NDP leader Rachel Notley with members on May, 19, 2022.

By Chris Brown

NDP leader Notley to Albertans about the UCP: ‘You deserve better’

May 19, 2022 | 3:31 PM

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley says not much will change for the United Conservative Party after Wednesday’s announcement by Jason Kenney that he will step down as leader.

She delivered a message to Albertans on Thursday.

“You deserve better,” Notley said “And make no mistake, the drama and the infighting that has plagued this UCP is not over. In fact, yesterday’s news is the starting point for more chaos and more distraction.”

She said that Alberta has a caretaker government, and has since senior UCP leadership left the government on autopilot months ago so they could focus on the Kenney leadership campaign.

The UCP has been missing in action and all Kenney’s resignation does is make the caretaker government official, she said.

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“And what that means is those folks who are seeing their wait times in the ER double, who are waiting for the ambulance that never shows up, who are worried about what their kids are going to learn in their classrooms with how many other students at any given time, those folks don’t have anybody working for them in the legislature right now.”

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Notley was surrounded by NDP candidates and made her pitch for voters to return the NDP to government and her to the premier’s office in the provincial election scheduled for May 2023.

She said the party will be ready even if the election is called early. There are currently NDP 22 candidates nominated across the province. Notley said she expects there to be 40 by end of June and a full slate by the middle of fall.

“Our focus no matter the timing is to continue to build this incredibly talented team and to continue talking to Albertans about what matters to them and to continue putting forward ideas for how we get to the place where Albertans want us to be,” she said.

Notley, who thanked Kenney for his years of political service, said health care, affordability, and a competent government that they can trust to show up to work and be there for them are what matters to Albertans.

She said her NDP government from 2015-19 wasn’t perfect but she’s learned from what it did right and what it did wrong.

The NDP provided trusted stable government that put families first, she said, but didn’t spend enough time talking to everyday Albertans and stakeholders across the province and engaging in a more meaningful way before making decisions.

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According to Notley, no matter who is the next UCP leader, it’s a government and a party that is not capable of taking real action to support Alberta families and is allowing a crisis in health care to get worse each day.

“The fact is that they’ve got a record and I’ll put mine up against that one any time and our team and its level of unity, its singularity of purpose, I will put that up against the UCP any time as well,” said Notley.

She added the NDP is unlikely to campaign on a carbon tax, saying the reality is one exists federally. It’s more likely to campaign on the opportunities that exist for Albertans to take real and meaningful action to reduce emissions domestically and in the export economy. They’ll look at ways to leverage investment in that to diversify the provincial economy and grow jobs.