Finally, we have an election.
As you will read on Page 1A, Wayne Rufiange of the Alberta Party and Buster Malcolm of the recently-revived Alberta Independence Party have joined incumbent United Conservative Party MLA Glenn van Dijken to see who will represent us in the Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock riding.
With the possibility that the writ could be dropped at any moment, we were concerned Glenn van Dijken would get in by acclamation and that would not be good for democracy.
Under Alberta’s Election Act, the election must be held in a three-month window in the fourth calendar year after the preceding election day which in this case was May 5, 2015.
Many political pundits are speculating premier Notley will call the election the day of, or shortly after, the Speech from the Throne when the Legislature is recalled March 18.
If that is the case, by the time you read this, we may already be in the early days of the 28-day election. However, there are signs that there may be a later election.
On March 13, Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman announced plans to introduce legislation to strengthen public health care.
Mind you, we do not know if she and the government plan to introduce the bill before the election, but we suspect they will, meaning the election call will not occur until much later this spring.
And we hope the government does hold off calling the election, at least for a little while. Not that we necessarily want to see the legislation introduced or give one party an advantage over the another, but because we want to give more time for other parties and candidates to join the race.
One party that was conspicuous in its absence is the NDP itself. However, they rectified the issue this past weekend when they named former Town of Smoky Lake councillor Therese Taschuk Hower, candidates from other notable parties such as the Liberals, Greens, Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta, among others are still missing from the ballet.
We hope candidates from all these parties step forward as we feel it is important to not only give voters another option to vote for but because the political discourse that takes place with multiple voices with varying points of view is beneficial to the election process and democracy.
Once all the parties and candidates have been decided, we urge voters to keep an open mind and not to blindly vote for a candidate because that is the party you always support.
Listen to their viewpoints, check out all the parties’ platforms, read their literature, take into account their background and then make an informed decision.
