Ric McIver

Municipal politics

McIver began his first term as Ward 12 Alderman in October 2001. He was acclaimed to a second term in 2004. In the 2007 election, he again faced opposition at the ballot box but was re-elected with a 91% majority.

McIver held his post on Calgary City Council from his election in October 2001 until his run for mayor in October 2010. On April 21, 2010, he announced his intentions to run for mayor in the October 2010 municipal election.

He came in second in the mayoral election, garnering over 112,000 votes.

During his time on city council, McIver served on the following civic boards and committees:

Provincial politics

In December 2011, McIver ran at the provincial level challenging MLA Art Johnston for the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta nomination in the Calgary-Hays constituency. McIver defeated the incumbent by a margin of 285 votes, taking the election 406–121. On April 23, 2012, in the provincial election, McIver was elected into the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, receiving 8,614 votes out of 15,642 (55.07%) to become just the second representative for the Calgary-Hays district since its creation.

Following the election, McIver was appointed Alberta's Minister of Transportation and was sworn in on May 8, 2012. McIver was also named to the Government of Alberta's Treasury Board Committee. He also served on the Government's Operations and Policy Cabinet Committee. McIver was the first Minister of Transportation for Alberta to be selected from one of its major cities.

In a cabinet shuffle in December 2013, he became Minister of Infrastructure.

In March 2014, McIver willingly participated in an event sponsored by a group that condemns homosexuals, March for Jesus. After four years of participating in the annual event supporting the group's homophobic beliefs, he later switched his initial anti-gay stance in a released statement.

McIver resigned from cabinet in May 2014 in order to stand in the Progressive Conservative leadership election, following the resignation of Premier Alison Redford. During the leadership campaign, he courted controversy when he attended the controversial March for Jesus. He later made claim to not share in the group's anti-gay beliefs after attending the march for the fourth consecutive year. McIver placed second with 11.7% of the vote, losing to Jim Prentice. On September 15, 2014, McIver was appointed Minister of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour in Prentice's cabinet.

Interim leader

On May 11, 2015, following the party's defeat in the 2015 provincial election the previous week and the resulting resignation of party leader Jim Prentice, McIver was chosen by caucus to be interim leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party. At the time, he did not rule out running for permanent leader at the leadership election to be held in 2017.

On April 18, 2016, McIver was thrown out of the Alberta legislature by Speaker Bob Wanner for repeatedly refusing to sit down despite the Speaker's requests after learning that sheets explaining the Speaker's ruling for an NDP amendment on a motion tabled by McIver had been distributed before the amendment was even debated on the floor.

McIver announced on November 8, 2016, that he would not be running for the permanent leadership and will remain interim leader until the March convention.