Shannon Phillips targeted climate and parks action. Then she got targeted. The NDPer is now leaving office
CBC
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.
And as the party reignites its bid to return to government this summer with a new leader, New Democrats will do so without the veteran MLA who led the party's push to make the world take Alberta more seriously on climate action.
Shannon Phillips, the party's former environment minister, has decided to leave office July 1.
Her departure comes barely one year after she was elected to a third term as MLA for Lethbridge-West. It will also pose a serious test for her party and its next leader, in a byelection later this year to defend the NDP's only seat outside of the Calgary and Edmonton regions.
Phillips insisted in an interview that her departure has nothing to do with the June 22 leadership vote to replace Notley, the only leader Phillips has served alongside.
It's personal reasons — a sense that she's accomplished enough in politics, some unnamed opportunities in the private sector and a desire to spend more time with her two teenage sons.
But she also has a less typical personal reason to resign: the long shadow of the improper surveillance that Lethbridge police officers conducted on her while she was minister — photographing her, following her and looking her up on police databases.
What's followed that 2017 snooping has been discipline for two officers, her own bids for more police accountability, a $400,000 lawsuit she filed in 2022, and recent word that Alberta's police watchdog recommended charges against the police members, though the Crown declined to prosecute.
The saga has taken its personal toll on her.
"It is an absolutely deplorable situation, and there's no question that it grinds on me," Phillips told CBC News.
"I don't feel solid at all in my own community, and it's been years now."
Phillips said she considered not running again in 2023, but a longtime friend and adviser told her: "Don't let these f--kers win," she recalled.
She was also motivated to run again with the hopes her NDP could win again, beating then-rookie Premier Danielle Smith. The disappointment of the party's defeat, and four more years on the Opposition benches, led both Notley and Phillips to both decide to step down (though Notley has no plans yet to resign her seat).
Phillips has endorsed former justice minister Kathleen Ganley in this month's leadership vote, although former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi is widely perceived to be the front-runner. "I am perfectly comfortable with any leadership outcome," Phillips said.
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