Marlin Schmidt (born October 16, 1978) is a Canadian politician who currently represents the

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Edmonton-Gold Bar Edmonton-Gold Bar is a provincial electoral district, in Alberta, Canada. The district is one of 87 in the province mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting. The di ...

in the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...

. First elected in the

2015 Alberta general election The 2015 Alberta general election was held on May 5, following a request of Premier Jim Prentice to the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Donald Ethell to dissolve the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Legislative Assembly on April 7. This election el ...

, Schmidt served as the

Minister of Advanced Education Alberta Advanced Education (also known as the Ministry of Advanced Education) is a ministry in the Executive Council of Alberta. Alberta Advanced Education is responsible for the public funding of post-secondary institutions in the province, in ad ...

in the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

(NDP) government led by

Rachel Notley Rachel Anne Notley (born April 17, 1964) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who was the 17th premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2014 to 2024. Notley was the member of the Le ...

. Prior to serving with the Legislative Assembly, Schmidt specialized in site remediation for over a decade. From 2008 to 2015 he worked for Alberta Environment as a soil and groundwater contamination specialist, and previous to this, he worked as a remediation specialist, beginning in 2002. He holds a master of science degree in applied environmental geosciences from

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

in Germany and a bachelor of science from Queen's University in Kingston. Schmidt drew criticism in July 2020 for comments he made in the Legislature about the late British Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

. His remarks were in opposition to a bill proposed by the governing

United Conservative Party The United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is a conservative political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. It was established in July 2017 as a merger between the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party ...

that modified the province's

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

laws, which Schmidt said Thatcher would have opposed. Schmidt went on to say that he "count on enjoying the fact that Margaret Thatcher is still dead" and regretted she had died "probably 30 years too late". The comments were deemed "totally inappropriate," by the Speaker of the Legislature, which prompted Schmidt to withdraw his comments and apologize.

Electoral history

2023 general election

2019 general election

2015 general election

2012 general election

References

1978 births Living people Alberta New Democratic Party MLAs Members of the Executive Council of Alberta Politicians from Edmonton Queen's University at Kingston alumni University of Tübingen alumni 21st-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta {{Alberta-MLA-stub