Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi flips pancakes during a pancake breakfast in Calgary, on July 7.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
There is a triumphant mood in this bursting-at-the-seams Stampede city. The weather is hot, and the midway itself has never looked more jam-packed. Attendance numbers could surpass any other year, similar to the province’s population numbers.
On the roads, there are Ontario and British Columbia license plates everywhere, as interprovincial migration into Alberta continues at a blistering pace – a particularly satisfying trend given the pain of outmigration between 2016 and 2021. The economy is chugging along, led by $80-plus oil prices, but also buoyed by the potential for growth in everything from agri-foods to AI data centres. Calgary’s catastrophically broken water line is mostly fixed, to the degree that Calgarians are allowed to use a watering can in their gardens and flush again without guilt.
The Stampede parties are plentiful, including political gatherings where politicians of all stripes will share a beer or mocktail. But of course, Justin Trudeau isn’t here, as he has been for every Stampede as Liberal Leader, except during the worst two years of the pandemic.
But the unpopular Prime Minister no longer has a sanctuary in the city. The city’s lone Liberal MP, Calgary-Skyview’s George Chahal, is now a renegade by the exceptionally mild standards of the Liberal Party, having penned the letter calling for an in-person national caucus meeting to discuss the party’s devastating by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh isn’t here either. But it feels like every other politician – or everyone politics-adjacent – is.
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre gave a 40-minute speech at his party’s overflowing Heritage Park barbecue on Saturday evening, where he took gratuitous shots at political foes, from Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. He reiterated the idea of “carbon-tax [Mark] Carney” to the appreciative home audience – a reference to the former Bank of Canada governor often touted as a potential future Liberal leader – and noted the Prime Minister’s absence at Stampede festivities.
“But don’t feel offended, Calgary, that Justin Trudeau is hiding from you,” Mr. Poilievre said. “He’s actually hiding from his own caucus.”
One of the common conversations amongst politicos is what Mr. Poilievre actually intends to do – besides axing the carbon tax, of course – should his party someday form government. Those who work in climate and emission-reduction-related fields are worried about regulatory uncertainty. Even in oil and gas, there’s some confusion about a leader who talks about how he will champion Canadian energy but also laments the weakness of corporate Canada and its lobbyists.
In this political petting zoo, Danielle Smith appears to be everywhere all at once. The Alberta Premier breezes into up to 10 Stampede events each day with her impressive skills in retail politics on full display. Somehow, in rooms jammed with dozens or hundreds of people, she manages one-on-one chats with a former adviser or a newcomer to the province.
Though Ms. Smith’s Stampede schedule will taper down at the end of this week, she was at her first Stampede event eight days before the parade opener (like Christmas, the window for Stampede – which officially runs from July 5 to 14 this year – has spread, with parties being scheduled earlier and earlier out). The province is likely three years away from an election, but the fiercest of political competitions is already on, with new Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi showing up – and attracting admirers – at several of the same Stampede parties as the Premier.
Political strategist Stephen Carter said he’s never seen a Stampede as energetic and generous as this. “There’s no cash bars, which has been pretty great.” He describes people as happy, but angry at “all the governments.”
There is still great unease. The Uber drivers – many of them who have moved here in the last few months, I know this both by speaking to them and by their city navigation skills – are raking in the dollars. One I met is using vacation time from his regular job to work every day during the jackpot that is Stampede. Several have said it’s more expensive to live in Alberta than they thought it would be – housing costs are going up, and it’s not easy to find a steady paycheque.
The now-annual worry of high temperatures and dry conditions means wildfire risk in many parts of the province, and Western Canada, is extreme. The health care system is strained on a number of fronts. And even as Ms. Smith and others in her cabinet often tout Alberta’s success in attracting people from across the country and around the world, there are growing worries about how to house, school and transport the 500 new people who arrive in the province each day. After this kind of heat, there’s often a storm on the horizon.