With David Swann announcing his intentions to step down as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party this afternoon, another chapter in the province’s politics is about to close. The medical doctor turned politician has had a difficult time of fulfilling the hopeful expectations he brought with him when he replaced the cerebral and uncharismatic Kevin Taft at the party’s helm.
Swann is the third high ranking Alberta politician to quit within one week.
While the question filling the waves among pundits is “what’s next for Alberta Liberals?”, I want to ask a different question:
What’s next for Brian Mason?
A decade long MLA, Mason has been the province’s NDP leader for nearly seven years now. While Mason has been an effective parliamentarian and opposition leader, popular within his party, he lost half of the NDP members in the last election to Stelmach’s Conservatives. The current rash of resignations among political leaders should present an opportunity for him to ponder his future.
There is an appetite for change in the province that is nearly visible in the air. All things being equal, NDP followers should be experiencing it too. Should Rachel Notley, the other NDP MLA in Edmonton, get ready to fill the shoes that her father once occupied?
Maybe Ms. Notley’s time has come!
(NOTE: Grant Notley–Rache’ls father–was the well-respected NDP leader, whose life was cut short at age 45 in a plane crash in 1984. He was half the party’s caucus at the time).
