The Alberta NDP assembled in Calgary on the evening of June 21, on the eve of their leadership convention, to thank Rachel Notley for her service as their leader. Former Notley chief of staff and Policy contributor Brian Topp delivered the following remarks in his introduction of Notley.

I was thinking about what to say tonight, and I was remembering one of my last conversations with Jack Layton. He was thinking through what turned out to be his last leader’s report to our federal caucus. And he was saying: men in politics don’t talk about their feelings in public enough. And they don’t talk about love enough. So, in his leader’s report, he spent an hour talking about love… and the centrality of love – love for our neighbours and fellow citizens — in our work.

We’re gathered here today to talk about our feelings. Specifically, our feelings about another remarkable social democratic leader who advanced those ideas – Premier Rachel Notley.

An extraordinarily strong, successful, and inspiring politician, party leader and premier – one of the most consequential and important Premiers in Alberta’s history.

So … let’s get in touch with our feelings about Rachel.

I think we can begin by saying that we all … kinda like her.

Actually I think it’s quite a bit more than that. I’m going to return to this — but first I’d like to spend a few moments talking about some of my other feelings about Rachel, with whom I had the honour to work as a member of her campaign team, and as a member of her team in government. To be specific, I want to talk about three feelings evoked in my heart during my time working with Premier Rachel Notley.

First – fear and terror.
Second – respect.
And third – inspiration.

Let’s start with the fear and terror part. I’m thinking here of a specific meeting in the beautiful and historic Alberta Premier’s office, full of light and the brightly coloured paintings and artwork Premier Notley had decorated with.

We were meeting to go over the first draft of the first Speech from the Throne from a progressive government since 1935.
I had written that draft.
I had presented it to our Premier.
I had a strong sense of occasion, of making history, of doing something important.
And then she kicked off our meeting as follows.

“Brian! We cannot have a Throne Speech with incomplete sentences!!!”

And then … she pulled out a red pen. And then… well, you know, what ensued was … gently humiliating. But the result was a great Throne Speech. I know the words “great throne speech” don’t fall naturally from one’s lips, but have a look at that one sometime.

I think it captures a wonderful moment of hope and possibility, even in a period of low commodity prices. After decades of same-old-same-old, there were finally new people with new ideas in office in Alberta — crackling with energy and enthusiasm, committed to making progress …

And not a single comma… was in the wrong place… in that Throne Speech. That’s how good we were.

So then, let’s talk about respect.

I want to say two things about this.

First, I have never, in almost forty years of doing this work, met a politician as determined to do the right thing as Rachel Notley. Given a choice between the politically expedient thing to do, and the principled thing to do, she always chose the latter, each and every time – even when she knew very well there would be a political price to pay.

I’m thinking, for example, of our 2015 election platform, which was released to the media with mistaken costing tables. There have been political parties who watched their campaigns crash and burn on the runway for making mistakes like that. Both I and Gerry Scott, our storied and talented campaign director, have seen that happen.

But she didn’t care. She rejected several absurd maneuvers we were trying to cook up. And she just told us to call the journalists, tell them we had made a mistake, and give them the right tables. So we did. And although the Tories tried to make hay of it – they failed. The people of Alberta liked and trusted Rachel Notley and the team she led. And so they elected her to office.

In part, I think, because they could see that she is that kind of leader, that kind of Premier. The kind of premier who ran a scandal-free, clean-as-a-whistle government with no dark secrets it needed to hide. I respect that.

I also respect what she was capable of doing with those NDP-orange shoes of hers.

Specifically, she was very good at applying those shoes to the posteriors of federal politicians when they said something or did something she felt was bad for the people of Alberta.

Premier Notley is a fierce advocate for, she is a fierce defender of, she is a fierce warrior in the cause of the people of Alberta. People in Ottawa learned this.

But I’ll also say this. Yes, she is a fierce advocate for her province. Rachel Notley is also a committed and passionate Canadian. She will have nothing to do with cosplaying a destructive separatism – undermining the unity of our country.

Federal politicians have a duty to bring us together. Provincial Premiers also have a duty – not to cross the line – not to become wrecking balls undermining the foundations of Canadian citizenship, or the country itself.

Further to this, Rachel Notley is a committed and passionate Canadian social democrat and New Democrat – at every level of government. She doesn’t believe you fight for the interests of working people as a social democrat and as a New Democrat at the provincial level – while working directly against the same working people at the federal level.

On all of these questions, she stands for unity. I respect that.

So then, let’s talk about inspiration.

First, I’m inspired by a political leader who does what many believed to be the impossible. Rachel Notley broke the mould of Alberta politics. She broke the mould that locked a great Canadian province into decade after decade of government by science denying, fiscally reckless, socially destructive, economically mindless, administratively incompetent, frat house-chums-appointing, legally troubling (let’s say), backward-looking, and now increasingly kookie and weird Tories.

Whatever else we can say about the Alberta Tories, it will never again be said that they can’t be defeated. They can be defeated. They can be replaced by something better. She did that. And the leader we elect tomorrow will do it again. I’m inspired by that.

Second, I’m inspired by a premier of one of the world’s leading oil and gas jurisdictions who thinks clearly about climate change, and about our economy, and its future.

Because of her work, we are completely off coal. That’s huge. And because of her work, Alberta has access to tidewater. That’s huge. And then – most important — she had a plan to use the capital so earned, to build a resilient, diversified economy for our children and our grandchildren.

A new generation of right-wing populists have different ideas. They dig coal. Including in the wellsprings of our rivers. But at the end of the day, the road Premier Notley pointed to on these issues is the right one and the best one, and Alberta will move forward again when the coal diggers are defeated again. As they will be, in the next election. I’m inspired by that.

Third, I’m inspired by a Premier who plants trees that her grandchildren will enjoy. I was thinking about this on a beautiful summer day when Premier Notley and I and some other colleagues went on a hike to take a look at the new Castle Provincial Park that she and Shannon Phillips brought into being. An ocean of lush and ancient trees out by Pincher Creek you can look at to the horizon.

On many, many issues – an uncorrupted democracy; a professional and uncorrupted public service; fiscal responsibility; our public health system; our public education system; our economy; our arts and culture; our children, their well-being and their future – Premier Notley was a good steward and a good forester, who thought about the long term.I’m inspired by that.

Friends, Jack Layton said we don’t talk about love enough. So let me conclude by doing my bit tonight to repair that.

New Democrats…from Whiskey Gap to Salt Plains…and from Walsh to Dernmitt… and, you know, from Edmonton and Calgary and Lethbridge and everywhere else – love Rachel Notley. We loved her when she allowed herself to be talked into becoming our leader – an idea she resisted for awhile in her customary style… and we love her just as much now, as she completes a remarkable run.

She brought out the best in all of us – even getting rid of our incomplete sentences – and she put her best and our best to work for the people of Alberta.

I just said we all love Rachel Notley.
If you agree, why don’t you tell her so yourself?
Here’s a chance to do just that, right now.
Friends, it’s my honour to introduce…Premier Rachel Notley.

Brian Topp is a partner at GT & Company. He is chair of the board of the Broadbent Institute; teaches a course at McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy, served as chief of staff to former Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, as deputy chief of staff to Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow and as national campaign director to federal NDP leader Jack Layton.