Adam Benn, NDP constituency association president, flips a burger during a free Labour Day long weekend barbecue held in Kin Coulee Park on Monday afternoon.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
With a steady stream of smoke floating off the grill, burgers and hot dogs were served for free down in Kin Coulee Park to celebrate workers and the 131st Labour Day Monday.
Members of the Medicine Hat and District Labour Council served up more than 100 free burgers and hotdogs for residents during a barbecue and family event with games held in the Kinette Kitchen at Kin Coulee Park.
Members of the local Alberta NDP constituency were also on hand to celebrate the weekend and gather public feedback on what Hatters are looking for in a candidate in the next provincial election in 2027.
Adam Benn, NDP constituency association president, says the party is looking to announce candidates for both the Brooks-Medicine Hat and Cypress-Medicine Hat ridings as soon as it can.
“We’re asking all our supporters and constituents about what they want to see in a candidate to represent Medicine Hat,” said Benn, who says barbecue patrons were asked to fill out a survey with relevant questions. “It is a big polling day for us to talk to the public and see what concerns them the most, but also just what they want to see in a candidate.”
The party confirms Gewndolyn Dirk will not run again as the NDP’s candidate for the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding this upcoming election, and cannot yet confirm the status of Cathy Hogg, who ran in Cypress-Medicine Hat in the 2023 general election.
According to party representatives the NDP is planning to hold a constituency meeting in the fall to allow potential candidates to give speeches and members to vote on who will represent the NDP on the campaign trail.
“We want our candidate search to be very democratic and open to the public so that they can choose the best one to represent them, so that’s part of what today is about,” said Benn.
The NDP says its goal is to have the candidate selection process complete and the candidates in place by the end of the year.
“We really want to take people’s feedback about that, we’re sort of in a really intense candidate search,” explained Benn. “We’ve been interviewing and sort of diving in and looking at people … but we’re really hoping to ramp things up and have two strong candidates in place by the end of the year.”
Benn says the community barbecue was good an opportunity to give back to the local working class during the day, which historically marks the legalization of trade unions in Canada.
“We’re a pro-union party, we’re a pro-labour party, we’ve always been the party of labour. If you look back to Tommy Douglas (federal NDP leader 1961-1971) we’re a party that cares about public health, unions, all these kinds of things, so I feel like a community barbecue is a good representation of that,” said Benn.
