Spruce Grove—Stony Plain

West of Edmonton, the City of Spruce Grove and the Town of Stony Plain anchor a fast-growing commuter region that blends suburban development with an agricultural fringe. Highway 16A threads through both communities, connecting them to the provincial capital and to Parkland County's rural hinterland. The Tri-Region area had surpassed 90,000 residents by 2023, with new subdivisions, commercial strips, and recreational amenities transforming what was once a series of small highway towns into a continuous suburban corridor. UCP MLA Searle Turton, who flipped the seat from the NDP in 2019, sought a second term against a field that included a former Spruce Grove city councillor running for the NDP.

Candidates

Searle Turton (United Conservative)* — First elected in 2019 after three terms on Spruce Grove city council from 2010 to 2019. During his time as MLA, Turton served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and as private sector union liaison for the Ministry of Labour and Immigration. Before entering municipal politics, he worked in technology sales for Ricoh Canada and as a dual-ticket tradesman in construction. He also served as a director of the Spruce Grove public library board and as chairman of the TransAlta Tri Leisure Centre.

Chantal Saramaga-McKenzie (NDP) — A professional engineer with more than two decades of experience in provincial government, municipal government, and the private sector. Saramaga-McKenzie also served as a Spruce Grove city councillor and co-owns several local businesses with her husband Angus, including That Yoga Place, Phoenix Physical Therapy, and The Beer Shak. Her roots in the community run deep — her parents bought their home in the area in 1969. She defeated former Parkland County mayor Rod Shaigec to win the NDP nomination in September 2022.

Daniel Birrell (Green Party) — A Stony Plain resident who worked as an educational assistant and disability support worker before becoming a stay-at-home father. He campaigned on public education funding, mental health services, and reducing public subsidies to private schools.

Darlene Clarke (Solidarity Movement) — The Solidarity Movement of Alberta's candidate in the riding, representing a party founded by former Alberta Independence Party leader Artur Pawlowski.

Local Issues

Transportation infrastructure continued to be the most pressing concern in the Tri-Region. Highway 628 reconstruction had progressed slowly, and commuters heading east to Edmonton on Highway 16A still faced daily congestion. Residents called for accelerated timelines on road widening and interchange upgrades, arguing that suburban growth had outpaced the capacity of the existing highway network. The launch of a Tri-Region on-demand transit system in January 2023, integrating Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Acheson, and Parkland Village into a single booking platform, was a step forward for local mobility but did not address the fundamental highway bottleneck.

Healthcare access was a growing frustration. The WestView Health Centre in Stony Plain served a catchment area whose population had expanded considerably, and residents reported difficulties securing family doctors and long wait times for specialist referrals in Edmonton. Emergency room capacity and ambulance response times in a community situated well west of the capital's major hospitals were sources of anxiety, particularly for older residents and families with young children.

Affordability and housing rounded out the major issues. The Tri-Region's relative affordability compared to Edmonton had drawn waves of young families, but rising home prices, rental costs, and the strain on community infrastructure followed close behind. School capacity was a related pressure point, as new subdivisions in Spruce Grove's south end and Stony Plain's western expansion areas generated demand for schools that had not yet been funded or built.