Gary Mar enters leadership race
Posted Mar 16, 2011 12:31 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Add another name to the leadership race to replace outgoing Premier Ed Stelmach.
Gary Mar has announced he will run for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.
The former MLA and Klein-era cabinet minister has spent the last three years in Washington D.C. as the Alberta representative at the Canadian Embassy.
The long time politician and bureaucrat says, Albertans are ready for a government that ‘gets it’ and he is the best qualified for the position.
He adds governments in recent years have had to make tough decisions and from what he’s seen, Premier Stelmach has done the best job that he could.
“We have an opportunity though to figure out how we can expand our reach beyond the borders of Alberta,” he says.
If he learned anything from Premier Klein, it was that you have to be able to communicate clearly when it comes to the direction you’re headed.
However when questioned about whether or not this might split votes with fellow ‘Calgary’ candidate Alison Redford, he says he can only focus on his candidacy and plans to exert every effort to be the Tory party’s next leader.
Mar defended the amount of time he’s been out of the country, telling reporters it’s given him a clear perspective on where the province needs to be headed.
As a former Health Minister, he was also careful to ‘tip-toe’ around questions about what he knows of ‘cancer cover-up’ allegations from MLA Raj Sherman.
“I can only say that he’s now declared himself to be a candidate for leader in the Liberal party and that might be a reason for some of the things he said,” says Mar.
From Calgary, Mar was headed to Edmonton today to announce his intentions in the north.
He now joins a growing list of contenders for the province’s top job.
