Is Nenshi what the Alberta NDP needs?
One of Canada’s best-known politicians appears ready to turn the Alberta NDP’s leadership race on its head.
But while he certainly has the name recognition and public profile, the man who might be best suited to lead the party is not a member of it, has openly criticized it, and in last year’s provincial election only “lent” his vote to it as a protest against Premier Danielle Smith.
Enter former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.
Speculation about his possible candidacy has sparked the most interest in the race since it began on Feb. 5. Nenshi himself is lying low as the conjecture builds.
One of his closest friends and allies says a Nenshi leadership would be a massive boost to the NDP after its loss in last year’s election to Smith’s United Conservative Party.
“If Naheed runs, I think it’s a great opportunity for the NDP to grow their base,” said Chima Nkemdirim, who was Nenshi’s chief of staff for seven years. “Naheed has a proven track record of appealing to voters from all corners of the political spectrum.”
Nenshi, 52, became arguably one of the best-known mayors in Canadian history after winning a comefrom-behind victory in 2010. As the first Muslim mayor of a major Canadian city, the Harvard-educated university professor was hailed as a symbol of Calgary’s sophistication at a time when Torontonians had elected the more rough-aroundthe-edges Rob Ford.
During three terms in office from 2010 to 2021, Nenshi earned a reputation as a dynamic orator and skilled tactician who negotiated the split in the city’s political culture by playing to small-l liberals on city council one day and small-c conservatives the next. His 2010 campaign, mixing liberal-red on social issues with conservative-blue on fiscal issues, was dubbed the “Purple Revolution,” and the colour has been a part of his political brand ever since.
But not NDP orange. Therein lies the challenge and opportunity for a Nenshi campaign.
He will be dismissed as an outsider by NDP stalwarts. In fact, “outsider” is a bit of an understatement. Nenshi has said he saw Rachel Notley’s time as premier from 2015-19 as a “lost opportunity” on issues like housing and mental health. In an op-ed days before last May’s provincial vote, he offered a tempered endorsement of Notley’s NDP, saying he would only “loan” his ballot to the party because it was the lesser of two evils: “I truly believe Smith is an existential threat to our province. There’s never been anyone like her in power in Alberta before. We simply have no idea what she will do as premier, and that scares me more than a few years of a potentially not-great NDP government.”
Hardly the rhetoric to attract the true believers already in the NDP tent. But Nenshi is not after their support. He will want to build a bigger tent, with his candidacy signalling to more pragmatic party members, or non-aligned progressives, that he can break the NDP’s mould and shape it into a dynamic movement to defeat Smith in 2027.
This plays into the overarching question facing Alberta’s NDP: what is the party without Notley?
She led it to victory in 2015 and, despite losing in 2019 and 2023, leaves it with the largest Opposition caucus in the province’s history, 38 seats.
A Nenshi campaign would turn NDP politics upside down, for better or worse.
It would definitely be worse, according to Stephen Carter, a wellknown political strategist who was instrumental in helping him win the 2010 mayoral race.
“Nenshi is an individual star and by being an individual star I don’t take anything away from that skill set,” said Carter. “But caucuses need team leadership and team leadership is about passing the puck sometimes and Nenshi doesn’t know how to pass the puck. He’s not a team player.”
A Nenshi campaign could rescue the leadership race (which wraps up on June 22) from getting bogged down in uninspired campaigning. Unlike the UCP’s heated 2022 leadership contest that became mostly a Smith-versus-everyone showdown, the NDP race is already starting to disappear from public view.
It’s just too darn civil.
The one issue that is proving a tad divisive is the idea of cutting formal ties with the federal NDP. Candidate Rakhi Pancholi has spoken out against an article in the party’s constitution that stipulates when a person joins the Alberta NDP they automatically become a member in the federal NDP, a party that is pretty much as unpopular as the federal Liberals in Alberta.
Pancholi wants to break the NDP mould and appeal to a broader base, just like Nenshi would. However, because Nenshi was not a member six months before the race began, he will need special dispensation from the party to run. That process is reportedly now underway.
If nothing else, Nenshi would bring some fireworks to a race that so far has all the spark of a spent match.