West Yellowhead

From the turquoise lakes of Jasper National Park through the foothills forestry towns of Hinton and Edson to the pulp-mill community of Whitecourt and the mountain-ringed isolation of Grande Cache, West Yellowhead is a riding of immense geographic scale and economic diversity. Tourism, forestry, coal, oil and gas, and pulp and paper have historically sustained employment in communities linked by the Yellowhead Highway corridor. UCP MLA Martin Long, who won the open seat in 2019 after the NDP incumbent retired, sought re-election in a campaign marked by an extraordinary wildfire emergency that forced the evacuation of Edson and parts of Yellowhead County just weeks before voting day.

Candidates

Martin Long (United Conservative)* — Originally from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Long settled near Whitecourt in Woodlands County, where he and his wife Vanessa operate a greenhouse business. He worked nine years as an operator at the Alberta Newsprint Company pulp and paper mill in Whitecourt and also worked at oil and gas drill sites. He holds a Class III power engineering certificate. During his first term, he served as Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Tourism from 2020 to 2022 and was reappointed as Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business in October 2022. He also served as Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health. He chairs Tennille's Hope Community Kitchen in Whitecourt and has been a youth leader with the Whitecourt Baptist Church.

Fred Kreiner (NDP) — A former teacher, vice-principal, and principal who worked at schools in Edson and Jasper. Kreiner also served two terms as a school trustee in the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region, was director of practicum at the University of Alberta's Faculte Saint-Jean, and served as president of the Federation of Francophone School Boards of Alberta. He grew up in Whitecourt, where his father Helmut Kreiner served as mayor from 1986 to 1992 and his mother Gertrude was a public school trustee. He lives in Jasper with his wife Helene and won the NDP nomination in December 2022.

Local Issues

The May 2023 wildfire season struck West Yellowhead during the campaign itself. In the first week of May, wildfires prompted the evacuation of more than 8,000 residents from the Town of Edson and surrounding areas of Yellowhead County. The mayor of Yellowhead County publicly called on the province to postpone the election, arguing that an active wildfire emergency was no time to be running a campaign. The evacuation order was lifted on May 8, but the experience sharpened voter attention on wildfire preparedness, forest management, and the adequacy of provincial resources deployed to protect rural and small-town communities. Residents pressed candidates on staffing levels for wildfire crews, the availability of water bombers and ground equipment, and whether fuel management programs were being implemented proactively enough.

The forestry and resource sector's evolution continued to shape the riding's economic anxieties. The Alberta Newsprint Company mill in Whitecourt, West Fraser's operations near Hinton, and coal mining operations south of Edson remained significant employers, but shifting global markets and environmental policy created uncertainty. Concerns about water contamination from coal mining surfaced locally, adding tension to the longstanding debate between resource jobs and environmental stewardship. Tourism operators in Jasper worried about the national park's environmental integrity, while workers in Hinton and Edson depended on the resource sector for their livelihoods.

Healthcare access across the riding's scattered communities was a chronic frustration. Residents of Grande Cache, Edson, Hinton, and Jasper all faced lengthy travel to reach full-service hospitals in Edmonton, and local clinics struggled with physician and nurse recruitment. Long pointed to his work as Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health, while Kreiner argued that the UCP government had failed to address the structural shortage of healthcare providers in remote Alberta. Housing affordability — particularly in Jasper, where tourism-sector workers competed for limited rental stock — also emerged as a significant concern.