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Asked what she’d like for a gift this year, Premier Rachel Notley doesn’t hesitate: “I’d like to see the price of oil pop right back up.”

So would nearly everybody in Calgary, the city Notley acknowledges has been hit very hard — harder than Edmonton — by the price crash.

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In a year-end interview at McDougall Centre, Notley talks freely about her government’s problems in Calgary — the twin perceptions the NDP doesn’t have a strong sense of the city, and isn’t very good on the economy.

“We need to continue to build the relationships with key players in Calgary, that we started to build since we’ve been elected,” she says.

“As you know, we went from zero to 15 seats in Calgary overnight, and so we have some work to do strengthening those relationships.

“Some of that work has just started. Our cabinet ministers, our MLAs are out there all the time, but we need to do more of that — I need to do more of that.

“We need to work with job creators and diversifiers in Calgary in partnership … We need to do that work in Edmonton too, but Calgary has faced more immediate results of the downturn, so we need to be working here.”