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Alberta

Former Premier Rachel Notley steps down as leader of the Alberta NDP

Published

2 years ago

9 minute read

News release from the Alberta NDP

Good morning everyone.

We’re gathered on the traditional territory of Treaty 6 and I also want to acknowledge the Metis people who share a deep connection to this land.

There’s been a great deal of speculation since the election as to my future. While politics to the south of us would suggest I have at least 20 years left in my political career, I think the advisability of that is debatable.

More to the point, having considered what I believe to be the best interests of our party, our caucus, as well as my own preferences, I am here today to announce that I will not be leading Alberta’s NDP into the next election.

I have informed both the senior officers of Alberta’s NDP as well as my caucus and staff that upon the selection of a new leader, I will be stepping down from that role.

This October will be 10 years since I was first given the honour of leading our party.

At the time we were the fourth party in the legislature with a massive caucus consisting of four MLAs. Less than seven months later we had a caucus of 54 MLAs, and Alberta’s first NDP government.

While many of those folks never expected to be elected…

…let alone find themselves in a government cabinet, we scrambled, quickly, to live up to the immense privilege the people of Alberta bestowed upon us.

We didn’t get everything right. But we governed with integrity, an ambitious agenda and an earnest desire to make life better for Albertans.

While this is not the place to go down into a policy rabbit hole, I will highlight just a few of the things that make me proud.

We approved and built the Calgary Cancer Centre – a decision that was at least a decade overdue.
We stood up for the rights of working people – improving their access to unions, increasing their holidays, protecting their safety in the workplace …

…And we were the first jurisdiction in North America to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, making a real difference in the life of Alberta’s working poor and tens of thousands of young people and their families.

We secured Alberta’s first pipeline to tidewater in over 50 years, ensuring that the return to Albertans for the sale of resources we all own is permanently increased.

We eliminated coal-fired electricity in Alberta, thereby increasing the health of countless citizens, and at the same time kickstarting our renewable energy industry to be the fastest growing on the continent…

…all while significantly reducing our emissions in one fell swoop.

And, finally, in the midst of a recession caused by the international collapse in the price of oil (seriously folks, I did not cause that), we cut child poverty in half.

But, as I said, we didn’t get it all right. And Albertans told us so in April of 2019.

Now I thought about leaving then. And there are many reasons I did not. But the biggest is probably this: too many people were declaring that the Alberta NDP was done, and, more importantly, that Alberta was destined to revert back to being a one party conservative state.

And I knew that wasn’t true. And I also knew that it would be awful for Albertans if they came to believe that it was.

So four years later, last spring, we came so close to earning the right to lead Alberta again.

We received the highest percentage of the vote that the Alberta NDP ever has.

We won Edmonton,

We won the majority of seats in Calgary,

We increased our vote throughout the province and we elected the largest Official Opposition in the history of this province.

An opposition that is very very ready to take over the reins of government.

But it wasn’t enough. And that’s why it’s now time for me to leave.

But if there is any ONE accomplishment that I can leave behind me… it’s that we are NOT a one party province where Albertans have no real choice about how their province is run.

Albertans do not ever have to feel that elections and their opinions don’t matter.

It was that way when I started. It’s not that way anymore.

Not only do I leave Albertans with that electoral choice, I leave them with a caucus that is filled with expert, dedicated, diverse people, supported by the hardest working and most skilled political staff in the country.

Our NDP team will not stop fighting to make life better for all Albertans.

We will fight to protect and improve our healthcare, to stand up for our children’s right to a world-class education, to fix the housing crisis, to keep Albertan’s CPP safe, and to confront the reality of climate change.

Roughly ten years ago today, I talked to my kids about how they’d feel if I decided to run for the leadership of the Alberta NDP.

Roughly 15, 12 and 10 years ago, I listened to my husband tell me he thought I should run for the leadership of the Alberta NDP.

In all cases, my family got a bit more than they’d bargained for. It’s been a crazy ride, but I could not have done it without them.

I was raised by both my father and my mother to believe that public service is something one should strive for throughout your life.

I wish they could have been here to see some of what we’ve accomplished.

Either way it would not have happened without the examples they both set – demonstrating daily the value of hard work, compassion for our neighbours and the importance of their social democratic convictions.

To all the volunteers, activists, donors, canvassers, past current and future in Alberta’s NDP — Thank you.

There would be no success without you. You are the strength and the foundation of our movement and I will be forever humbled by your selfless dedication to our province.

Short of having, raising, and debating with my family, the opportunity to serve this party and this province has been the honour of my life.

Over the last decade, Albertans have given me a tremendous opportunity to serve in this role and I am so grateful.

The people of our province are bold, friendly, open, caring and adventurous. I’ve learned so much from them. And the land we share is the most beautiful — and sometimes the coldest — place on earth.

I also want to thank the people of Edmonton Strathcona who have supported me since 2008. We live in and are part of a fabulous community that I am so proud to call home.

Thank you to all the Albertans I’ve met along the way – those who advised me, supported me, disagreed with me, and, yes, even campaigned against me.

We all love this province.

I love this province and I know that our best days are still ahead.

Thank you.

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Alberta

Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

Published on September 18, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.

A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.

H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.

School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.

In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.

The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”

In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”

The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”

Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”

He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”

Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.

According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.

Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”

Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.

Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

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Alberta

Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

Published on September 17, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.

Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.

The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.

Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.

“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”

According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”

He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”

Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

The ban was to take effect on October 1.

The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.

The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

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