservative leader Pierre Polyèvre has been calling out Carney's inconsistent energy
00:08:21.560 positions and foreign entanglement for years. Polyèvre said to Carney during a 2021 committee
00:08:26.600 hearing, quote, It's a double standard. You make billions of dollars off foreign pipelines and you
00:08:31.960 shut them down here at home, putting our people out of work. He also said that China was helping Carney
00:08:37.560 in this election. Polyèvre said, quote, Beijing has interfered both in the liberal leadership race,
00:08:42.760 helping Mark Carney, and again in the general election to support Mr. Carney. The election
00:08:47.640 results could affect Canada's future with China and the United States. The results, of course,
00:08:52.840 will be in tomorrow. And again, True North will be covering it from coast to coast during election day.
00:08:58.920 That wraps up this week's show. My name's Isaac Lamoureux,
00:09:01.880 your host of the Alberta Roundup. Have a great weekend, thank you, and God bless.
00:09:07.560 Thank you.