CALGARY – Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and other conservative voices are linking the upcoming separation vote to the governing United Conservative Party’s shocking byelection loss in one of its Calgary stronghold ridings.
Kenney, in posts on social media, says the Opposition NDP’s victory Monday night in Calgary-Shaw sends a strong message about the Oct. 19 referendum’s impact on conservative supporters.
He says the debate on quitting Canada is alienating conservative voters who also love Canada while pushing disaffected nationalist supporters into the arms of left-centre opponents such as the NDP.
“Folks planning to vote ‘to send a message’ by starting the separation process: please take note of the NDP’s win tonight in the most conservative part of urban Canada,” Kenney wrote on X early Tuesday.
“A vote to separate is a vote to help the NDP win the next provincial election, and for the Liberal Party of Canada to win far more Alberta seats.”
Kenney, who won multiple elections representing the people of south Calgary as both a provincial and a federal politician, said the one thing he knows for sure is that “the overwhelming majority (of them) are proud, patriotic Canadians.”
Other prominent conservatives also weighed in on social media.
Ken Boessenkool, a long-time conservative strategist, said he reads the byelection result as voters being unhappy they’re dealing with separatism at a time when more serious issues need addressing.
The UCP loss, he wrote on X, is “a welcome rebuke for distracting Albertans with a foolish, dangerous and undemocratic referendum.”
Boessenkool was a signatory of the famous 2001 Alberta firewall letter calling for more autonomy from Ottawa.
Michael Solberg, a former staffer to former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, said on X that the NDP win sends a compelling message.
“The growing brand of rage-farming ‘conservative’ who supports separation and pushes conspiracy theories and fake narratives is UNELECTABLE anywhere,” said Solberg.
“The people are never wrong.’
Cory Morgan, a conservative commentator who leads a third-party advertising outfit pushing for the province to separate from Canada, said the results show Premier Danielle Smith has angered her base, prompting many to stay home for the byelection.
“What I see here is the result of Smith trying to play on both sides of the unity issue,” Morgan wrote on X.
Smith has said she had no choice but to put separation on the referendum ballot and put the contentious issue to rest.
The question asks voters whether Alberta should stay in Canada or hold a second binding referendum on setting up the process to quit Confederation.
Opponents say Smith has no mandate to quit Canada, that there is no raging public debate to leave, and that she is just doing it to hold at bay separatist hardliners in her party.
During the byelection campaign, NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said voters should choose his party and send a message to the premier that they don’t want a government that caters to separatists.
The new legislature member for Calgary-Shaw is Kyle Campbell. In unofficial results Monday night, the NDP candidate received 7,461 votes, while Mike Derry with the UCP received 6,879.
The riding, created in 1986, has long voted Conservative. The NDP has won the seat only once, in 2015, as part of the “orange wave” that brought former premier Rachel Notley into government.
The byelection was called after former UCP cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz resigned in May.
Progressive Tory candidate Kyle Joseph came in third place with 978 votes.
Political scientist Lori Williams called the result a “significant loss” for Smith, but also said it’s difficult to take firm lessons from byelections.
Williams, with Mount Royal University in Calgary, said that since forming government isn’t on the line, voters have more freedom to send a message than they would in a general election.
“It’s some combination of endorsement of or support for the NDP, and sending a message to the government that voters aren’t happy with the job that they’re doing currently,” Williams said in an interview.
Williams agreed that the upcoming referendum played a role in the NDP’s win, adding that the UCP candidate being endorsed by some in the independence movement could have been an additional liability.
But she also said perceptions of Smith’s performance on long-standing priorities for Albertans like health care and affordability played a significant role.
“I think it’s that sort of one-two punch that’s really generated the result in this by-election,” she said.
“Voters have sent a message that they don’t think she’s performing on the files.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2026.
— By Jack Farrell in Edmonton
