Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he’s undecided on a potential run for the UCP nomination in a southwest Calgary riding, despite an online campaign urging him to stay on city council.
McLean told LWC on March 17 that he’s “50/50” on a potential bid to replace outgoing Calgary Shaw MLA Rebecca Schulz, who announced her resignation in December 2025, and intends to stay on as MLA until May 2026.
Schulz’s resignation may result in a byelection in November or December, though there’s an expected fall 2027 provincial election, and the seat could sit vacant until then.
The recently elected Ward 13 councillor said that there’s still a lot of work to do at Calgary city hall, but he acknowledged he’s considered a run in Calgary-Shaw. The provincial riding covers much of McLean’s municipal area of representation.
“There are pros and cons on both sides. I really don’t know. There’s so much to consider,” McLean said outside council chambers on Tuesday.
McLean is in his second term as a Calgary city councillor, recapturing his Ward 13 seat with a 7,500-vote margin over Elliot Weinstein last October. He won by a 4,450-vote margin in 2021, in a campaign against Jay Unsworth and former long-time councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart.
Though McLean is in his fifth year on Calgary city council, he’s never shied away from promoting the UCP government policies or decisions in his role at city hall. He’s often sided with the province on contentious matters that involved both the City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta.
Should McLean vacate his Calgary city council seat, it would trigger a byelection for his seat. According to the Municipal Government Act, a council must hold a byelection unless the vacancy occurs after January 1 in the year of a general election, or if a vacancy occurs outside an 18-month window before the next general election.
It’s been rumoured that former Ward 1 councillor and mayoral contender Sonya Sharp could vie for that seat. When asked, Sharp did not respond directly to questions about that possibility.
Dan, please stay
Word of McLean’s potential jump to provincial politics spurred long-time conservative operative Craig Chandler to launch a website www.DanPleaseStay.ca to rally the councillor to stay put.
(Editor’s note: The above website may ask for personal information. LWC cannot be responsible for unsolicited contact from this site.)
Chandler was upfront with LWC that he was already backing the UCP Calgary-Shaw nomination of Mike Derry.
“If you look at the tone of the website, it’s not like, ‘hey, we don’t like him.’ We want him to stay at the municipal level, because he’s actually doing a good job,” Chandler said.
“People like Mike Jamieson, Rob Ward and Landon Johnston, who, in my mind, are the only other three city councillors that are conservatives, (McLean’s) like the elder statesman. This is a guy who knows what he’s doing, and we have some cohesion now. It’s a better city council than it was before.”
Chandler said that the A Better Calgary Party specifically didn’t run a candidate in Ward 13 against McLean to prevent a conservative vote split in that area.
In a media release from the Progressive Group of Independent Business, a group Chandler is behind, the tone toward McLean isn’t as charitable. It listed six things for McLean to “ponder” before making a final decision.
“Really this is dejavu [sic] of 2012 where Ward 13 Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart ran for the Progressive Conservatives in Calgary Glemnore. Diane finished an embarassing third and was then flooded with opponents in the next election,” read Chandler’s response.
“Then Dan McLean himself won with a united conservative unity from Take Back City Hall. Dan lambasted Diane for doing this and now he wants to do it himself? Voters have a long memory and will not forget this type of thing. I think Dan is valued and needed at City Hall.”
