Premier of Alberta

The Premier of Alberta is the first minister for the Canadian province of Alberta. He or she is the province's head of government. The current Premier of Alberta is Rachel Notley, who was sworn in on May 24, 2015.

The Premier of the province deals with specific areas relating to Alberta and Alberta's relation on the national scene. The Premier acts as a representative for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and the Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) are in turn the representatives of the people of Alberta.

Duties and functions

To be effective, accountable and in line with custom, the premier does hold a seat in the Legislature, so the Premier serves as the MLA for a riding, and is elected as the MLA by the constituents of that constituency. As with most government leaders in a parliamentary system, the Premier usually wins his or her own election as MLA easily. However, on occasion, a Premier has not been re-elected to his seat in a general election, forcing him to run in a by-election in a constituency that comes empty by the resignation of the sitting MLA or other incident. The most recent case of this was Don Getty, who lost his Edmonton-Whitemud seat in the 1989 election and then ran and was elected in a by-election in Drumheller-Stettler. In 2014 Jim Prentice was elected party leader without holding a seat in the Legislative Assembly, thus becoming premier, and won a Calgary-Foothills by-election in order to gain a seat in the Assembly.

Alberta

Alberta (/ælˈbɜːrtə/) is a western province of Canada. With an estimated population of 4,196,457 as of July 1, 2015, it is Canada's fourth-most populous province and the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces. Alberta and its neighbour Saskatchewan were districts of the Northwest Territories until they were established as provinces on September 1, 1905. The premier has been Rachel Notley since May 2015.

Alberta is bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the US state of Montana to the south. Alberta is one of three Canadian provinces and territories to border only a single US state and one of only two landlocked provinces. It has a predominantly Humid continental climate, but seasonal temperature average swings are smaller than to areas further east, with winters being warmed by occasional chinook winds bringing sudden warming which moderates average temperatures.

Alberta's capital Edmonton is near the geographic centre of the province and is the primary supply and service hub for Canada's crude oil, oil sands (Athabasca oil sands) and other northern resource industries.

Rachel Notley

Rachel Anne Notley MLA (born April 17, 1964) is a Canadian politician and the 17th and current Premier of Alberta, since 2015. She is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Edmonton-Strathcona, and leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party. The daughter of former Alberta NDP leader Grant Notley, Notley's career before politics focused on labour law, with a specialty in workers' compensation advocacy and workplace health and safety issues.

Notley was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 2008 provincial election, succeeding former NDP leader Raj Pannu. Six years later on October 18, 2014, Notley won the Alberta New Democrat leadership election on the first ballot with 70% of the vote and went on to lead the party to a majority victory in the 2015 provincial election. Notley leads the first NDP government in the history of the province and is the first non-Progressive Conservative Premier of Alberta since Harry Strom of the Social Credit Party, who served until 1971.

Jim Prentice

Peter Eric James "Jim" Prentice, PC QC (born July 20, 1956) is a Canadian politician who was the 16th Premier of Alberta from 2014 to 2015. In the 2004 federal election he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a candidate of the Conservative Party of Canada. He was re-elected in the 2006 federal election and appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians. Prentice was appointed Minister of Industry on August 14, 2007, and after the 2008 election became Minister of Environment on October 30, 2008. On November 4, 2010, Prentice announced his resignation from cabinet and as MP for Calgary Centre-North. On September 6, 2014, he won the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta leadership election. He subsequently won a by-election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta on October 27, 2014, becoming the MLA for Calgary-Foothills.

As Premier of Alberta, Prentice declared an early provincial election on May 5, 2015, "bypassing" Alberta's fixed election date laws. In the election, Prentice's PCs were heavily defeated, dropping to third place in the legislature—ending 44 years of Tory rule in Alberta, the longest unbroken run in office at the provincial level in Canada. Despite winning re-election in Calgary-Foothills, on election night Prentice resigned as PC leader and retired from politics after results indicated that the Alberta NDP had won a majority government.

Premier

Premier is a title for the head of government in some countries, states and sub-national governments. A second in command to a premier is designated as a vice-premier or deputy premier.

Examples by country

In many nations, "premier" is used interchangeably with "prime minister".

In the People's Republic of China, "premier" is more common and official, but "prime minister" is still used (see Premier of the People's Republic of China).

In four of the British overseas territories (Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin Islands), the elected heads of government are styled as "Premier". In other overseas territories the equivalent post is styled as Chief Minister.

"Premier" is also the title of the heads of government in sub-national entities, such as the provinces and territories of Canada, states of the Commonwealth of Australia, provinces of South Africa, the island of Nevis within the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the nation of Niue. In some of these cases, the formal title remains "Prime Minister" but "Premier" is used to avoid confusion with the national leader. In these cases, care should be taken not to confuse the title of "premier" with "prime minister". In these countries, terms such as "Federal Premier", "National Premier", or "Premier of the Dominion" were sometimes used to refer to prime ministers, although these are now obsolete. The French language does not differentiate between premier and prime minister and therefore federal prime ministers and provincial, state or colonial premiers are all called premier ministres.