Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan is expected to announce at a press conference tomorrow that he will seek the New Democratic Party nomination in the federal riding of Edmonton-Centre. Mr. McGowan is known as an outspoken advocate for labour issues and critic of the Temporary Foreign Workers program.
Mr. McGowan was first elected President of the AFL in 2005 and previously worked as journalist with the Canadian Press and Edmonton Journal.
This is not Mr. McGowan’s first time seeking an NDP nomination in Alberta. In 1996, he challenged Raj Pannu for the provincial NDP nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona and in 2000 he sought the nomination in Edmonton-Mill Creek.
He will face at least one other candidate in the nomination race. Reakash Walters, an activist and Alberta NDP Government Caucus staffer, has been campaigning for the nomination since 2014. The NDP nomination meeting in Edmonton-Centre has been scheduled for August 23, 2015.
The NDP had previously nominated educator Lewis Cardinal in early 2014, who later stepped down for personal reasons. Mr. Cardinal placed second with 25% of the vote in the 2011 election.
In Peace River-Westlock, 29-year old mechanic Arnold Viersen defeated three rivals to win the Conservative Party nomination in this new northwest rural Alberta riding. Mr. Viersen is the former treasurer of the Barrhead/Neerlandia local of the Association for Reformed Political Action, a social conservative Christian organization that has spoken against Gay-Straight Alliance legislation for Alberta schools and questioned the existence of human-influenced climate change.
These updates have been added to the list of candidates nominated and seeking party nominations to stand in Alberta ridings in Canada’s October 2015 federal election.
