The race for the leadership of the Alberta NDP is officially underway, and a Calgary MLA was the first to throw her hat in the ring.
Kathleen Ganley, MLA for Calgary-Mountain View, announced her candidacy this morning.
"What I hear every day from people right across this province is that they are really struggling," said Ganley in an interview with the Western Wheel. "We wanna hear from our members. We want their ideas. We want their creativity and we want to take those ideas forward.
"I think that the team I am building has the sort of the vision, the competence and the experience, not just to win this election, but to ultimately form an NDP government in 2027."
Ganley is currently serving her third term after first being elected in 2015 to represent Calgary-Buffalo. As part of Rachel Notley's government from 2015 to 2019, she served as minister of justice, solicitor general and had a 10-month stint as minister of aboriginal affairs. She currently serves as energy critic.
If elected, Ganley would be the first Alberta NDP leader from Calgary and would join Grant Notley, Rachel Notley's father, as the only leader elected from a riding outside Edmonton.
"When I signed up to run in 2015, we almost didn't have a presence in Calgary," said Ganley. "I think the Alberta NDP has done an enormous amount of growing in the last few elections. Rachel Notley has done amazing things for us.
"We have grown a lot in Calgary, went from three seats to 14 in the last election, but I think we have further to grow and I think we are a party that can represent all Albertans from across this province."
Ganley stated that her campaign wants to highlight southern and rural Alberta.
"It's my intention to travel the province," said Ganley. "I think there are people who share our values, who share our vision for the future in every corner of this province.
"They're always gonna have different opinions, but there are a lot of people from a lot of small towns, from rural Alberta, that share a lot of our values."
Ganley believes her experience as energy minister would help her address environment and sustainability issues affecting Albertans.
"We're about to see [the effects of the UCP's failures] again with significant drought in southern Alberta," she said. "There are definitely preparedness strategies that I think the province should be moving forward on, but it's also a matter of considering how we manage these things going forward.
"It is possible to have the economic growth in things like forestry while doing it in a way that is more sustainable in terms of its impact on the water. It is possible to grow our economy while being aware of the climate change issue and taking real steps on that."
Ganley touched on other issues affecting rural Albertans, based on personal stories she heard during events in southern Alberta.
"I think in rural Alberta the health care crisis is [the most] acute," she said. "Albertans are having to drive hundreds of kilometres just to have their babies. I think that kind of care needs to be available throughout the province, and I actually think that the UCP policies, the very ones that are driving family doctors out of Alberta, that are resulting in 60 per cent of family doctors currently practicing here considering leaving, fall most heavily on rural Alberta.
"So it is rural Alberta that suffers the most for the general failures of the UCP to manage the healthcare system in a competent fashion."
No other candidates have made official announcements as of Feb. 5 but speculation continues. Sarah Hoffman, MLA for Edmonton-Glenora, is expected to announce her candidacy soon, and former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi is said to be considering entering the race.
Candidates have until March 22 to register for the leadership race, and results will be announced when voting ends on June 22.
