Graham Thomson: NDP cabinet minister gets ready for next election — by announcing she's not running

Last Thursday, associate health minister Brandy Payne, a Calgary MLA, announced she will not be running in the 2019 provincial election.
The fact she made the announcement via Facebook on the eve of a long weekend (while MLAs were already on a weeklong constituency break) suggests she and the NDP wanted to keep the news as low key as possible.
Not that Payne’s departure from the provincial scene a year from now will shatter the NDP government.
Her impending retreat from the political