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The NDP is still so new, so utterly different, that it continues to surprise with its refusal to do things the old Alberta way.

Thursday’s Exhibit A is the second cabinet roster of Premier Rachel Notley, who adds a single new member but still leaves Calgary with only three ministers.

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All of southern Alberta has a total of just four in a cabinet team of 13. Well over half the population of Alberta is represented by 30 per cent of the cabinet.

And so most observers of Alberta politics thought Notley would find at least one Calgary MLA to hand a job.

She didn’t. Instead, she named a northerner, Danielle Larivee of Lesser Slave Lake, as municipal affairs minister. She’s also in charge of Service Alberta.

Edmonton’s Deron Bilous leaves the municipal post to take a new Economic Development portfolio, which is such a high Notley priority that we might consider him the government’s lead minister.

Notley has obvious talent in her Calgary caucus, notably lawyer Stephanie McLean, the MLA for Calgary-Varsity.