Housing and affordability top long list of voter concerns in massive Yellowhead riding
Liberals, NDP and People's Party looking to pick up what's long been a safe Conservative seat
In a riding as large and geographically diverse as Yellowhead, the challenge candidates face on the campaign trail isn't just pounding the pavement across more than 83,600 square kilometres. It's also appealing to a riding with a wide range of industries and interests.
Yellowhead covers a large section of western and central Alberta, including Banff, Canmore, Jasper, Hinton, Edson, Rocky Mountain House, Carstairs and Sundre. Across the region, large groups of voters in different towns feel a close connection to a wide range of issues: tourism in mountain towns, preserving national parks, wildfire mitigation, environmental policy, oil and gas development, as well as forestry and agriculture.
The riding as it stands is a new beast to federal politics in Alberta, after its boundaries were redrawn ahead of the 2025 election to take in Banff and Canmore, as well as portions of several counties in central Alberta.
Housing and affordability concerns
But even with sometimes wildly diverging points of view among constituents, political watchers and candidates all cited housing and affordability as the top issues on voters' minds throughout Yellowhead.
Rocky Mountain Outlook editor Greg Colgan says that with roughly 24,000 people living in the Bow Valley and more than four million tourists visiting per year, full-time residents want to know how the federal government can alleviate infrastructure pressures that stem from the booming tourism industry and offer help to develop more housing. But these interests can conflict, he noted.
"This area is tourism-based, it's heavily reliant on it. But there's also that friction happening between permanent residents that are feeling the push of having simply too many tourists, in some people's minds, compared to people who feel that there's still room to grow," said Colgan.
One positive around the new riding boundaries is that it gives a stronger, united voice to mountain towns like Jasper, Banff and Canmore that now all sit in the same electoral district, Colgan said. The result could allow the communities to more effectively advocate for problems they share.
Support for oil and gas is also a high priority in Yellowhead, said Simon Ducatel, a Sundre-based editor at The Albertan newspaper. But he has also noticed a lot of concern locally with protecting water from potential contamination created by coal mining.
Meanwhile, Alberta's relationship with the federal government is also an issue that somewhat divides voters in the area, Ducatel says, with some recognizing the importance of constructively working with Ottawa, while others argue the province has been treated poorly by the federal government.
"While conservatives in this area are a majority, they are by no means a monolith," Ducatel said.
Yellowhead's candidates
Traditionally, Yellowhead has fit the mould of a safe Conservative seat in Alberta. The Conservative Party has never received less than 60 per cent of the riding's vote since it formed in 2003.
But the riding's reputation as a safe seat made it all the more surprising when current MP Gerald Soroka was challenged for the nomination and supplanted by accountant William Stevenson, ahead of this spring's campaign.
Soroka, a politician who has worked in the area for more than two decades, served as the riding's MP since 2019, following a 12-year stint as mayor of Yellowhead County. Stevenson's political experience, on the other hand, is mostly in behind-the-scenes financial roles within the party.
Stevenson did not respond to multiple interview requests from CBC News for this story.
"As an accountant, farmer and father, William understands the issues that matter most to constituents, including affordability and crime," the Conservative Party's website says about Stevenson.
Looking to improve its fortunes in Yellowhead after a fourth place finish in 2021, the Liberals tapped Michael Fark, Jasper's director of recovery since last year's wildfire, to run in the riding.
Fark said he wants to see more meaningful work to find compromises and solutions in politics, after seeing the consequences that can come from political decisions that lose sight of the reality of situations that voters face on the ground.
"I feel that we should be holding our elected officials to a higher standard and expect more from them in terms of their understanding of the consequences in the decisions that they take," Fark said.
With a goal to focus on common causes that unite the riding across the region and across party lines, Fark argued that rural Alberta hasn't had strong representation federally for a long time from any political party.
"That is being felt quite seriously in people feeling that their views and their concerns are not heard and they're not respected," Fark said. "And that is having a consequence in terms of what we see in the discussions in Alberta, specifically around talks of separation."
Fark added the Liberal Party has to recognize there's legitimate cause for frustration in Alberta with how the party's policies have impacted Western Canada and rural Alberta in particular, and reflect on the policy decisions that have contributed to this issue.
Earlier this month, he expressed concern about his party's promise to drop national park admission fees this summer, arguing there needs to be a plan to make up for the revenue loss that will come from this decision.
The riding's NDP candidate, Avni Soma, said she plans to play the long game in Yellowhead.
Soma, who co-founded the company Farm Box, has been building relationships across the riding for more than half a year. She notes the NDP needs to start campaigns early in ridings that typically don't vote them into office, like Yellowhead, and work to develop support over time.
"To build support anywhere in rural Alberta is a long-term game. So even if I don't get in this time, I'm in it again next time. Those signs you see? You're going to see them up again in four years. Shifting a narrative takes a long time," Soma said.
Soma's campaign generated headlines earlier this month when her election signs in the Sundre area were vandalized with slurs. The NDP candidate said the vandalism came from larger political frustrations rather than issues with her specifically, and she said she was grateful to receive support from the Town of Sundre and its residents condemning the vandalism afterward.
The last two decades have largely been kinder to the NDP than to the Liberals in Yellowhead, as the New Democrats picked up more votes in 2019 and 2021, and consistently finished second behind the Tories in three federal elections between 2006 and 2011.
But in 2021, it wasn't the Liberals or the NDP that finished second in the riding. It was the People's Party of Canada.
The PPC received more than 12 per cent of the vote in Yellowhead, the highest percentage the party received in any Alberta riding in that election. Former Independence Party of Alberta leader Vicky Bayford is looking to build on that support this spring.
She argued the Yellowhead MP will likely need more than one local office and should hold regular town halls to keep up with what's affecting constituents across the entire riding.
And while Bayford agrees the cost of living and housing are major issues throughout Yellowhead, she notes what sets her party apart is a will to disengage from global organizations like the United Nations and World Health Organization.
"[Voters] want more say and not less say. They want policies to be people-driven, and not driven by people who have no interest in their communities," Bayford said.
Amid discussions around protecting Canadian sovereignty this election, Bayford wants to see a smaller government, more investment in Canada's Armed Forces and more support for businesses and entrepreneurs. She'd also like to see Alberta take on more responsibility with its own pension plan, police force and through more say on immigration.
She added that she wants the federal government to negotiate with Alberta on Senate reform and cancelling equalization. But because she believes a Conservative or Liberal government in Ottawa would never do this, Bayford argues Alberta should hold a referendum on its independence.
"If I am elected and there is a yes vote in a referendum, I will use my voice for the people to advocate for the government to approach the secession negotiations in good faith," Bayford said.
Dale Heath of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada rounds out the candidate list Yellowhead voters will have to choose from this spring.
From his experience covering the region, Colgan said he'd be shocked if the Conservatives lost Yellowhead, given the longtime support for conservative candidates in the riding. But he credits Fark's reputation and intelligence, as well as Soma's active campaigning and relationship building, as boosting both parties' profiles.
While it's odd to see the incumbent replaced in this election with Soroka sidelined, Colgan doesn't expect it to have a large impact on how voters cast their ballots.
The federal election is scheduled for Monday, April 28.
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