Steve Durrell has been acclaimed as the NDP candidate for the Airdrie-Cochrane riding at a Jan. 31 constituency association meeting in Cochrane, an uncontested candidate.
The Frank Wills Memorial Hall-held event drew a "great turnout" and Durrell now joins the slate of provincial candidates anxiously awaiting for Premier Rachel Notley to drop the writ to kickoff the month-long campaign for the 2019 election.
While many anticipated the announcement last Sunday, all that can be confirmed at this time is a scheduled throne speech on March 18 – which points to a possible mid-April election.
"I wouldn't have put my name forward if we didn't believe we had a chance of winning," said Durrell, a married father of three, longtime Telus employee who is passionate about employee rights and labour law.
The Strathmore resident, who formerly lived in Cochrane, is 29 years of age – not 19.
This clarification follows a dig delivered by UCP leader Jason Kenney at a major local constituency association fundraiser also held on Jan. 31.
The dig, which was in the context of Kenney criticizing the NDP for adding inexperienced candidates to their roster, made headlines last weekend as Durrell obtained a video of Kenney at the event saying: "The NDP acclaimed their star candidate to take on Peter Guthrie, a 19-year-old."
Durrell, who was sent the video by a supporter who said it had been posted publicly on social media, scolded Kenney for patronizing youth for getting involved with politics, adding "I'll take young people getting active in politics over the #OldBoysClub any day #ableg" to his Twitter post, sharing the video clip.
Guthrie, the local UCP candidate for Airdrie-Cochrane, said while he wasn't going to publicly address the comment, which he felt was "completely taken out of context," he felt the need to speak out as the video had been taken by a 17-year-old high school student attending the event, who Guthrie said was "very upset" that the video had been used by the opposing NDP in such a manner.
"The irony of it all is you (the NDP) took advantage of a 17-year-old kid," said Guthrie. "The NDP plays on diversity but the UCP delivers on it."
Durrell responded that his issue is not with the flub in his age, but the inference that young people don't belong in politics that bothered him.
"The issue wasn't just the fact that he had my age wrong, It was that he thought someone's age was a punchline," said Durrell.
Next door, the Banff-Kananaskis riding nominated 23-year-old Miranda Rosin as the UCP candidate for the riding, to run against sitting NDP MLA Cam Westhead.
Durrell said his team of volunteers continues to grow and that pipelines, pushing the interchange at highways 1A/22 and getting schools built are top of mind from his door knocking conversations across the riding.
As a father with young children entering the school system, Durrell said he wants to be part of the team that will continue to push the 240 schools that have been invested in since the 2015 NDP election, to prevent the ballooning classes he remembers as a youth growing up in the Klein era.
"It's something I passionately don't want to see us go back to," he said.
To learn more visit albertandp.ca. Contact Durrell at [email protected].
