NDP leader Rachel Notley spoke in Red Deer on Saturday at the party's Provincial Council event. (rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

GOVERNMENT IN WAITING

NDP leader Rachel Notley calls party ‘best damn opposition’ province has seen

Jun 23, 2019 | 9:13 AM

Described as ‘fearless’ before hitting the stage, Alberta NDP leader and former premier Rachel Notley addressed delegates on Saturday in Red Deer during the party’s Provincial Council event.

She talked a big game for a minority leader, calling her current caucus, “the best damn opposition this province has ever had.”

After, Notley told rdnewsNOW she expects her members to be effective in the legislature despite their statistical lack of power.

“We’re going to keep using every tool that we have at our disposal in the legislature to raise public awareness around what it is this government is doing. On that front, we’ve already been very successful,” Notley surmised.

“They literally walked in and thought we’d make a couple of comments and accept the original descriptions of their bills and then just let them carry on, but that’s not what we’re doing. We’re digging in.”

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The NDP dug in this week, keeping members in the legislature all night to debate Bill 9, which focuses on the bargaining rights of union workers. It eventually passed.

Meantime, the UCP and the official opposition continue to question one another’s credibility, leaving Albertans with the arduous task of determining what’s fact and what’s fiction.

Notley believes the UCP needs to be much more upfront with Albertans and have the courage of their convictions.

“There’s no question it’s a challenge. I worked in politics before I got elected, then I was first elected in 2008. I’ve never seen a group of political leaders as comfortable with telling lies as these folks,” she remarked.

“They walked around claiming their education bill – “Bill H8″ — provides the best protections for GSAs in the country. We had to table legislation from four other jurisdictions to put it on the record over and over and over that it wasn’t true, yet they keep saying it.”

The NDP will start referring to Bill 8 as “Bill Str8,” Notley quipped after noting the speaker of the house told them they had to stop using the term “H8.”

Notley also said the UCP are continuing to lie about the overtime bill, which she noted experts have said will result in less money for workers, and about Bill 9 which she said gives the UCP, “unprecedented authority to rip up contracts behind closed doors.”

Earplug-gate hasn’t helped matters, she added.

“Jason Kenney promised he would listen to Albertans, so it was particularly galling that on a night where they were ramming through legislation that is going to significantly undermine the rights and working conditions of 200,000 Albertans, they would then walk around handing out earplugs,” stated Notley.

“What we’ve seen since then is the UCP and Mr. Kenney come up with at least three different stories around what actually happened in two days. It goes again to this issue of credibility. They made a mistake, a demonstration of poor judgment, and he should acknowledge it and apologize to Albertans.”

As for the party’s future, Notley said during her speech that they must move forward with the mentality that they are a government in waiting for 2023.

“I think that the values that our party believes in are values shared by many many Albertans. I understand Albertans voted for who they thought was going to get them their jobs back the fastest, and I respect that. People were and are very worried about economic security,” she acknowledged. “I don’t believe the plan Jason Kenney is putting forward is actually going to achieve that.”