St. Albert MLAs are looking forward to getting to work after being sworn in to office this month.
On Monday, St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud and the rest of Rachel Notley’s opposition party were sworn into office, officially kicking off Renaud’s second term as one of the city’s MLAs.
Renaud said it feels different being an opposition MLA rather than representing the governing party.
“It’s a smaller group obviously, it's about half,” Renaud said.
The St. Albert MLA said she is excited to get started in her constituency office and start responding to the people in the community and help them with their issues.
Renaud said she will be carrying lessons from her first term forward into this term, including getting started early on projects.
“If you want to advocate for something or start something, you have to start right away, as soon as possible, because it takes a really long time. It’s a lot of work,” Renaud said.
On top of being sworn in as an MLA, Renaud was “honoured” to be given the portfolio of opposition critic for Community & Social Services and Francophone Issues.
On Wednesday, Renaud was taken off the Alberta Premier's Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities by the UCP, only one year into her three year term.
The UCP responded saying they thanked Renaud for her contributions on the council but will be appointing a government MLA for the role.
“It was explained to Ms. Renaud that the appointment of the MLA vice-chair to the Premier’s Council will continue to be a nomination from the government caucus, as has been Council’s accepted practice. When Ms. Renaud was appointed to the Council, she was a member of the governing caucus,” Christine Myatt, deputy director of communications for the UCP said in a statement.
“We expect that the NDP would have made the same decision in our position.”
On Tuesday the UCP government MLAs will be sworn in, which includes the swearing in of Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally.
Nally, who was named associate minister of natural gas earlier this month, said he still getting his sea legs on the new portfolio. Nally’s mandate is to open up markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to bring some stability to the natural gas market and to focus on deregulation.
“The learning curve is very steep but it’s been a wonderful experience for me and very rewarding,” Nally said, adding he is looking forward to getting to work after 13 months campaigning.
Nally is looking forward to being able to honour the UCP's commitment to Alberta by repealing the carbon tax and bringing in the job creation tax cut to stimulate growth.
