People have lined up for a chance to unseat the Banff-Kananaskis UCP candidate in the next provincial election.

The NDP has four candidates seeking their party's nomination who have been participating in a series of in-depth forums leading up to their Mar. 27 vote.

Sarah Elmeligi, Tanya Foubert, Gavin McCaffrey, and Mark Tkacz are all in the running and over 20 others from across the riding considered it, says NDP constituency association president Stephen Legault.

"Everyone of them has said, what we want is a representation that we can trust. We need to know that the concerns of this riding are going to be heard in Edmonton, they're going to be taken seriously, and that all residents are listened to and represented, not just a narrow group of people who maybe have the ear of the MLA."

The NDP's membership in the riding has more than doubled since Christmas.

"I expect that trend will continue until the premier drops the rite. The longer he waits, the stronger we're going to get."

He says people have become disenfranchised by the current configuration of conservative values that have swung to the far-right fringe.

"One thing the last couple of years have taught us is that things like education, health care, and climate change are just as important as the economic issues that the conservatives tend to focus on," he says.

"To go even one step further, what we've come to see, and I think what the voters in this riding have come to see, is that we need somebody to represent them who understands the relationship between health care, climate change, and economic recovery."

The 2019 provincial election saw UCP candidate Miranda Rosin win the newly-formed riding with 51 per cent of the vote. Incumbent Cam Westhead, of the former Banff-Cochrane riding, received 42 per cent.

Westhead was part of the 2015 Orange Crush that saw the NDP swept into power. He received a similar per cent of the vote, but a split between the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose helped him capture the riding. 

NDP candidatesClockwise from the top left, Gavin McCaffrey, Sarah Elmeligi, Tanya Foubert, and Mark Tkacz.