The election of former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi to the leadership of the Alberta NDP marks not only a new day for the opposition party, but a key milestone on the road to the 2027 provincial election.
Whether Nenshi will be able to bring his party back to power following successive UCP majority wins remains to be seen.
What is known is that the battle lines are now drawn between the conservative agenda of Premier Danielle Smith and Nenshi’s position on many issues vital to ordinary Albertans.
Whether voters in this district will benefit from what promises to be a three-year-long fight between the equally charismatic Smith and Nenshi is also an open question.
For his part, Nenshi calls Danielle Smith and her UCP regime bad for the vast majority of Albertans, including for teachers and doctors.
“I have never seen a government this incompetent, this dangerous, this immoral,” said Nenshi. “We can do so much better in Alberta. We are one of the wealthiest places in the world and yet people are finding it harder to afford to live here. Insurance and utility costs are through the roof and too many of us don’t have a family doctor.
“Our provincial government, who we need at times like this, is interested only in picking fights and wasting money. We need to have a government that knows what it is doing and has the best interest of Albertans at heart.”
For his part, Devin Dreeshen, a UCP cabinet minister and Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA, said, “Naheed Nenshi taking over the Alberta NDP serves as a reminder that the Liberal-NDP coalition is stronger than ever. The tax-and-spend ideology of the Liberals is nothing new for Nenshi.”
With his landslide NDP leadership win – he took more than 80 per cent of ballots cast – Nenshi has a clear mandate from his party to go after the UCP, including Smith MLAs in this district.
It should be very interesting to see how that unfolds in the coming days and months.
- Dan Singleton is an editor with the Albertan
