Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner

Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner covers the southeastern corner of Alberta, sweeping from the city of Medicine Hat southward and westward to the U.S. border, then along the international boundary to the foothills near Waterton. The riding includes the city of Medicine Hat (population approximately 63,000), Cypress County, the County of Forty Mile, Cardston County, and Warner County. Smaller communities include the towns of Redcliff, Taber, Bow Island, Cardston, Magrath, Raymond, Milk River, and the border crossing at Coutts. With a total population of approximately 103,800, the riding is one of the most geographically expansive in southern Alberta, stretching from the semi-arid shortgrass prairie of the Cypress Hills to the irrigated farmland of the Mormon Trail corridor.

Candidates

Glen Motz (Conservative) Born in 1958, Motz served 35 years with the Medicine Hat Police Service, retiring as Inspector in 2015. He entered politics in the riding's first-ever by-election on October 24, 2016, following the retirement of longtime MP Jim Hillyer's passing. He was re-elected in 2019 and served on the National Defence Committee and as Vice Chair of the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency heading into the 2021 campaign.

Jocelyn Stenger (NDP) Born in Oyen and raised in Medicine Hat, Stenger graduated from Crescent Heights High School before earning a degree in social work. Her experience in a crisis housing shelter for women led her to pursue a second degree in political science from the University of Calgary with a focus on public policy. She worked for the Canadian Labour Congress and was 35 years old at the time of the 2021 election, campaigning on telecommunications reform and a proposed Telecom Consumers' Bill of Rights.

Brodie Heidinger (PPC) The People's Party candidate in the riding, Heidinger represented the party's platform of reduced federal intervention and greater provincial autonomy in resource management.

Hannah Wilson (Liberal) Wilson carried the Liberal banner in a riding that has returned Conservative members continuously since the early 20th century, offering an alternative perspective on federal policy in the southeast.

About the Riding

Medicine Hat has long been known as "The Gas City" for the enormous natural gas reserves beneath it. The city sits atop one of Canada's oldest and most prolific shallow gas fields, first tapped in the 1880s, which for decades heated homes and powered industry at minimal cost. Rudyard Kipling famously described Medicine Hat as having "all hell for a basement" after learning of the vast gas deposits. While conventional gas production has declined from its peak, the petrochemical and greenhouse industries built on cheap energy remain important employers.

Agriculture is the riding's other economic anchor. The Eastern Irrigation District, one of Alberta's largest, channels water from the Bow River to farms across the semi-arid prairie, supporting crops including potatoes, sugar beets, canola, and specialty vegetables alongside dryland grain farming. Taber, located in the riding's western reaches, is famous for its sweet corn—marketed under the "Taber Corn" brand and celebrated annually at Cornfest. The riding also has one of Canada's highest concentrations of Hutterite colonies, communal agricultural operations that are significant producers of eggs, poultry, hogs, and grain.

Cardston, in the riding's southwest, holds particular significance for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Cardston Alberta Temple, dedicated in 1923, was the first LDS temple built outside the United States and remains an architectural landmark. The town and surrounding communities of Magrath, Raymond, and Stirling were settled by Mormon pioneers from Utah in the late 1890s, and this heritage continues to shape the cultural and social fabric of the region. In 2016, 34.9% of the riding's population reported German ethnic origin—among the highest proportions in any Canadian riding—reflecting waves of German-speaking immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia in the early 20th century.