Banff-Kananaskis

Banff-Kananaskis is a provincial electoral district in the Alberta Rocky Mountains and adjacent foothills, created by the 2017 Electoral Boundaries Commission when the Town of Cochrane was moved to the new Airdrie-Cochrane riding. The riding spans a large area and includes the communities of Banff, Lake Louise, Canmore, and the Springbank area, along with Banff National Park, Kananaskis Country, the Municipal District of Bighorn, and parts of Rocky View County. The riding also encompasses the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. NDP incumbent Cam Westhead, first elected in the predecessor Banff-Cochrane riding in 2015, sought re-election in this new configuration.

Candidates

Miranda Rosin (United Conservative) — Rosin held a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Regina and Shanghai Lixin University of Commerce. She was named the UCP’s candidate in November 2018, with endorsements from several UCP MLAs and Conservative MP Blake Richards.

Cameron (Cam) Westhead (NDP) — A registered nurse and former treasurer of United Nurses of Alberta Local 115 at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. Westhead was first elected in the Banff-Cochrane riding in 2015 with 43% of the vote and was nominated to run in the newly drawn Banff-Kananaskis district.

Brenda Stanton (Alberta Party) — Owner of Back to Basics Hospitality Training & Consulting, Stanton was a former president of the Canmore/Kananaskis Chamber of Commerce and former vice-chair of Tourism Canmore/Kananaskis. She held a master’s degree in tourism management from Royal Roads University and had over three decades of experience in the industry.

Gwyneth Midgley (Liberal) — The Alberta Liberal candidate in the riding.

Anita Crowshoe (Alberta Independence) — The Alberta Independence Party candidate in the riding.

Dave Phillips (Independent) — An independent candidate in the riding.

Local Issues

The tension between tourism-driven economic growth and environmental conservation defined politics in Banff-Kananaskis heading into 2019. Visitation to Kananaskis Country had increased by 70% since 2014, straining trails, campsites, and emergency services. The NDP government’s proposed Bighorn Country wildland park plan, released in November 2018, would have created new protected areas on the eastern slopes of the Rockies near Nordegg with $40 million in infrastructure funding. The proposal proved deeply divisive: conservation advocates supported it, while off-highway vehicle users, outfitters, and some rural residents opposed the additional restrictions. Several public information sessions were cancelled after reports of bullying and intimidation at consultation events. The NDP ultimately shelved the plan before the election.

Housing affordability was a crisis in the Bow Valley. By 2018, average rents for a two-bedroom unit in Banff reached approximately $1,850, and Canmore’s real estate market was increasingly unaffordable for service-sector workers. Tourism operators struggled to recruit and retain staff because employees could not afford to live in the communities where they worked. Candidates debated how the province could help mountain communities offset the costs of hosting millions of visitors annually, including the disproportionate burden on local emergency services.