After nearly a decade as Alberta NDP leader and four years as its first non-conservative premier, Rachel Notley has decided to hang up her political skates. The MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona will spend the next few months shepherding her party’s leadership race, finding a replacement to represent her riding and enjoying the spoils of retirement. If this is how she wants her political story to end, it’ll go down as a memorable one.
But if Notley thinks it has another chapter left, she should spend the next year or so practising her French. That’s because the federal NDP is almost certainly going to need a new leader after the next election given Jagmeet Singh’s ongoing failure to break through with voters. Notley’s demonstrated ability to win over moderates and expand the appeal and reach of the Alberta NDP might be just what a listless federal party needs to get back in the game.
Yes, yes, Notley repeatedly insisted she wasn’t interested in federal politics, which is exactly what someone in her position is supposed to say. “I am not interested in pursuing federal politics … at this time,” she told reporters at Tuesday’s news conference announcing her resignation. When pressed again, she said, “I have no intention of running federally, and I believe I’m done with elected politics for good.” In a subsequent interview with CBC’s Power & Politics, Notley had a one-word answer when asked if she saw a role for herself in federal politics: “Nope.”
But Notley would hardly be the first ex-politician to get lured back into politics after swearing to leave it behind. The late former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, after all, famously came back into federal politics 15 years after his own 1989 retirement and won the riding of Ottawa Centre in the 2004 election. Politics has a way of getting into your blood, especially if you’re a second-generation party leader like her, and no amount of time spent running (Notley’s recreational activity of choice) can truly keep its levels in check.
There’s also her fierce loyalty to the party in which she grew up. (In other words, forget about her running for the federal Liberals.) Notley is, of course, the daughter of an Alberta NDP legend. She worked for an NDP government in British Columbia in the 1990s. She led her own NDP out of the political wilderness and into government in Alberta. And there are few people in this country better suited to expanding the federal NDP’s appeal than Notley, with the possible exceptions of the premiers of British Columbia and Manitoba. But they have jobs right now — and as of Tuesday, she doesn’t.
The prospect of sticking her head back into the partisan political blender surely seems horrifying right now. But 18 months or so from now, after the next federal election is over, the landscape will look very different. We will have at least two new leaders of the three major parties, and very possibly a new government altogether. The NDP will have an opportunity to redefine itself, not just as a sidekick to the Trudeau Liberals but perhaps their replacement as Canada’s dominant progressive political party. Notley just happens to have plenty of experience rolling up the progressive vote under an NDP banner — and achieving the heretofore impossible in the process.
“Alberta is not a one-party province or a two-party province with two different shades of conservative,” she said in her resignation speech. “We are now a province where progressive, forward-looking, diverse Albertans can see and pursue their political aspirations and their public policy goals, not with a view of having other people just hear them, but with a view to winning government and seeing those policies turned into real action by their government.”
It’s a heck of a legacy. An even bigger one would be finding a way to bring that same mindset to the federal NDP. It could help them finally realize the vision Jack Layton had for them that came into view for a split second more than a decade ago. Yes, the NDP can win elections, even in places where the idea might seem hopelessly optimistic. Just ask Rachel Notley.
Rachel Notley is done with Alberta politics. Is Ottawa next?
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18.01.2024
After nearly a decade as Alberta NDP leader and four years as its first non-conservative premier, Rachel Notley has decided to hang up her political skates. The MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona will spend the next few months shepherding her party’s leadership race, finding a replacement to represent her riding and enjoying the spoils of retirement. If this is how she wants her political story to end, it’ll go down as a memorable one.
But if Notley thinks it has another chapter left, she should spend the next year or so practising her French. That’s because the federal NDP is almost certainly going to need a new leader after the next election given Jagmeet Singh’s ongoing failure to break through with voters. Notley’s demonstrated ability to win over moderates and expand the appeal and reach of the Alberta NDP might be just what a listless federal party needs to get back in the game.
Yes, yes, Notley repeatedly insisted she wasn’t interested in federal politics, which is exactly what someone in her position........
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