A closer look at the Alberta NDP candidates for the 2023 provincial vote reveals that many of the candidates are still insisting Albertans wear masks, including one candidate who advertised a $79 mask. 

In January, NDP Calgary Varsity candidate Luanne Metz posted a photo of her new $79 mask with a link for interested buyers, saying she “strongly recommends it.”

“I have a new terrific mask to make me feel safe traveling to visit my sister,” Metz wrote. “Very comfortable. No appreciable air flow resistance.” 

According to her Twitter bio, Metz is a neurologist “for evidence informed decisions.”

Over in Airdrie East, the NDP candidate claimed his five-year-old children asked if they could start wearing masks to kindergarten again after noticing other classmates stayed home sick.

“I’m so proud that they know how to do the right thing,” Dan Nelles wrote in November. 

Up in Peace River, about five hours northwest of Edmonton, NDP candidate Liana Paiva said she still worries about Covid-19 infections following family gatherings. She also lamented the lack of mask use at crowded functions. 

“Four years of Covid holidays and I always worry about the increase in infections following family gatherings,” Paiva tweeted on Sunday. 

“I couldn’t do it this year, even masked, and live streamed easter mass instead.”

Paiva’s comments were in response to a user who criticized the elderly for watching their grandchildren collect easter eggs “but gave no thought to potentially exposing them to infection at dinner.”

Yet, at a “Trans Visibility Day” ceremony in Calgary on April 1, none of the ten NDP candidates and sitting MLAs masked up for the public event, which was moderated by a drag queen. 

The NDP does not respond to media inquiries from True North. 

In November, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to ban masks in schools through regulatory changes. 

 “Families are free to make their own personal health decisions, and, no matter what that decision is, it will be supported by Alberta’s education system,” she said at the time.

-With files from Cosmin Dzsurdzsa

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  • Rachel Emmanuel

    Rachel is a seasoned political reporter who’s covered government institutions from a variety of levels. A Carleton University journalism graduate, she was a multimedia reporter for three local Niagara newspapers. Her work has been published in the Toronto Star. Rachel was the inaugural recipient of the Political Matters internship, placing her at The Globe and Mail’s parliamentary bureau. She spent three years covering the federal government for iPolitics. Rachel is the Alberta correspondent for True North based in Edmonton.

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