Notley holds Medicine Hat rally ahead of Monday’s election

Notley was welcomed to Medicine Hat by cheers from more than 250 supporters holding signs and wearing party orange.

“My name is Rachel Notley and I am ready to be the premier of Alberta,” Notley said to the crowd.

Notley began her speech by praising Brooks-Medicine Hat candidate Gwendoline Dirk and Cypress-Medicine Hat candidate Cathy Hogg on their campaigns and the positive response they have received from voters.

“Both of them are such strong community members with such deep connections to the community and they both have their own records of making life better for people in this part of Alberta,” said Notley

She spoke about the concerns she’s hearing from Albertans around health care, education and affordability.

Notley said the NDP is prepared to run the province’s largest recruiting campaign for health-care professionals.

She also promised as premier she would hire 1,000 more education assistants on the first day of taking office.

“A lot of folks are very concerned. They’re concerned about our health care, you heard people talking about that today. There’s concern about our education about affordability, a government that will really try and make things more affordable for folks and then of course strong economic growth and creating the certainty that investors need in order to put their capital into our province,” Notley said while answering questions from reporters.

Supporters cheered when Notley said the NDP will make sure a new elementary school is built in Medicine Hat and several other city schools will receive additional funding for much needed upgrades and improvements.

“Education is one of the areas that has been actively starved under this government, the UCP government. They have not funded enrollment and the number of school capital projects that have been approved have dropped by about two-thirds under their watch,” said Notley

Notley also spoke on the importance of diversifying our economy to avoid another boom and bust cycle. She denounced UCP leader Danielle Smith for being found guilty of one count of contravening the conflicts of interest act by Alberta’s ethics commissioner.

CHAT News spoke with voters following the rally to find out what stood out during Notley’s speech. This is what they said:

“(I agreed with) Some of the points she made about health care and the danger of privatizing surgical procedures and things like that.”

“As a post-secondary myself it was just crazy to see everything that was happening with the education cuts from K-12 and affecting the post-secondary students as well. I thought that was just ridiculous and I was really happy to see Rachel had some things to say about that as well.”

“I have lots of family members who work in the educational community and what they’ve seen is the educational curriculum come down over the last few years, they’re troubled by it.”

Local candidates Dirk and Hogg say they plan to reach more voters by visiting doorsteps during the last weekend of the campaigning.

Rachel Notley will be in Edmonton on election day.

by Brendan Miller

Notley holds Medicine Hat rally ahead of Monday’s election

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