Residents in the Livingstone-Macleod constituency may recognize a face that comes knocking at their door this month campaigning for the provincial election.
NDP candidate Aileen Burke is seeking the seat in Livingstone-Macleod, and while it’s her first time running provincially, she was busy knocking on some of the same doors last year as she ran federally in the Macleod byelection against MP John Barlow.
While she lives in Lethbridge, just outside of the constituency, Burke said she was asked to run in Livingstone-Macleod to take advantage of the footwork she put in last year.
“My name would be recognized I have people that I've met and made contacts with, so it's just an easy fit I guess to go back to where you've already run,” she said.
In Lethbridge, Burke works for Shoppers Home Health Care and has been extensively involved with the NDP and local politics.
“I’ve run municipally in 2013, I ran federally in 2014, I was on the federal EDA of Lethbridge, I was on my provincial EDA as chief financial officer and I was female co-chair of the New Democratic Youth Association, I was their treasurer as well and I have a degree in political science,” she said.
Burke said she’s learned lessons along the way through all of her campaigns and is now ready to channel her energy towards running provincially.
“I think just the biggest takeaway from that (federal) campaign was to rely on your people, your people are what's going to sustain you through it all, so I met a lot of supporters through that campaign and they're what make you keep going,” she said. “Provincial matters affect your daily life a little closer and I feel like running provincially you have a little more impact on the change you can see in the province.”
Burke is going to be getting in the middle of a longstanding battle between former MLA Evan Berger with the PCs and current Wildrose MLA Pat Stier who are also both vying for the seat. Burke said she knows what she’s getting herself into, but believes Albertans deserve another option.
“I don’t know that we're really planning on winning but we're going to do our best to try,” Burke said. “I think our biggest thing is just to give people the alternative vote that there is somebody else you can vote for that we stand for those people and we're going to do our best to make as much headway as we can.”
Burke added that she hopes people will seriously consider the NDP as a viable option.
“Honestly I just think that they are the best alternative that we have at this moment,” she said. “They're focused on the working families, they're focused on the marginalized groups and not the corporations and the big money and I think that's what we need to see right now.”
Burke said she expects the PC budget to be a hot-button issue at the doors during her campaign over the next month.
“The dropped budget is not good for anybody really other than the big corporations and the oil people,” she said. “When Prentice tells you to ‘look in the mirror’, he's passing blame and has done that by increasing every form of tax and fee that you can think of, and so it's just another tax on the working poor.”
Next step for Burke is getting out across the constituency and if nothing else, just encouraging people to vote and think about their options when they head to the polls.
“A big part of it is voter turnout, so we've got to encourage people to actually get out and vote,” she said. “We’re excited to get things going, we're excited to have the opportunity to have an election just to let people speak for themselves, it'll be good to hit the ground running.”
