Four high-profile New Democrat MLAs, two from Edmonton and two from Calgary, will not seek re-election, the Opposition party in the Alberta Legislature said yesterday.
Three of them – Calgary-Buffalo MLA Joe Ceci, Edmonton-Riverview MLA Lori Sigurdson, and Edmonton-Gold Bar MLA Marlin Schmidt – were first elected in the NDP sweep of 2015 and served in important cabinet portfolios in premier Rachel Notley’s cabinet.
Luanne Metz was elected in 2023 in the Calgary-Varsity riding. A physician who was seen at the time as a potential minister of health in the event the NDP won the election, Dr. Metz handily defeated the UCP’s Jason Copping, who was Alberta’s health minister at the time.
None of these departures should come as a particular surprise. Generational change in the NDP ranks was expected. All but Mr. Schmidt are at or past the age of retirement. And all but Dr. Metz have served more than a decade in the Alberta Legislature.
A social worker by profession and a Calgary city councillor from 1995 to 2010, Mr. Ceci, 68, served as finance minister throughout the NDP’s single term in office, which ended in 2019. Given the financial challenges faced by the NDP from circumstances outside Alberta and beyond the government’s control, in particular cratering world oil prices, it would be fair to say he served with distinction in that difficult portfolio. He was first elected in the old Calgary-Fort riding.
Despite the frequently hysterical ranting of the Conservative Opposition parties during his tenure as finance minister, Mr. Ceci delivered was could be called traditional Progressive Conservative budgets.
Mr. Ceci’s 2018 budget, I wrote in this space, “was a conservative political document in that classic Alberta way: enough of a pivot to ‘fiscal responsibility’ to annoy the NDP’s traditional die-hard supporters, a degree of austerity compassionate enough to be deemed insufficient by the perpetually angry conservative base, and a reliance on Alberta’s traditional response to bad times in the oilpatch, a fervent hope oil prices will go up again soon.”
Ms. Sigurdson, 65, worked as a social worker for 25 years before her political career and held the advanced education, labour, and seniors and housing portfolios during the NDP government. As minister of labour, Ms. Sigurdson played a key role in increasing Alberta’s minimum wage in 2015.
In May 2018, Ms. Sigurdson took a leave of absence from her political duties after being diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia.
Mr. Schmidt, 47, served as minister of advanced education from 2016 until the end of the NDP’s mandate. Before entering politics, he worked as a soil and groundwater contamination specialist in the Alberta environment ministry. As an MLA after the UCP was in power, he endured a certain amount of controversy for saying what he thought, a characteristic that is considered “totally inappropriate” in Alberta, at least if the person speaking bluntly is not a Conservative.
Prior to her election, Dr. Metz, 68, was a professor in the University of Calgary’s faculty of medicine best known as a global expert on the treatment of multiple sclerosis, a serious autoimmune disease. In Opposition, she served for a spell as the NDP’s health critic and later in a vaguely defined health-care policy development role for NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi. One never really had the feeling, though, that Dr. Metz took to retail politics with the enthusiasm of her three departing colleagues.
“As I approach 70 years old,” Dr. Metz said in a letter to constituents published on social media yesterday, “I want to be certain that Calgary-Varsity will have a legislative representative for years to come with the necessary stamina to respond to the very real challenges Albertans are facing.”
The NDP said nomination dates for the four ridings will be announced soon. The NDP has already nominated candidates in 21 ridings.
I’m not clear what the term “past the age of retirement” means? To me anything over 60 or 65 is what may be considered a normal retirement age, but there are many that either want or need to work past that age.
I can appreciate the three older MLA’s may find the work and sometimes long sessions can be taxing, and those older ones have done a great job of asking embarrassing questions. As for Mr. Schmidt, it may be a good thing he is leaving. While he did have to ask those tough questions, he quite regularly did so in an inappropriate unparliamentary manner and got to the point of engaging in heated debates with the speaker. I can only imagine this getting worse as time goes on.
OA: Good point, I guess. I’m 74 and I’m still working. That said, I think the traditional age of retirement is 65, and that’s what I had in mind. DJC
Thanks for clarifying that. It appeared somewhat confusing to me from a literal sense of what comes after the age of retirement.
Retirement. From political office. Someone want to tell the Americans with their congress and senate fossils that this IS a thing?
Your post reminds me of a line from The West Wing, in which President Jed Bartlet says, “we have term limits. They’re called elections”. Members of the US House of Representatives face re-election every two years, so voters concerned that their Congresspersons are superannuated have every opportunity to vote for someone else. Senators only face re-election every six years, but they too are term-limited by the voters.
The only term-limited elected position in US federal politics is the Presidency. However if I’m not mistaken there are many more term-limited elected positions at the sub-national level in that country.
Here in Canada, the only term limits are generally in appointed posts, such as Governor-General, provincial Lieutenant Governor, Supreme Court Justice, and Senator. We don’t tend to tell the voters not to vote for someone because they’ve done so too many times before, or because they’re too old. [If we did, there’s a certain federal Official Opposition Leader who’d have been out of a job long ago].
Just a coincidence that age and health played a role OR did a lack of confidence in Nenshi’s “win-ability” play a part? As you and many others have noted, the UCP are likely to win regardless of the seppie vote.
YYConfused: The UCP aren’t going to last, because of how many wrong things they do.
This is an overly optimistic view of the political scene here in Oilbertastan, and one not supported by the available evidence. The UCP remain comfortably ahead of the NDP in the polls, and even if the NDP drew marginally ahead in the horse race numbers, the UCP’s massive head start in “Otherland” means that they need to win big in Calgary and virtually sweep Edmonton to have any chance of forming government.
Until the NDP can crack the code on winning outside of the two big cities, they will enter every election with one hand tied behind their backs.
2015 was a massive anomaly linked to the PC-Wildrose vote split in the small cities and rural areas, and then Jason Kenney rode in on his mighty steed disguised as a blue pickup truck to reunite conservative forces — and paper over the divisions that led to the Wildrose in the first place — to battle the socialist hordes /s. But I don’t see that kind of split happening again, so the NDP needs to figure out what it needs to do to get rural and small-city voters to vote for them — and then do it.
I’m sanguine about the frankenparty splitting up. Let’s wait n’ see if Rath and his fellow travellers succeed in forcing Smith to a special AGM.
My suspicion is that if 22+ riding associations force her hand, the possibility of a schism is very high.
jerrymacgp: A man committed suicide, because of the UCP’s AISH policies put him in fear. The UCP is enabling their defeat, one bad policy at a time.
Four very accomplished people who served Albertans well both in government and opposition. Unfortunately Luanne Metz never got to serve as Health Minister. Instead, Albertans got stuck with the incompetent four.
Sheesh, David, who peed in your corn flakes this morning? I thought your remarks on Dr. Metz not running again were a bit on the snarky side. A person with her integrity and accomplishments deserves a better “send-off” from you. When I saw who was running in Calgary-Varsity for the NDP last provincial election my jaw dropped. What a coup for the NDP! And, not to mention, Luanne Metz put paid to Jason Copping’s political career (and he being the UCP government’s Health Minister) beating him soundly in that constituency. It’s quite astounding for someone like her to quit her position and illustrious career as a world-renowned medical specialist/researcher to run for office because she could see what was happening to our health system and wanted to fight for it, her patients, and everybody in Alberta. She was also highly respected by her medical peers and beloved by her patients. The NDP had, and still has, a high calibre of people in their caucus, but someone like Dr. Luanne Metz gave the party even more credibility, as well as her expertise. From my understanding, other physicians now are considering running for office, so that’s to her credit. When you look at the party in power, you have to shake your head at how they can occupy seats in our Legislature. I remember Jason Kenney when he was the first UCP premier, handing out ear-plugs to his caucus in the Legislature, effectively giving the finger to our democratically elected Opposition MLA’s. Dan Williams, from working in a gravel pit to making MINISTER in the UCP government, downing a beer in the Legislature and smashing the empty can on the side of his stupid head. Are these your “retail politicians”? I’m sorry to see the other seasoned NDP MLA’s go, too, taking their experience, especially cabinet experience, with them. I appreciate all of them. I have no doubt though, that other passionate and “quality” candidates will take their place.
I’m sorry to see that Dr. Metz is not running in the next election as well. She’s my MLA and I’m very happy with her. On the one occasion I contacted her office for help in tracking down a former government employee, I got a response in short order. And she was the only candidate in the 2023 election who actually showed up at my door.
I cannot agree more. Devin Dreeshin comes to mind as another empty vessel in Cabinet, but then if you appoint almost everyone to cabinet . . .
Dr. Metz will be needed for triage after the Nenshi massacre.
TENET: The UCP are about to get massacred. They are doing too many bad things to be given another term. It is so bad that the UCP enabling media will not be able to lie about the NDP, and they won’t be able to glorify the UCP any more.
They have been doing dubious deeds since Lougheed in 71, Albertans are asleep at the switch and are not about to wake up anytime soon. Nenshi makes it easy for them to slumber.
The biggest problem I find with progressives is that they tend to keep their leadership around well past their due date. While the CONs are constantly purging their leadership, the ABNDP seem to like keeping the old folks around, as though they think of their leadership as being a long-term care facility. Letting Rachel Notley run for a third kick at the can was unforgivable. (In case anyone was wondering, I’m not a Christian, so I never forgive. Ever.) Notley’s fumbling and barely enthusiastic bid in the last election assured the UCP their win. Now, that Nenshi seems to have some life in him, so we’ll see how far he can run with the Capt. Canada moniker. Politics as entertainment; policy as performance; this is how far we have fallen. So, if we are going to go calmly into the age of warlords and armed militias, lets at the very least present leadership that this is both thoughtful and bloody-minded toward the CON enemies. There is no high road; there is only the gutter; it’s time to rub the CONs’ faces in the sewage.
It may be age but I would suggest that they see no future with Nenshi at the helm. Another four years of UCP or extreme right wing is probably not in their plans.
Carlos: The UCP have ensured their political demise. A man on AISH took his own life, because of the UCP’s shameful policy changes for AISH. There can only be so much that people will have to accept. That crosses a line.
If that were the case they would not be in government now. Danielle Smith has been crossing the line since the 90s.
The Alberta NDP is looking more serious about getting ready for the next election, with veteran cabinet ministers from its surprise term in power now announcing they will retire at the end of the present term, making room for new talent, with Opposition leader Naheed Nenshi incrementally increasing his public exposure, and with candidates already nominated in a quarter of the province’s ridings for a contest that’s still 16-1/2 months away.
This bit of strenuousness is not solely because Dippers have to contend with the usual advantages of a rival’s incumbency, nor because the UCP abuses its power and tilts the electoral field in its favour by blatant gerrymandering, but rather because the NDP appears to be trending towards becoming government again.
Even including its 2019 and 2023 losses, the NDP’s build has been plodding and steady—from four seats before winning 54 and a majority in 2015, 24 seats, the largest Opposition in recent memory in 2019, and 38 seats in 2023, the largest Alberta Opposition ever; current polling is showing NDP gains and, in some estimates, putting it ahead of the UCP for the first time. Getting an early start and relentlessly increasing pressure is the thing to do now if the NDP is to reap the reward of that 2015 upset which might have proved a one-off but instead proved cynics wrong. An admittedly default win instead became the first of the three-steppingstone evolution that put the Dippers in a fortuitous and, hopefully, a more solid, sustainable position.
Of course to get there Dippers have to campaign hard despite knowing victory will not afford any respite because governing is even harder, all the more so because this is Alberta. Premier Danielle Smith has been ginning increasingly nasty division and sewing minefields and boobytraps leading to the pivotal “referendum” (in a highly qualified sense) on secession—which, naturally, the premier intends to be unhelpful but might turn out more petardish than she expects.
In any case, Alberta is home to a climatically significant, world-infamous reservoir of hydrocarbon; its domineering industry which develops the super-viscous deposit-in-sand is facing a longterm existential crisis; and the province’s economy is beholden to vicissitudes in market-pricing of diluted bitumen, a mixture of the 2nd-lowest grade of petroleum (next to asphalt) and a gasoline-like diluent which allows the province’s principal product to flow through a pipe.
Much of the deficiencies, perfidies, and incompetencies of UCP governance (and, to be fair, that of the post-Lougheed ProgCon predecessor which kept dipping into the Heritage Fund while repeatedly reducing Big Bitumen’s petroleum royalties and corporate taxes) result from political cow-towing to Big-B (which rather enjoys those tax and royalty cuts), awarding it legislated immunity from civil suits for contaminating groundwater and absolution from responsible cleanup of abandoned wellheads, and sustaining generous government subsidies—not to mention looking the other way from ecological and human health hazards downstream on the Athabasca River and, from proposed coal mines in the Rockies, the Oldman, Bow, and South Saskatchewan Rivers.
But the premier makes governing look so easy that defeating her party appears more monolithic than the prospect of mopping up, post-UCP, the cost of which will of course be unfairly blamed on the NDP if it wins power and decides to address these issues in some feasible way.
Yet none of this is revelatory or new, all the more reason why it’s astounding the UCP is still competitive. It’s fair to attribute some of that to Smith’s rhetorical style: glib, unflappably intransigent, and arrogantly dismissive. It seems only a master of illusion could delude so many, yet Smith has got to be the hands-down queen of the impolitic—or so it appears to those of us who now live outside Alberta. Most residents know Smith is already notorious for rendering the Calgary School Board so dysfunctional that the ProgCon government had to commandeer its administration; for blowing a predicted 2012 election win (as Wildrose Opposition leader, she was tardy in condemning a candidate’s homophobic comments); and for crossing the floor to the 44 year-old ProgCon government in 2014 which, aside from resulting in the 2015 NDP upset, was instrumental in destroying both parties of the right. Yet, without shame, the cat came back…
After Jason Kenny hastily breathed life into bloodied soil to form the UCP and win the 2019 election, Smith became proxy for a radicalized, anti-vax faction we now recognize as the very separatists who commandeered party riding associations, ousted Kenney halfway through his first term, and installed Smith as the new premier —whence totally ham-handed governance came to Alberta.
The UCP’s 2023 margin of victory was much reduced but Smith came into the first mandate of her own like a wrecking ball, disregarding conflict-of-interest rules, passing unconstitutional legislation as yet too trivial to challenge in court, graduating to repeatedly using the notwithstanding clause to temporarily shield unconstitutional legislation too important not to challenge, traipsing down to MAGA Logo to cut a special tariff deal with the toupeed pumpkin-head (our compatriots’ most-hated politician) while cocking a snook at Team Canada, then returning to hold national unity ransom unless Canada gives her whatever she demands, even if it’s—you guessed it—unconstitutional.
And her party’s polling numbers are only now starting to slump after umpteen impolitic if not indictable perfidies? Only now?!?!?!? Outsiders are flummoxed.
One has to wonder if the reason for such a conspicuous turnaround is a recent one—perhaps the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. And that would have to be the pending —or, quite possibly, rending—UCP schism that separatist point-man Jeff Rath has initiated by calling for Smith’s ouster.
However bad internal UCP factionalism gets, the NDP simply cannot rest on its Schadenfreude until Smith buries herself in scandal or schism. Only recently can we discern that three generations of right-wing-electing Albertans dislike partisan schism—and it’s only ever happened on the right end of the spectrum: in one, the ProgCons ousted premier Allison Redford, in another, party execs resigned en masse when Jason Kenney became leader long enough to fold the veteran party; the Opposition Wildrose party had more than one, but all at once, when the leader ousted herself and crossed the floor to the other dimly-regarded schismatic (and after 2015, neither of them ever contested another election). Nevertheless, in her first test as incumbent premier Smith did win herself a mandate, although losing another 14 seats to the now-largest Opposition ever, and coming perilously close to losing several Calgary ridings that would have lost the UCP the 2023 election.
Her 2023 win, as slimmer as it was, might seem theoretically anomalous. Perhaps Take-Back-Alberta’s ouster of Kenney was more of a usurpation than a schism but, in schematic, the effect still showed that many Albertans didn’t like whatever it was. If Rath’s threat were more serious or substantial I might figure the next referendum you hear will be on Danielle Smith’s continued tenure as leader of the UCP. Sixteen and a half months to go, remember…
Any other place—except for maybe the USA—Smith and her party would be 100% psephological toast. The NDP would do well to ignore that fact and focus on the job at hand, relentlessly. This is Alberta, “any-other-place” just doesn’t matter.
I suppose there are different ways to look at this. One is to see it as a loss of talented and experienced people. Another is to see this as opening up an opportunity for new people.
I suppose two things can be true at the same time. Being inclined to be an optimist, I hope it turns out being more of the later. Although, I feel these people were very capable, so it will not be easy to replace them and I appreciate their years of public service.
I don’t think there should be a retirement age because wisdom and experience have value, but public life can also be very demanding in terms of time and energy. While it is meaningful, at a certain point in life people often decide to do other things personally meaningful to them, while they still have the energy and time to do so.
The selling feature of a NDP finance minister is delivering traditional Progressive Conservative budgets? To Joe from failing hands, Jim Dinning and Ron Liepert the torch did pass. Top-flight comedy!
This is not a generational change. It’s a political change. Nenshi’s politics have nothing to do with social democracy. Marlin’s sense of humour may have bothered conservatives, but he is a staunch and intelligent defender of the environment, and that’s what really upsets conservatives, and their oil industry bosses.
Nenshi is strangely silent on the referendum questions that are designed to kill universal health care while the Carney government is also strangely silent on Alberta’s Bill 11 which goes directly against the Canada Health Act. All of them seem to be looking the other way while private health insurance lobbyist Danielle Smith lights a fire under it. Instead Nenshi keeps ranting about separatism, trying to persuade us against all evidence that Smith is one of them, and that the other nine questions on the referendum are not worth mentioning. While he, once again, goes to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce for approval of his platform.