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Alberta New Democratic Party

centre-left political party in Alberta

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ3345044 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Alberta New Democratic Party (Alberta NDP; French: Nouveau Parti démocratique de l'Alberta, NPD de l'Alberta), is a social democratic political party in Alberta, Canada. The party sits on the centre-left to left-wing of the political spectrum and is the provincial Alberta affiliate of the federal New Democratic Party.

The successor to the Alberta section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the even earlier Alberta wing of the Canadian Labour Party and the United Farmers of Alberta. From the mid-1980s to 2004, the party abbreviated its name as the "New Democrats" (ND).

The party served as Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1982 to 1993. It was shut out of the legislature following the 1993 election, returning in the 1997 election with two seats. The party won no more than four seats in subsequent elections until the 2015 election, in which it won 54 of the 87 seats in the legislature and formed a majority government. Until 2015, Alberta had been the only province in western Canada—the party's birthplace—where the NDP had never governed at the provincial level. The Alberta NDP was defeated after a single term in the 2019 election by the UCP—the first time that a governing party in Alberta had been unseated after a single term.

History

Origins and early years (1932–1962)

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was founded in Calgary on 1 August 1932.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Alberta New Democratic Party” as centre-left political party in Alberta. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alberta, Democratic and Party.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 1982, 1993, 1997—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1962-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Alberta, Democratic and Party providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Alberta New Democratic Party”, the useful work is to connect “centre-left political party in Alberta” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3345044. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 1982, 1993 and 1997.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alberta New Democratic Party”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alberta New Democratic Party primary sources, Alberta New Democratic Party archive and Alberta research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alberta New Democratic Party” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.