Edmonton East, AB — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Edmonton East

The industrial north-east of Edmonton and the older neighbourhoods along and above the river valley made up this seat. Beverly, a coal-mining town in its own right until it amalgamated with Edmonton at the end of 1961, sat at its centre, with the heritage streets of Highlands to the west, Abbottsfield, Beacon Heights and Rundle Heights nearby, and the inner-city blocks of McCauley, Eastwood, Delton and the 118 Avenue corridor to the west of that. North of the Yellowhead Trail the riding ran out through Belvedere to the newer subdivisions of Londonderry, Kilkenny, Evansdale and Steele Heights.

Candidates

Peter Goldring (Conservative) — Goldring had won four consecutive elections since 1997, running first for Reform, then the Canadian Alliance, and after 2003 the Conservatives; between 2000 and 2004 he sat for Edmonton Centre-East before boundary changes restored the Edmonton East name. Born in Toronto in 1944, Goldring was a military police officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force between 1962 and 1965, then settled in Edmonton in 1972 and spent his working life in business there. Veterans' affairs was his long-standing file, and he had also served as the Official Opposition's critic for public works and for public housing.

Ray Martin (NDP) — Martin was the most recognisable New Democrat in the province. Born at Delia in 1941 and a teacher by training, he sat as MLA for Edmonton-Norwood from 1982 to 1993, led the Alberta NDP from 1984 to 1994 and served as Leader of the Opposition in the Legislature through the party's stronger showings in 1986 and 1989. He returned to the Legislature as MLA for Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview in 2004 and held the seat until losing it that March, entering the federal race seven months later in territory he had represented provincially.

Stephanie Laskoski (Liberal) — A student living in Edmonton, Laskoski ran for a party whose organisation in the riding had thinned since the 1990s.

Trey Capnerhurst (Green) — A homemaker in Edmonton, Capnerhurst was making a third campaign in a year and a half, having stood for the Greens in Edmonton East in 2006 and in Edmonton-Decore at the March 2008 provincial election.

About the Riding

Household incomes in Edmonton East trailed the city average. Rental housing made up a large share of the stock in the inner neighbourhoods, and the riding contained pockets of long-term poverty alongside blocks of newer suburban housing on its northern edge. Immigration had reshaped the area over the previous decade, with newcomers from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia settling in Abbottsfield and along the 118 Avenue corridor.

Work here meant trades, transport, warehousing and light manufacturing far more than office employment. The Yellowhead industrial belt, the rail yards, the construction trades supplying Edmonton's building boom and the fabrication shops feeding oil sands projects to the north employed much of the riding. Northlands — with Rexall Place, the racetrack and the exhibition grounds — and Commonwealth Stadium sat inside the boundary and were significant employers in their own right.

Local questions in the autumn of 2008 were concrete. The 118 Avenue revitalisation effort, begun a few years earlier, was trying to reverse decades of decline along the strip. Homelessness had become impossible to ignore in a city where rents had jumped during the boom, and shelter capacity was a recurring subject at all-candidates meetings. Employment insurance eligibility mattered in a riding full of seasonal construction work just as project cancellations began, and rising food and heating costs pressed hardest on the fixed-income households in Beverly and Delton. The contest itself was the closest thing Edmonton had to a real fight that year, pitting a four-term member against a former provincial party leader with deep roots in the same neighbourhoods.