Alta. NDP MP calling it quits

LINDA DUNCAN WON’T RUN AGAIN IN 2019

Alberta’s lone NDP member of Parliament is calling it quits.

Linda Duncan, the three-term representative for Edmonton Strathcona, announced Tuesday she will not run in next year’s general election but will stay in the job until the writ is dropped.

“This is not my retirement day,” Duncan said. “I still have a full year (of work) that I fully intend to put in.”

Duncan said it has been rewarding fighting for constituents and on behalf of her caucus on issues ranging from the environment and agriculture to rail safety and recently imposed U.S. steel tariffs.

But she said the pace and commute between Alberta and Ottawa has taken its toll after 11 years and, at 69, it’s time to focus more on family and travel while still speaking out on important issues.

“Over the next year, I’ll decide what to do but certainly my big priority is (to) get a dog ... and I just want to spend way more time with my family,” she said.

“I spent a lot of my life away working, and my brother and my niece are my No. 1 priority.”

Duncan was first elected in 2008 and has worked in a variety of critic portfolios, currently in international development and environment.

She narrowly defeated Conservative incumbent Rahim Jaffer in the 2008 election, but was re-elected by healthy margins in 2011 and 2015.

Along with politics, her life has been dedicated to the law and the environment.

She founded the Environmental Law Centre in Edmonton in the early 1980s and has worked as an international environmental law consultant, helping Indonesia, Bangladesh and Jamaica set up rules for environmental enforcement.

She also worked as assistant deputy minister with the Yukon government.