Naheed Nenshi offers himself as the outsider who can build a broad coalition to defeat the UCP and defend core values of tolerance and inclusion
Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi vaulted into the Alberta NDP leadership race Monday afternoon with a slogan that reaches far beyond the traditional party.
“Naheed Nenshi For Alberta. For All of Us.”
It doesn’t mention retiring Leader Rachel Notley’s party, which he hopes to lead.
The logo features NDP orange and a touch of Nenshi’s personal purple, his trademark colour when he was mayor for three terms.
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Nenshi offers himself as the outsider who can build a broad NDP coalition to defeat the UCP and defend core values of tolerance and inclusion.
He was quick to attack the UCP and Premier Danielle Smith. He said her battles with Ottawa are like watching a “particularly irritating playground fight.”
In an interview before the announcement, Nenshi said most New Democrats want a larger, more open party.
“I’ve been talking to dozens of party supporters from every corner of the province,” he said.
“I was concerned that the party was more interested in keeping the doors closed, building on what it was, than opening the door to more Albertans.
“And I can tell you I’ve seen almost zero evidence of that.”
His campaign kicked off at 1 p.m. with social media hits and a new website, but no news conference; the same way he started his three successful mayoral campaigns.
In the interview Nenshi praised the other official leadership candidates (MLAs Kathleen Ganley, Sarah Hoffman, Rakhi Pancholi and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse, and labour leader Gil McGowan.)
But he was hotly critical of Smith, even moving his comparisons from playgrounds to the big screen.
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Her fights with Liberal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, Nenshi says, are like “Godzilla vs. Mothra — two monsters you don’t particularly like, and we’re the ones who suffer. I think we need some grown-ups in the room on both sides here.”
He hopes the goal of creating a bigger party will win over current party members and persuade outsiders to buy memberships and vote for him.
“All the Calgary NDP MLAs but three are brand new (since last year’s election),” Nenshi said. “All of them are very excited about ways in which they can appeal to even more people and ways that they can ensure we have a better Alberta government.”
He said the other leadership hopefuls “still think they’re gonna beat me, which is fine and that’s how they should think,” he noted.
“But they’re happy to focus on the limelight, I guess, I would bring to the role, but also the fact that we have to convince more Albertans to give this party a second look.
“They include four incredibly smart and capable women. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with them. All four encouraged me to enter the race because we will all benefit from the extra attention my campaign may garner from Albertans.
“And I want to be clear, (the timing) was my doing. That wasn’t the party taking forever with me, not at all,” he said. “I really wanted to see where this party is at and whether there’s a home in this party for someone with the values that I hold.”
Nenshi knew Smith at U of C but now believes “the premier is not the person I used to know 30 years ago, but rather someone who is just concerned with manipulation and triangulation to see how she can stay in power. We deserve better than that.”
He was offended by what he calls “punching down on vulnerable children” with new rules on transgender treatment and surgery.
He accuses Smith of “scare tactics” for banning bottom transgender surgery for those under 18, when no such surgeries are performed in Canada.
He was also scornful when Smith appeared to blame Ottawa for dire threats to the electricity grid during January’s deep freeze.
Instead of putting out helpful information, he said, “I saw the government blaming the federal government and Minister Guilbeault for this horrible state of emergency, when in fact that had nothing whatsoever to do with what was actually happening.”
Overall, Nenshi says, “I have never seen a provincial government that is this incompetent — but more than that, this immoral and this dangerous.
“(They) are setting Alberta on a path of decline that really hurts vulnerable people, but also puts our entire economy at risk going forward into a new world.
“I realized that Albertans not only deserve better; we must have much better if we are to prosper in the future.”
His entry immediately turns the party leadership race into an existential choice over the Alberta NDP’s culture and future.
Nenshi once chaired Calgary’s Performing Arts Centre, now Arts Commons. He knows about high drama.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald
X: @DonBraid
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