Notley says UCP government remains 'missing in action'
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Summary
Rachel Notley says not much has changed in the wake of Jason Kenney's resignation as leader of the United Conservative Party of Alberta. She says the absent UCB government has already been missing in action for months, and will continue to do so as it enters caretaker mode amid a leadership race.
Transcript
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NDP leader Rachel Notley says not much has changed in the wake of Premier Jason Kenney's announcement
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he'll resign as leader of the United Conservative Party. After scraping through his leadership
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review on Wednesday night with 51.4% of UCB member support, Kenney immediately announced
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his intentions to resign. But the UCB government has already been missing in action for months,
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Notley said during a press conference Thursday. We didn't have a government focus on governing
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for months and months and months leading up to yesterday, she said. And now I suppose what's
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changed is we know definitely that we won't have that for months and months and months going forward
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and that probably would have been the case no matter what happened yesterday, Notley said.
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The NDP leader also said the absentee UCB government would continue to let down the burns
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as it moves into caretaker mode amid a leadership race. In an exclusive interview with the Western
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Standard on Tuesday, Kenney said he hasn't been distracted by the leadership review.
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I probably spent less than 10% of my time on it in the past three months, he said.
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In his resignation speech Wednesday night, Kenney said the mandate from UCB voters was not strong
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enough for him to continue as leader. He asked the party to trigger a leadership race. That race has
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now begun with former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith being the first to announce her candidacy in a
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virtual launch Thursday. My campaign is going to be centered around putting Alberta,
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Alberta interests and Albertans first. Notley said it's premature to discuss with the new UCB leader
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might bring to the table, but the party has a record of letting Albertans down, partly because
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they're incapable of coming together, she says. This is a government and a party that's not capable
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of taking real action to support Alberta families who are struggling with an affordability crisis,
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Notley said. In the wake of Kenney's resignation, Take Back Alberta, a grassroots conservative group
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that organized to oust the Premier, said it's now time for all Conservatives in Alberta to focus on the
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real enemy, which is the NDP and their socialist agenda. Notley said she's unsurprised by the comments.
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This is politics in Alberta, she said in response to a question from the Western Standard.
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I hope that we're able to speak truthfully, on the basis of facts, and to each other, and to all