Edmonton—St. Albert, AB — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Edmonton—St. Albert

This was one of six Alberta seats with no incumbent on the ballot. It joined the city of St. Albert, on the Sturgeon River just beyond Edmonton's northern boundary, to a band of Edmonton neighbourhoods running from Calder, Rosslyn and Lauderdale in the mature inner north-west out to Dunluce, Baturyn, Beaumaris, Caernarvon, the Palisades and the redeveloping Griesbach lands.

Candidates

Brent Rathgeber (Conservative) — Rathgeber, an Edmonton lawyer born in Melville, Saskatchewan in 1964, won the Conservative nomination to succeed the retiring member. He had already served in elected office as the Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Calder from 2001 until his defeat in 2004, and he campaigned on fiscal restraint and accountability in federal spending — themes that sat comfortably with the record of the member he was seeking to replace.

Dave Burkhart (NDP) — A technical writer living in St. Albert, Burkhart was the only major-party candidate resident in the city that formed the larger half of the riding. He argued the New Democrats offered the more credible alternative in a constituency where the Liberal organisation had thinned.

Sam Sleiman (Liberal) — Sleiman worked as an executive director for international markets and lived in Edmonton. He campaigned on trade and economic diversification at a moment when global credit markets were seizing up.

Peter Johnston (Green) — Johnston installed flooring for a living and carried the Green Party's platform into a race dominated by the question of who would inherit a long-held Conservative seat.

About the Riding

John Williams had represented this territory since 1993, first for Reform, then the Canadian Alliance and the Conservatives, and had announced in August 2006 that he would not seek another term. His years as chair of the Commons public accounts committee from 1997 to 2005 covered the period in which that committee pursued the federal sponsorship program, and he had founded the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption in 2002. His departure opened the nomination that Rathgeber won and made the riding one of the few in the province where the Conservative candidate was a newcomer.

St. Albert counted 57,719 residents at the 2006 census and consistently registered among the highest household incomes and education levels in the Edmonton region. The city began in 1861 as a Métis and Oblate mission founded by Father Albert Lacombe, whose small log chapel above the Sturgeon still stands as the oldest building in Alberta. Its trail network along the river, its outdoor farmers' market — the largest in western Canada — and its schools were the features residents cited most often, and many working adults commuted into Edmonton each day, to government offices, the University of Alberta, hospitals and downtown firms.

The Edmonton neighbourhoods carried a different profile. Calder grew up around the Canadian Northern rail yards and remained a working-class district; Rosslyn and Lauderdale dated from the 1950s and 1960s; the Palisades and Dunluce were newer. Canadian Forces Base Griesbach had closed in 2000 and the land passed to the Canada Lands Company, and by 2008 the site was being rebuilt as a mixed residential community, bringing new households into the riding's southern corner.

Commuting dominated local politics. St. Albert Trail carried heavy traffic into Edmonton every morning, and questions about the Anthony Henday ring road's northern leg, regional transit and shared servicing costs between the two municipalities ran through the campaign. Provincial politics also cast a shadow: Albertans had gone to the polls in March, and a second campaign within seven months left organisers on all sides struggling to raise interest across the Edmonton area.