Supreme Court of Canada won't hear challenge of 2015 Alberta election call

The Supreme Court of Canada won't hear a challenge of the former Alberta government's decision to call an election in 2015.

A general election was held in Alberta in 2012, and based on the province's Election Actthe next one was to take place between March 1 and May 31, 2016.

Edmonton lawyer Tom Engel and Donald Rigney, who wanted to run as a candidate, went to court in March 2015 seeking a declaration that the Election Act prohibited an election call before the 2016 window.

They went to court seekingto stop former premier Jim Prentice from calling the snap election,arguing that the governmentmust "uphold the promise and legal obligation to hold the next campaign during the legislated time frame."

A judge dismissed their application and Alberta's Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.

Thetime frame for provincial elections is mandated under Alberta's Elections Act, through an amendment introduced by the Conservative government and passed into law in 2011. It fixes a time frame for a provincial election every four years.

But there is another subsection of the same act that essentially says the premier is free to call an election at any pointby asking the province's lieutenant governor to dissolve the legislature. The lieutenant-governor has the discretion, under the constitution, to refuse, although it is rare for such a request to be denied.

• Court challenge fails to stop Alberta snap election

The appeal court saw no error in the original decision and said Rigney was not denied a meaningful chance to participate in the election.

The court found that even if the Election Act created a statutory expectation about when elections would normally be held, that did not evolve into a constitutional right that they will not be held at any other time.

Prentice hadrepeatedly suggested he needed to call an early election to seek a mandate from Albertans for the major budget changes hesaid his government had to implement to get the province off a boom-and-bust budgeting cycle linked to oil prices.

The election proved disastrous for the government. On election night, Rachel Notley and the NDP swept to power on a so-called orange wave, winning54 seats andbringingan end to the Progressive Conservative Party's reign of more than 40 years.

Prentice, who died in a plane crash in2016, stepped down as party leader and as an MLA shortly after the election loss.

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