CALGARY—David Swann jumped from medicine to politics 15 years ago because, the longtime MLA said, he knew as a doctor, he could help thousands — but hoped as a policy-maker, he could help millions.

Swann has represented Calgary-Mountain View as an MLA since 2004, and has been driven throughout his political career by a desire to help Albertans by pushing for improvements in health and environmentalism. In his decade and a half in office, Swann has pushed for more effective mental health supports, shorter hospital wait times, safer working conditions for Alberta farmers, and a balance between environmental policies to cut emissions and support for the province’s energy industry.

Now, after a long career as an MLA, and two stints as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party, Swann has announced he won’t run in this year’s provincial election.

StarMetro Calgary sat down with Swann to talk divisiveness in Alberta, future plans, and why he doesn’t think politics is inherently a dirty game.

Why did you see this year as the right time to take a step back from the Alberta legislature and pass the torch to a younger generation?

Well, actually, I and my wife saw four years ago as the right time to step down. When (former Alberta premier) Jim Prentice, however, came on with no effective opposition left in Calgary, because the Wildrose had collapsed into the PCs, I was the only incumbent. So I stayed on an extra four years deliberately to provide some alternative to the PCs. And, as we know, the PCs collapsed. So, yes, this is the right time. It’s longer than I ever intended to spend. I got into politics to get Ralph Klein out and the PCs out, and that was accomplished several years ago. And I saw a real opportunity with (current Alberta Liberal Party Leader David Khan) stepping up to the leadership to step aside and have confidence that this party is viable.

Taking stock of the political landscape since you were elected in 2004, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen in Alberta politics during your time in office?

The shift to the New Democrats has been the biggest shift we’ve seen in 44 years. A more progressive government, more attuned to balancing environment and business. What I haven’t seen enough of is fiscal responsibility, I guess, and a willingness to look at the waste in the health system. For example, the failure to move our health system towards prevention. Instead, all this money, 99 per cent of our budget, goes toward treatment for people after they break down ... Big changes, but still a populace that I’m concerned is not engaged, not paying attention to the issues of the day. It leads me to believe that one of the big contributions I can make after politics is to get involved in public community organizations and in the media to talk about how to be engaged effectively in politics, and not to allow us to slip into something like Ontario, where a totally right-wing government without sensitivity to the social or the environmental is totally focused on a bottom-line figure.

What do you believe your legacy has been on Alberta politics?

I’ve never felt really like an expert in politics. That’s my problem. To be fair, I feel like I’m an expert in health, but I don’t feel like I’m an expert in politics. So I’m not sure what kind of influence I’ve had on politics per se. Now, I define politics as negotiating the long-term public interest. I don’t define it as a bad system where you’re beating each other up and opposing everything because you’re in the Opposition, and trying to gain your own advantage. There’s nothing negative about politics generally if you define it as negotiating the long-term public interest. I hear too many people dismissing politics as just a dirty game. It’s not a dirty game.

With stories like (former Speaker) Gene Zwozdesky’s recent death, we’ve seen shared support coming from parties across the political spectrum. Seeing how divisive this election campaign has already been, that kind of multipartisan message can be rare. How has this divisiveness changed from when you were first elected?

(The Alberta Liberal Party has) traditionally tried to be a moderating influence on that bitter partisanship. When I first came in, one of the things I tried to do was to reduce heckling in the legislature. I wasn’t entirely successful. Even myself, I had trouble controlling at times the comments I would like to make when I hear some false statements. But the bitterness of politics is always more difficult when it’s a very close balance of power. And we’re going to see that in this (election), for sure.

In your 15 years in office, do you think Alberta politics has grown more divisive?

I do, because I think we’ve had a more dramatic shift in the political leadership and we’ve had a pretty angry conservative side. Whether it’s the public conservative side or the political conservative side, (they are) pretty angry at losing their power base in Alberta. That’s a recipe for real bitterness. On the one hand, the (NDP) fighting for many years to be in a position of influence and then being opposed on almost every front. And on the other hand, the old guard having lost almost everything that they had built, and now having to merge with some fairly extreme elements.

After the 2015 election, you were the only Liberal candidate to win re-election. What does the party have to do to be successful in Alberta again?

We need leadership in this party, so I’m very much counting on (David Khan) getting elected here and I’m working hard in this constituency to see that that happens. We need to communicate our message more effectively. It’s hard to communicate a moderate message — that we value some of the ideas from the right, that we value some of the ideas from the left, and this is how we would package the best of both worlds. What I think we haven’t communicated as well as we should is that we’re not tied to unions, we’re not tied to corporations like the two major parties in this province.

Movements that lie further to the left and right on the political spectrum have seen more popularity in Canada and around the world ... do you think that moderate message is losing popularity?

Well, it does seem like that globally, doesn’t it? More and more countries and parties pulling to one extreme or the other. And, of course, I don’t think that suits most people, that’s why I’m a Liberal. But I guess there’s the combination of the lack of engagement, media not doing their job, in my view, of presenting evidence and facts in an understandable way for people, and parties playing on the fear of the other. I started a blog five years ago called Politics Sucks and those were the three elements that I said were the problem: one is the politicians, one is the media, and the other is the public.

Looking ahead to Alberta’s future, what’s the biggest challenge this province faces — regardless of who takes power in this year’s election?

It’s coming to terms with climate and the oil industry. Those are the perennial issues here and they’re certainly the current contention. Primarily the carbon tax, the pipeline, the oppositional way that we’re addressing that. On the one hand denying we have a serious problem with the climate, and on the other hand, denying that we have a need to change. I think that’s the thing where us moderates have a way forward and a trajectory that says, ‘Let’s keep moving and supporting the industry.’ We’re all going to need oil and gas for the next 30 years, if not more. And let’s do more on renewable, clean and alternative energies.

What’s your prediction for this year’s provincial election?

I think it’s going to be very close. A lot of it is going to depend on what kind of campaigns we see and what kind of openness we see from the (the United Conservative Party). We still don’t know much of anything about what they’re actually going to do and I think that should be a problem for most Albertans. That’s the way Doug Ford ran in Ontario — don’t tell them what you’re going to do and just tell them you’re going to fix things. And that’s not good enough for most of us. But if it is a more enlightened electorate on what the different positions of the parties are, I’m hopeful that we’ll see close to a minority government.

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What are you most looking forward to about your retirement from politics?

More time to do other things that I’ve had to sacrifice with the demands of this. I have 13 grandchildren, another one on the way. I don’t know them all well enough yet, and I want to get them out to the mountains and the rivers.

(Note: This interview has been edited for clarity.)

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