ATHABASCA — With pundits speculating a federal election writ will drop at any moment, New Democrats in the Lakeland riding have declared their candidate.
Current Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs has handily won the Lakeland riding in the last two elections, but the federal New Democratic Party is hopeful Desiree Bissonnette can be a contender for the riding that covers 31,877 square kilometres with 78,525 voters according to the 2019 statistics.
Bissonnette appeared in a nomination meeting held on Zoom Aug. 5 with a group of supporters including Alberta's single NDP MP for Edmonton-Strathcona Heather McPherson and candidate for Edmonton-Manning Charmaine St. Germain.
Conservative support is hovering around 50 per cent in Alberta, more than double what the Liberals and NDP have in the province, but Bissonnette said she is ready for the challenge as she thanked supporters for joining the meeting and now needs to collect a minimum of 50 names, addresses and signatures from electors in the riding.
Nationally, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party remains ahead of both the Tories and NDP according to an online poll held July 30 to Aug. 1 by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies.
However, in the same poll the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh is a more popular leader overall than Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, but still trails considerably behind Trudeau.
Bissonnette has not held office previously, but Stubbs is a well-respected parliamentarian who broke into politics provincially in 2004, losing to the NDP’s Raj Pannu in Edmonton-Strathcona. In 2012 in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, under the Wildrose banner, she lost to Progressive Conservative candidate Jacquie Fenske. Federally however, Stubbs shone when in 2015 she was elected in the new Lakeland riding with almost 73 per cent of the vote and then again in 2019 with just shy of 84 per cent.
The Lakeland riding encompasses Athabasca, Thorhild and Smoky Lake counties in the west and stretches east to the Saskatchewan border, including voters from the Alberta portion of Lloydminster as well as Bonnyville, St. Paul and Vermilion
Bissonnette is from Lloydminster and is a published author of the 2014 book Bruise about a school bully who starts literally seeing the pain she inflicts on others after one of her targets dies.
