Federal party leaders are making the rounds in Western Canada for the first time since the election was called three weeks ago.
On Tuesday night, Liberal Leader Mark Carney made a stop in Calgary—his first stop in Alberta on the campaign trail.
He told the crowd he grew up on the values he learned in the hockey rink and classrooms in Alberta.
“It is so awesome to be back in Alberta where I belong,” he said.
Carney spoke to a crowd of a thousand people at the Red and White Club, though organizers say the venue’s capacity couldn’t accommodate the roughly 3,000 who RSVP’d.
Carney is the first leader to visit Calgary since the writ dropped.
He visited Calgary during the Liberal leadership race in March and on Tuesday night told the room he believes Canada can be an energy superpower in clean and conventional energy.
He also joked about finding common ground with the premiers on removing interprovincial trade barriers in response to U.S. tariffs.
“Premier Smith agreed, and I thought, ‘When was the last time the premiers agreed on anything except they hate the federal government?‘” he said.
On Tuesday night, Carney was joined by local Liberal candidates.
University of Calgary executive Corey Hogan is running in Calgary Confederation, where the long-time Conservative incumbent just retired.
The Liberals’ original candidate for the riding was dropped because of a legal matter.
Lindsay Luhnau, who is running for Calgary Centre, was also in attendance.
Plenty in attendance had nice things to say about Carney.
“He is brilliant. He stands up for Canada. All of Canada—Calgary included, Alberta included,” Christine Rutledge said.
“He’s standing up for all of Canada—not just for one area, or I guess one resource,” Kathrine Carpenter said.
“He’ll stand up to Trump better because he has the brainpower,” Al Kettles said.
Carney will make two campaign stops in Calgary on Wednesday before travelling to Saskatoon.
