![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/calgary_herald_articles_312\/a93f3d0f62d8e64de76c5df42629715c.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nCalgary-Shaw voters will head to the polls Sept. 14 to elect a new MLA for the south suburban Calgary riding, following former UCP cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz’s decision to step away from provincial politics earlier this year.<\/p>\n
While it won’t affect the balance of power in the Alberta legislature, the upcoming vote is seen by some political observers to be a bellwether for next year’s provincial election, and a litmus test for public support of the governing United Conservative Party’s track record ahead of October’s referendum.<\/p>\n
Although byelections traditionally see a low voter turnout and public interest, Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams feels the Calgary-Shaw byelection will attract more attention than others have.<\/p>\n
“This actually could be a really interesting race, even though a lot else is going on in Alberta politics at the same time,” she said.<\/p>\n
With the Calgary-Shaw vote happening just five weeks before a province-wide referendum that includes a question on Alberta’s potential secession from Canada, Williams said the topic of separation will likely simmer in the background.<\/p>\n
She noted the UCP candidate has been endorsed by a prominent Alberta separatist \u2014 an association the NDP has already latched onto in its early campaign rhetoric.<\/p>\n
“It could be that separation becomes an issue in this particular riding,” Williams said.<\/p>\n
The fact the former MLA had a high profile \u2014 Schulz was a two-term cabinet minister who also challenged for the UCP leadership in 2022 \u2014 will also heighten public interest in the byelection to replace her, Williams said.<\/p>\n
Calgary-Shaw includes communities on Calgary’s southern tip. Its communities straddle both sides of MacLeod Trail, including Shawnessy, Somerset and Silverado on the west and Legacy and Walden on the east and has about 39,000 eligible voters.<\/p>\n
The governing UCP has held the riding since 2019, though an NDP MLA served the riding when the party was in government from 2015 to 2019.<\/p>\n
“Normally, suburban ridings tend to lean a little bit more conservative, but this one was NDP in 2015,’ Williams said. “There’s sort of a moderate, centrist character to voters in that riding, so it’ll be very interesting to see if someone who seems to be associated with far-right supporters and issues suffers as a result of that.”<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday, four candidates have said they intend to run in Calgary-Shaw. Nominations for the byelection close on Aug. 27.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mike Derry won the UCP nomination for Calgary-Shaw on June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mike Derry is representing the UCP in the race<\/a>, while the NDP’s candidate is Kyle Campbell. Alberta Liberal Party leader John Roggeveen is also running, while Kyle Joseph is seeking the nomination for the upstart Progressive Tory Party.<\/a><\/p>\n All four candidates say they live in Calgary-Shaw, or in the case of Roggeveen, just outside of it.<\/p>\n Derry runs a talent agency and human resources consultancy, and previously worked for Telus and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. Campbell has worked in insurance and finance, Roggeveen is a lawyer and Joseph is a Grade 6 social studies teacher.<\/p>\n Derry, who wasn’t available for comment Wednesday, secured the UCP’s nomination against Ward 13 city councillor Dan McLean in late June.<\/p>\n “I’m running because Calgary-Shaw is my home and I want to give back to the community that has given my family so much,” said Derry in a recent UCP news release. “I’m listening and will continue to listen and work hard for residents, represent their priorities and make sure Calgary-Shaw has a strong voice in government.”<\/p>\n Premier Danielle Smith said Derry “knows Calgary” and understands the challenges families and businesses are facing.<\/p>\n “He will be a strong voice for Calgary-Shaw and help us keep taxes low, keep communities safe and grow an economy that continues creating good jobs,” she said in the same release. “I’m proud to have Mike on our team and I’m asking the people of Calgary-Shaw to elect him on Sept. 14.”<\/p>\n Campbell, meanwhile, launched his campaign at a park in Legacy on Wednesday morning, joined by Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi.<\/p>\n Kyle Campbell and Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi speak at a press conference in Calgary on Wednesday, August 19, 2026.<\/p>\n The first-time candidate said he was spurred to enter provincial politics after experiencing a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis three years ago, which led to him navigating the public health-care system.<\/p>\n He said that while he received incredible care, the experience showed him firsthand how strained Alberta’s health-care system has become.<\/p>\n “I spent many hours in a waiting room, and I remember thinking that no family should have to worry about whether the health-care system will be there when they need it,” Campbell told reporters, adding his cancer has been in remission for two years.<\/p>\n “That experience changed me,” he said. “It reminded me how important it is to have the government focus on things that actually matter in people’s lives, because these issues are not abstract.”<\/p>\n Until recently, Campbell was president of the Somerset Residents’ Association, which oversees the neighbourhood’s splash park. His career background is in the insurance industry.<\/p>\n Nenshi said next month’s byelection marks the first time in a year that Alberta voters will be able to send a message to the government at the ballot box.<\/p>\n “They’re the first Albertans in over a year . . . to be able to tell this government that it is not focused on the right priorities of Albertans, that it is wasting our time and money with distractions and meaningless culture wars, especially with focusing on a separatist referendum that could tear our country apart,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n The former Calgary mayor argued the UCP has taken south Calgary voters “for granted” since coming to power in 2019.<\/p>\n “They’re tired of the UCP thinking they’ll just vote for any old candidate down here that will never do anything for these neighbourhoods,” Nenshi said.<\/p>\n While the UCP and NDP represent all but one of the 87 ridings in Alberta, the byelection could also provide a litmus test for how much other parties are supported.<\/p>\n Liberal Party leader Roggeveen said voters are tired of the increasing polarization between the UCP and NDP and want more voices reflected in the legislature.<\/p>\n Alberta Liberal leader John Roggeveen will run in the Calgary-Shaw byelection.<\/p>\n “The government is not doing their job on many issues,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “They’re dropping the ball on health care, they’re dropping the ball on education and schools, and they’re running a non-binding series of referenda that are costing us a lot of money and aren’t going to change anything except scapegoat immigrants and Ottawa.<\/p>\n “They’re not running a referendum on what they should be running a referendum on, which is using the notwithstanding clause . . . four times.”<\/p>\n While Roggeveen acknowledged the Alberta Liberals echo many of the same criticisms of the UCP that the NDP and Progressive Tories do, he said his party would offer different solutions.<\/p>\n He said the NDP caters to public unions and wants more government intervention to solve the province’s issues, while the UCP panders to the oil and gas sector.<\/p>\n “We’re not always going to lean toward the government doing everything for people,” he said. “Our mindset is certainly to be more fiscally responsible than either the UCP or the NDP.<\/p>\n “We don’t see eye to eye, particularly, with the NDP on things like data centres.”<\/p>\n Joseph said he was motivated to enter the Calgary-Shaw byelection after experiencing firsthand last fall’s four-week teachers’ strike and the UCP’s subsequent use of the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back to work.<\/p>\n He said the Progressive Tories, which was created by former UCP cabinet minister Peter Guthrie after he was expelled from the government caucus last year, appealed to him more than the other parties.<\/p>\n “I always had my reservations about the NDP, especially seeing how the province was governed during their time in office,” Joseph said. Those reservations were reinforced during last fall’s teacher’s strike, when he felt the NDP used the strike as an opportunity to attack the government and turn it into a polarized issue.<\/p>\n “It became a political argument and obviously the nothwithstanding clause was invoked . . . because of the ideological discourse,” he said.<\/p>\n Catch up with the day’s headlines, curated by our editors and delivered to your email inbox at lunchtime on every business day. Sign up now for the Calgary Herald Noon News Roundup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calgary-Shaw voters will head to the polls Sept. 14 to elect a new MLA for the south suburban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16552,50960,51,13259,55593,55595,55596,55594,146,13261],"class_list":["post-174884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-alberta-separatist","tag-byelection","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-shaw","tag-john-roggeveen","tag-kyle-campbell","tag-kyle-joseph","tag-lori-williams","tag-ndp","tag-ucp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/calgary_herald_articles_312\/f98a015b7bebd0d073383be9bf38a464.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Alberta](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/calgary_herald_articles_312\/cf7f085fdd77a978223b196c8e3cc063.jpg\"\/)
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