Janis Irwin voted Best Alberta MLA for fifth year in a row
Justice Minister Mickey Amery voted Best Cabinet Minister of 2024
With all the votes counted, the winners of the Best of Alberta Politics 2024 Survey have been chosen. The eighth annual survey is all about celebrating the best in Alberta politics. The winners were selected from a week-long vote for the top two choices in each category nominated by Daveberta subscribers. So here are the winners:
Best Alberta MLA: Janis Irwin
Always a fan favourite, Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin has been overwhelmingly voted the Best Alberta MLA for the fifth year in a row.
One of the savviest communicators in Alberta politics, Irwin has a huge social media following and is widely considered one of the hardest working constituency MLAs in the province. In her role as the NDP Official Opposition’s housing critic since last year’s election, she has been at the forefront of one of the biggest issues on the minds of Albertans.
Her private members’ bill, Bill 205: Housing Statutes (Housing Security) Amendment Act, 2023, aimed to establish a two-year temporary rental cap at 2 per cent, followed by a two-year rental cap tied to inflation, and increase reporting requirements to ensure the government is meeting its intended housing targets.
“We’ve been so clear: rent caps aren’t a panacea for the housing crisis, but they’re one step that we can take immediately to support folks,” Irwin said in the Legislative Assembly on April 22.
“If I were able to put forward a money bill, it would of course focus on building a whole lot of accessible affordable housing. But I can’t do that,” she said. “So my Bill 205 is one step, one tangible action that this government can take now, an action we can take at a time when for nearly a year rents in Alberta are increasing faster than anywhere else, increasing 18 per cent across our province last month, with our major cities of Calgary and Edmonton leading the country in rent increases.”
Irwin’s Bill 205 was defeated at the end of its second reading in the Assembly with 24 NDP MLAs voting in favour and 42 United Conservative Party MLAs voting against.
As a vocal member of the LGBTQ community, Irwin has been one of the NDP’s leading critics of the UCP government’s anti-trans agenda.
Irwin delivered an emotional and powerful statement in opposition to Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides Bill 27: Education Amendment Act, which would ban students from using a different first name or pronouns in school without first receiving their parents permission:
“When I taught, I know that there were kids who weren’t safe. There were kids who couldn’t be themselves. Kids who were bullied. And I didn’t do enough to be better and to there for them. I know I didn’t. I wasn’t out. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t courageous. But I can’t change the past. But I can commit just like I did when I was elected in 2019 to do all I can to ensure that no kid, no kid, goes to school wishing they were someone else or wishing they were dead.”
📱Tune in to Ryan Jespersen’s Real Talk this morning to hear me discuss the results and the winners of this year’s Best of Alberta Politics Survey.
Best Alberta Cabinet Minister: Mickey Amery
Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Mickey Amery was voted this year’s Best Alberta Cabinet Minister.
First elected to the Legislature as the United Conservative Party MLA for Calgary-Cross in 2019, he was re-elected in 2023 and sworn into his current cabinet role in June 2023. Amery’s close re-election in 2023 was one of the narrow wins in Calgary that secured the UCP’s hold on government until 2027.
Amery has been one of the government’s most prominent faces in its legal challenges against what the UCP describes as unconstitutional federal government incursions into energy and environmental policies, like the Impact Assessment Act and the carbon tax.
While Deputy Premier and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis has taken the lead on policing and law enforcement (and other issues that the UCP defines as “crime and social disorder”), Amery has recently tabled the bill expanding Alberta’s Bill of Rights and led the province to seek intervener status in the Parents’ Bill of Rights case in front of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.
Amery is a second generation Alberta MLA. His father, Moe Amery, was a longtime figure on Calgary’s political scene, serving as the Progressive Conservative MLA for the neighbouring Calgary-East riding from 1993 to 2015. The senior Amery also ran in the 1986 and 1989 provincial elections in the former Calgary-Forest Lawn riding.
“I have absolutely the best political adviser in the province,” the younger Amery said of his father when he was first elected in 2019. “The greatest thing that he has taught me and the greatest thing he reminds me of regularly is to stay humble. Stay grounded. Stay focused.”
Best Opposition MLA: Rakhi Pancholi
This is Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi’s first year winning in the Best Opposition MLA category, but she is no stranger to voters in this survey. Pancholi was voted MLA to Watch in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Pancholi immediately became one of the leading candidates when she launched her campaign for the NDP leadership earlier this year. She surprised many political watchers when she unexpectedly dropped out of the leadership race and endorsed former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, taking a leading role in his campaign. Her prominent contribution to Nenshi’s landslide win led to her being named Deputy Leader of the NDP.
Pancholi’s diligent prosecutorial-style of asking questions and quick-on-her-feet responses to the government has made her one of the most effective critics in the opposition benches in the Alberta Legislature.
MLA to Watch in 2025: Kyle Kasawski
Sherwood Park NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski was voted MLA to Watch in 2025. The former NAIT instructor and solar power expert has been one of the opposition’s strongest rookies.
Elected in in the suburban Sherwood Park riding east of Edmonton in last year’s election, Kasawski took up the normally low-key role as critic for municipal affairs, a role that has been anything but dull over the past 12 months. With the province’s municipal elections happening in October 2025, it is likely that he will be getting a lot more time in the opposition spotlight.
Best Municipal Elected Official: Richard Ireland
It’s tough to be a municipal politician anywhere these days, but perhaps nowhere is tougher in this past year than in the Municipality of Jasper. That’s probably a big reason why voters in this year’s survey chose Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland as the Best Municipal Elected Official of 2024.
While having the already unique job of managing his community’s relationship with Parks Canada, Ireland has been the face of Jasper in the months following the wildfire that devastated large parts of the scenic mountain park town.
He has also called out “unhelpful and divisive rhetoric” about the Jasper fire.
“The present atmosphere of finger-pointing, blaming and both partial and misinformation is, from my perspective, beyond merely an annoying distraction,” Ireland said. “It delays healing. It introduces fresh wounds and fosters division, precisely at a time when we need recovery and unity.”
Ireland is one of Alberta’s longest serving municipal politicians. He was first elected chair of the Jasper Town Committee in 1989, a position he held until 2001 when Jasper become a specialized municipality and he was elected mayor. He’s served as Mayor of Jasper ever since.
Biggest Political Issue: Affordability and Cost of Living
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has to buy groceries, or pay auto insurance, energy bills, or rent that the price of everything is more expensive these days. The increased prices come at a time when average wages have largely stagnated, putting a lot more pressure on regular Albertans trying to live a comfortable day-to-day life.
The Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government has been very successful at deflecting much of the public anger about the cost of living toward the federal Liberals in Ottawa but, with the clock ticking on Prime Minster Justin Trudeau’s government, Albertans might soon aim their frustrations at the provincial government in Edmonton.
Best Political Play: Naheed Nenshi winning the Alberta NDP leadership race
There was one question on the minds of NDP members when they voted for a new leader this year: Who can win in the next election? And there was no confusion about who they thought can do it.
Naheed Nenshi’s landslide win with 62,746 votes, or 86 percent of the vote, was an undeniably huge endorsement from NDP members.
Despite facing longtime party stalwarts Sarah Hoffman and Kathleen Ganley, and energetic rookie MLA Jodi Calahoo-Stonehouse, the former three-term Calgary mayor’s star power and name recognition was too much to overcome.
Nenshi has big shoes to fill but he has moved quick to put his trademark purple stamp on the opposition party, and has helped the party maintain its support in public opinion polls and in fundraising. Nenshi faces his first electoral test with the Lethbridge-West by-election on December 18 and, presumably, his next test will be to win a seat for himself in the Legislature.
Nenshi joined the Daveberta Podcast during the leadership race to talk about why he wanted to become leader of the Alberta NDP:
Thank you
I celebrated a bit of a milestone at Daveberta last week, with this Substack now reaching more than 5,000 subscribers! Thank you to everyone who signed up to read these columns and newsletters, and to everyone who voted in the Best of Alberta Politics 2024 Survey. And congratulations to all the winners of this year’s survey!
I’ll be back with a regular Alberta politics column later this week.
Thanks again,
Dave
Great overview of the key players - and most popular! Thanks.
I demand a recount on best political play.