Alberta NDP announces pre-Calgary Stampede leadership vote

Race to replace Rachel Notley starts on Feb. 5, new leader to be named on June 22. Yahoo!

Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman resigned as the party’s deputy leader and is expected to join the race to replace Rachel Notley as leader of the Alberta NDP (source: Sarah Hoffman / Facebook)

I usually share Daveberta columns on Thursdays or Fridays, but with all the news coming out about the NDP leadership race, I wanted to share my thoughts earlier this week. Enjoy!

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If you had told me ten years ago, on January 30, 2014, that the perceived frontrunners for the Alberta NDP leadership race in 2024 would be the MLAs for Calgary-Mountain View, Edmonton-Glenora and Edmonton-Whitemud, I probably would have laughed. Ten years ago today, Rachel Notley was nine months away from becoming NDP leader and none of these ridings would have even been on that party’s radar as winnable at that point.

Probably the most believable prediction from a decade ago might have been that then-Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith would be Premier in 2024, but there’s no way anyone back then could have predicted her path to the Premier’s Office today.

It’s hard to imagine a modern NDP in this province without Notley at its helm. She took the party from the fourth place fringe to government and solidified it as a political force in Alberta. As the NDP prepares to choose her successor, it’s even hard to compare the current version of the NDP to its pre-Notley version.