Sarah Hoffman latest candidate to enter Alberta NDP leadership race
Global News
Sarah Hoffman, NDP MLA for Edmonton-Glenora, announced her bid to become the next leader Alberta's NDP party.
Former deputy premier Sarah Hoffman and NDP MLA for Edmonton-Glenora, held a news conference in Edmonton on Sunday morning, launching her leadership campaign.
The 43-year-old joins fellow MLAs, Kathleen Ganley and Rakhi Pancholi, in the race to replace Rachel Notley as leader of the NDP.
“I’m so happy to be here at Woodcroft Hall which is where my elected provincial career began and together we beat a conservative cabinet minister and we formed the very first NDP government in Alberta history,” Hoffman told the crowd. “Lets do it again, we must do it again.”
New democrats are essential to solving the problems that face us today, we must fix public health care,” Hoffman continued.
She went on to list the priorities of her campaign which would be health, climate and housing and highlighted the accomplishments of the first Alberta NDP government, including the construction of the Calgary Cancer Centre, the new emergency room at the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton, stopping harassment outside abortion clinics, and making sure Alberta was the first province to fully fund the abortion pill.
“I dramatically cut wait times for breast cancer surgery. I connected more parents with midwives than ever before. I followed the science of harm reduction, and that saves lives,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman recounted how she got her start in politics thanks to Rachel Notley encouraging her to run for the school board.
“Girls like me weren’t supposed to go into politics, I’m fat, I’m sassy and I have a really hard time pretending to be somebody I’m not,” Hoffman said.