Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Former premier Rachel Notley, after almost a decade at the helm of Alberta’s NDP, is stepping down from the top job.

Notley, the official Opposition leader, said a leadership race will be called and she will stay on as leader until a replacement is chosen.

That means she will remain on the front bench during the upcoming spring sitting.

The Alberta government is no longer formally pursuing its plan to dump the RCMP in favour of a new provincial police force.

However, Justice Minister Mickey Amery said Tuesday the idea is not dead and his department will continue to consult with Albertans on where they want to go with policing.

Earlier Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith delivered her mandate letter to Amery, outlining his goals and priorities as the new justice minister.

Alberta’s United Conservative Party emerged bloodied but still standing in Monday’s bitterly contested provincial election.

Danielle Smith’s UCP dominated outside Alberta’s two largest cities while retaining enough support in Calgary to overcome an NDP sweep in Edmonton and win a second consecutive majority government. 

"To paraphrase our dear friend (former Alberta premier) Ralph Klein, welcome to another miracle on the Prairies,” Smith told cheering supporters on the Calgary Stampede grounds. 

Jason Kenney, more than three months after stepping down as Alberta’s premier, has landed a new role as a Calgary-based adviser in law firm Bennett Jones.

Kenney, who is also a former federal cabinet minister, will work in the public policy group.

Kenney says on Twitter he looks forward to the new job and that his work won’t include lobbying the provincial government or its agencies.

He says Alberta’s ethics commissioner has signed off on his new role and Kenney says he won’t be accepting any other jobs without first checking with the commissioner.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s promise to assemble a panel of medical experts to deliver ongoing advice on public health and COVID-19 will be covered off by former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning’s pandemic review, her office said Wednesday.

“The central role of the (Manning) panel will be to review legislation and recommend amendments to better enable the province to respond to future health emergencies,” Smith’s spokesman Taylor Hides said in a statement, responding to questions on when the science panel would be announced.

Premier Danielle Smith has struck a committee to investigate how the Alberta government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has appointed former Reform Party leader Preston Manning to chair it.

Smith said Thursday that Manning and the panel are to take feedback virtually from experts and the public, then issue a final report and recommendations by Nov. 15.

Manning is to pick the other panel members subject to approval by Smith.

The budget is $2 million, and Manning is to be paid $253,000.

Premier Danielle Smith’s wood-panelled third-floor legislature office is bereft of bric-a-brac. 

There are no pictures, mementoes or books — only a small stack of Alberta sovereignty act bills perched on her desk. 

The décor is less by design and more by default.

“If I was spending a lot of time in the office, I wouldn’t be doing my job. I’ve got to meet a lot of people offsite and do a lot of work out there,” Smith said in a year-end interview. 

She laughed when recalling her attempts at personal touches.

The Alberta government is crafting changes to be debated next week to reverse the section of a bill that gives cabinet unfettered power to rewrite laws behind closed doors without legislature approval, the province's premier said Saturday.

Danielle Smith told her Corus radio talk show that her sovereignty bill was never supposed to give cabinet such sweeping authority, adding her government wants to make it clear in law that this is not the case.

“You never get things 100 per cent right all the time,” Smith told her radio listeners.

The Alberta government has introduced a bill that would grant Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet broad powers to rewrite provincial laws behind closed doors in an effort to push back against Ottawa. 

The proposed legislation would also allow cabinet to direct “provincial entities” — Crown-controlled organizations, municipalities, school boards, post-secondary schools, municipal police forces, regional health authorities and any social agency receiving provincial money — to not use those funds to enforce federal rules deemed harmful to Alberta's interests.

Danielle Smith, sworn in Tuesday as Alberta's new premier, said she will shake up the top tier of the health system within three months and amend provincial human rights law to protect those who choose not to get vaccinated.

“(The unvaccinated) have been the most discriminated-against group that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime,” Smith told reporters at the legislature.