Alberta Associate Health Minister Brandy Payne says she won’t run for re-election next year because juggling job responsibilities with her young family is proving too burdensome.
“It was a really difficult decision. It’s been a really great honour to be an MLA in the first NDP government in Alberta,” Payne told Global News on Tuesday. “But ultimately, for me and my family, it’s just been really challenging for me to sleep in a different city than my kids so often so we decided as a family that our best bet was for me to serve out the end of this term but not seek re-election.”
Payne says she wants to spend more time in Calgary with her husband and two young girls, aged six and one.
She announced her decision last week on Facebook, and says being away from her loved ones for long periods of time has been difficult.
“I know that in the past, sometimes cabinet ministers would move their whole family to Edmonton and spend all their time up here as opposed to in their own constituencies, but for me, it was really important to have that balance between my responsibilities here in the legislature as well as my responsibilities in Calgary to my constituents,” Payne said.
READ MORE: Calgary MLA Brandy Payne won’t run again in 2019
Payne has been associate health minister for more than two years, steering efforts to reduce deaths and overdoses caused by opioids.
She is a first term legislature member, beating former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Denis in the Calgary-Acadia constituency in the 2015 general election.
She is one of three NDP cabinet ministers who have had children while on executive council, along with Service Alberta Minister Stephanie McLean and Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley.
“One of the downsides of being an out-of-town member is that there is a lot of time away from family,” Payne said Tuesday.
“With young kids, we were finding it was just too hard for me to be the mom that I wanted to be.
“There’s something about, you know, the fact that my oldest daughter is learning how to read and I don’t get to practise it with her most of the days.”
Payne said her decision doesn’t reflect concerns that the NDP will lose seats in Calgary in the next election.
“I categorically reject that. I actually think that we stand an incredibly strong chance of re-election in 2019 in Calgary,” she said. “I hear from constituents who maybe didn’t agree with all of our policies in the beginning but really support some of the work that we’re doing now and reject some of the policies they hear from the UCP.”
The city has been hit hard by falling job numbers due to the prolonged slump in oil prices.
“I’m hearing a lot more positivity in Calgary for the work that our government is doing,” Payne said.
-With files from Global News’ Phil Heidenreich
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