Incumbent Motz will face at least three challengers

By Collin Gallant on March 25, 2025.

The field of candidates is starting to fill out in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner after a general election was called on the weekend, and campaigning has already begun.

Incumbent Glen Motz will seek a fourth election win for the Conservative Party of Canada when Canadians go to the polls April 28.

Three challengers have publicly declared they will seek to win the region’s seat in parliament.

Jocelyn Johnson will run in her second local election as the New Democratic Party of Canada candidate, marking the second time the Edmonton-based union official will run federally in her home town.

Johnson, who ran under her maiden name of Stenger in the last general election, captured 14 per cent of the vote to place second in 2021.

She joins Green Party and People’s Party candidates in facing Motz, who secured the riding for the Conservative Party four years ago with a 65-per-cent share of ballots.

“We’re getting run over with sign requests and getting our team together; our office is pretty much set up,” Motz said on Monday from his campaign office on Dunmore Road.

“Our campaign literature is being printed, so we’ll start door-knocking in a couple days.”

Motz and many Conservative MPs challenged incoming Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney to dissolve the minority parliament and call an election last week, just as Carney was sworn in as prime minister.

Since then, they have continued to target the Liberals for apparent flip-flops to more Conservative-styled policy and campaign promises.

“We have a lot of copy-cat proposals,” said Motz.

Johnson told the News on Monday that she’s running to provide a New Democrat option to local voters and represent an alternative for working people to the Conservatives and Liberals.

“It sounds a little mushy, but my heart is really in Medicine Hat. It’s my home and every time I’m in Medicine Hat I feel at home,” said Johnson, who was born in Oyen, grew up in Medicine Hat and now is employed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Edmonton.

“An opportunity to be on the ballot and be a strong vice for the people there is always attractive for me.”

She said the NDP drove policy and programs to help Canadians during the last term and could again be a force if parliament remains strongly divided.

“There are obviously challenges that Canadians are thinking about across the country,” she said. “Concerns about tariffs and the political climate (but also) affordability.”

This year, Andy Shadrack, a B.C.-based retired political science instructor, will represent the Greens.

“It’s a very important election,” Shadrack, 74, told the News recently. “We have the tariff issue, of course, from the U.S., which I think gives us a chance to rethink how we build the economy … We’ve done a lot to undermine our own economy.

“I don’t understand what the Liberals and Conservatives has done over the last 50 years.”

The Kaslo, B.C. resident does not expect to campaign locally.

The People’s Party of Canada now lists Jordan Harris as its candidate in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner.

The Liberal Party has not yet named a candidate in the electoral district that includes Cypress County, Medicine Hat, Bow Island region and the counties of Warner and Cardston along with the Blood Tribe Reserve.

Nominations typically close 21 days before an election, which would be April 7.

Advance voting will take place from Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, according to Elections Canada.