“We’re not planning to lose the election,” Rachel Notley said last week. “But as long as I am re-elected in Edmonton Strathcona, I’ll be in the legislature."
The NDP’s chances of staying on after the election improved in December when Jason Kenny’s juggernaut faced controversies over tactics in his leadership campaign, and in several United Conservative candidate nominations, including one that has triggered a lawsuit.
Only the hall pass he received from several conservative-leaning media outlets kept his election campaign on the tracks when it was revealed that he had used party stalwart Jeff Callaway as a staking horse to trash Brian Jean during the United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership race.
The steady progress that the Alberta Party (AP) made in 2018, nominating more than 50 credible constituency candidates to run in the spring election is indicative that leader Steve Mandel will field a full slate of 87 candidates when the election campaign starts.
The Alberta Party leader, membership and candidates are largely ex-Progressive Conservatives and the UCP was the hard right PC party takeover of the Wildrose Party, so the New Democrats may benefit, as they did in 2015, from a vote split, this time between the AP and the UCP.
Rachel Notley is called the accidental premier. In fact, she is the inevitable premier.
She has a resume tailored to a career as a political leader.
Born into a politically active family, Notley has spent a lifetime equipping herself for the premier's office. She has been influenced by her personal relationships with Jack Layton, Dave Barrett, Ujjal Dosanjh, Jack Layton, Ray Romanow and Brian Mason.
Her father, Grant, was the NDP leader and leader of the official Opposition in Alberta before his life was cut short in a 1984 plane crash. Her mother, Sandy, introduced 10-year-old Rachel Notley to activism, at an anti-Vietnam War demonstration.
She is a lawyer specializing in labour law.
She lived for eight years in British Columbia. Among jobs, she was an assistant to Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh.
On returning to Alberta, Rachel became the labour relations officer with the United Nurses of Alberta, a post she held until she led the NDP to its election as government.
Alberta’s 114-year political history has cycles of conservative and progressive governments, and in 2015, it was the NDP's turn in the cycle.
Labour activism in the Crowsnest Pass coal mines, the United Farmers of Alberta government led by the agrarian movement, William Aberhart’s Depression politics and Pete Lougheed’s first-term urban progressivism have been interspersed with the arch conservatism of Ernest Manning, the later Lougheed and Ralph Klein.
Every successful political leader builds a coalition that extends beyond partisan fences to voters who have common interests.
In 2015, Rachel Notley attracted a big tent of labour, academics, women, the rainbow of LGBTQs, teachers, nurses, reformist farmers and the centre and left-of-centre majority of the social media generation under 35 years old.
The NDP’s election result in 2019 depends on holding that collation together.
Premier Notley is changing Alberta.
The one-party state is dead. There will be no more political dynasties.
The Alberta economy is being remade so that oil is balanced by other economic sectors.
Government will lead adaptation to climate change.
Who will Albertans trust to do this?
– Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist and author.
