The ballots are in, and former mayoral candidate Angela Wood will be running as the St. Albert United Conservative Party candidate in the next provincial election.
On Nov. 26, the St. Albert UCP constituency association held an election nomination at the St. Albert Inn and Suites, and Wood came out the winner.
There were two candidates on the ballot including Wood and ministerial press secretary, Melissa Crane.
Joe Friesenhan, president of the local St. Albert Constituency Association said roughly 350 people showed up for the vote.
Friesenhan said, based on membership, that’s the number of people they were expecting.
“So, decent turnout. We're happy with it,” he said.
He would not, however, say how many votes Wood received.
“We generally don’t publish that,” he explained.
Wood said she is happy about the win.
“It really is a testament to my team, my campaign team. This is not an island, this is a we win. Every single person has been working so hard over the last few weeks and it really shows,” said Wood.
Wood said she got “the bug in her ear” from a member on her municipal election candidacy team.
“We were just talking about the political climate here in in St. Albert, when I ran for the municipal election here as a mayoral candidate, I was overwhelmed with and humbled by the amount of support I got here,” she said.
Wood was still receiving calls and emails from residents in St. Albert asking how they could support her and telling her they hoped she would run again.
“This was just an opportunity I saw to be able to still fulfill what I had hoped to achieve, had I've been successful in the in the municipal elections,” she said.
Wood moved to St. Albert from the Calgary area in 2019 for law school because she heard “great things” about the city.
“This is where we landed in. We're an RCMP family, so, we've moved a bit. And this was the first time where we had come into a place… and we very quickly felt at home here. We wanted to plant roots here,” she said.
Wood is currently working as an articling student and said her experience is what makes her great for the position.
“I think every experience kind of builds on each other. I've had so some great opportunity in my career, in my life, between starting with fraud investigations and risk management then moving into the insurance industry and completing law school and now completing my articles in law…I see how everything is connected,” she said.
However, she doesn’t want residents to think she is walking into the candidacy as a career aspiration as a politician.
“I'm coming into this as service. I think this is important,” she said.
Wood said the messaging she heard across the board from residents when she was campaigning for mayor is that they did not feel heard, and she feels this is still impacting residents in the community.
“I think that this community needs to be heard. I think they really need a presence; I think that it has been lacking on all levels of government, and I really think that that is something that is really important to them, and I plan to give it to them,” she said.
Friesenhan said he is looking forward to working with Wood and figuring out what their next steps are, as the vote was just the first step of many.
“I think that Angela's gonna be a great representative for us when we go against the NDP in the next election,” he said.
