A barely touched hamburger and fries at his side, Naheed Nenshi had completed six yearend interviews back-to-back at the Citadel Theatre in downtown Edmonton.
It was the day after the final 2024 sitting of the Alberta legislature, and thieves had smashed through a window to get into his car. But his staff had accomplished the seemingly impossible, rounding up repairs before the three-hour drive south that lay ahead.
Nenshi, a former Calgary mayor and his party’s choice to lead the NDP post-Notley, had one interview to go.
“With all the conversations you’ve had, is there something you wish you’d been asked but haven’t been so far?”
“I do kind of wish people had asked me how I'm doing, but it's all good,” he quipped. “But no, I’ve been very lucky. I've had a series of comprehensive conversations with folks.”
Edited for clarity and flow, interview number seven of seven follows.
For context, note that this interview took place before the Dec. 18 byelection in Lethbridge West, which saw NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro win the seat for the NDP, and also before former leader Rachel Notley’s announcement that she’s giving up her Edmonton-Strathcona seat effective Dec. 30.
Macleod Gazette: How has your reception in rural and small-town Alberta gone?
Naheed Nenshi: When we increased our membership by more than 10 times during the leadership race, that was actually well distributed across Alberta. It was Calgary, Edmonton, mid-sized cities, rural areas. It was really impressive.
For example, the constituency of Highwood, south of Calgary, is a rock-ribbed, conservative constituency. The MLA is Minister of Agriculture RJ Sigurdson. But Highwood is now in the NDP’s top five membership ridings in Alberta. So it's really been interesting how folks have been reacting.
It's not everywhere. I've got a lot of work to do in the far north and east and the west of the province. But it's really been great how people have been responding. And I've had packed events in Red Deer. And in Lethbridge, of course, as we go into the byelection. So that’s positive.
I'll be honest, though. There are some folks who are still a bit suspicious of who we are. But for me, it was a great summer. I went to many small-town parades and rodeos, to be present and talk to people. And through the autumn, we’ve been thinking hard about rural concerns.
MG So let’s talk about those issues, the ones especially important in the towns, the smaller cities and rural Alberta?
Naheed Nenshi: Sometimes they're different. I don't hear in the cities about the need for accessible, affordable broadband internet access, for example. But many of the things are exactly the same as they are elsewhere, and in fact they're more acute in smaller communities.
We’re sitting here in downtown Edmonton right now. If you or I had to go to the emergency room, would we be really upset waiting 12 or 15 hours at the Royal Alex?
But for many communities in Alberta, going to your local emergency room just isn't an option anymore because it's always closed. And somehow that's become the norm. Somehow it's become the norm that women are not allowed to deliver their babies in their home communities.
I hear this every day. And I hear that conservative governments and the UCP especially have taken communities outside of Calgary and Edmonton for granted. They know these communities are always going to vote for them, or they think they're always going to go to work for them, so they don't have to do anything for them. But the UCP can't even keep their roads in good shape.
So I hear consistent frustration, and my job now is to convince people that there’s an alternative. That better is possible.
MG: Some of those frustrations are reflected by the Rural Municipalities of Alberta and its more urban counterpart, Alberta Municipalities, which represent municipalities of all sizes in Alberta. They’ve both made public statements about what they consider the UCP government’s lack of consultation on legislation directly affecting them.
Naheed Nenshi: I went to the RMA convention this fall, and that has not traditionally been the friendliest place for NDP leaders. Partially because I knew everybody in the room, because I’m a former mayor, but also partially because of the way the government has treated them, I got a wonderful reception.
They said they are very used to being treated by provincial politicians of all stripes with neglect. But this government takes it a step further and treats local elected officials with contempt.
The UCP doesn’t believe that municipal politicians are democratically elected. They don't believe that they are legitimate. They put their thumb on them all the time, with things like Bill 18, Bill 20 and Bill 21. And that really frustrates local politicians.
[The mentioned bills have all been passed into law: respectively, the Provincial Priorities Act, the Municipal Statutes Amendment Act and the Emergency Statutes Amendment Act.]
I was talking to the mayor of a northern Alberta town about this capricious conspiracy theory decision on banning electronic ballot tabulators. And he said, it's going to cost my town over $100,000. I worked it out to, say, five per cent of his taxes. I’m not certain of the math, but it was an enormous amount.
Yeah, he said. And they never asked us about it. They never talked to us about it. And for the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, it's going to be millions and millions of dollars.
Another example for the bigger cities is the reduction and review of photo radar use. Maybe photo radar sites are cash cows and all of us hate cash cows. Maybe they suck. But they are raising money for the police.
So now the minister has defunded the police and explicitly said, find the money somewhere else. Where else are they going to go, other than the property tax base?
MG: Why do you say the provincial government doesn’t consider municipal elections democratic?
Naheed Nenshi: Much of Bill 20 is about completely breaking elections law and making local elections unfair in Alberta. It’s simply because the premier doesn't like the mayor of Edmonton and the mayor of Calgary. She sees them, maybe, as threats to her power, and the UCP wants to elect people they like better.
I believe in local democracy. I believe that citizens get the right to vote for who they who they want. And Bill 20 in particular is a great example of an anti-democratic bill. It's purely authoritarian.
MG: You’ve spoken about the politics of practicality, that you don't consider yourself especially ideologically driven when it comes to government at any level. Is that a fair characterization and does it relate to the concept of party politics at the municipal level?
Naheed Nenshi: That’s because I cut my teeth in municipal government. If you think about my council, we had the widest range of ideology you could imagine, from Trump Party of Canada to Mother Earth Will Heal Us All.
Don't get me wrong. It was not like Athens. It was not Socratic dialogue. We fought all the time.
But ultimately, we were all trying to build a better place. And the vast majority of what I did over 11 years as mayor passed unanimously. And I think that's actually a great feature of municipal politics: that you have to compromise, you have to work together, you have to listen to one another.
I would walk into council meetings not knowing what the outcome would be. To me that better reflects citizens’ views.
Provincially, we started this session knowing exactly what would happen. Every one of our amendments would be rejected. Every one of the government bills would pass.
Everything in between was theatre and not very good theatre. Why would you want that for your municipal government?
MG: At some point you're going to be part of that theatre. Are you not looking forward to that part?
Naheed Nenshi: I like the history and the trappings of the legislature, the guy with the mace, the people in the robes. It reminds me of our democratic traditions and why they’re important.
But I would suggest, if you asked around, every serious politician in provincial or federal government would tell you that their time in parliament or in the legislature is the least effective part of the job.
If they're just there because they like talking or they like insulting people or glib heckles, then they might enjoy it.
The last sitting this week I watched, the UCP was already on mental vacation. They were there in their Christmas outfits, and they read scripted statements from, like, the movie Talladega Nights that they thought were extremely witty and fun.
But they didn't answer any questions, and that's just what this government is. They have no interest in governing. They’re just performing and it's frustrating for me, because I've not seen a government like that before.
There’s a performative level to all legislatures, but you can still be sharp, you can still fight with one another, and you can be focused on things that matter.
MG: What things do matter to Albertans?
Naheed Nenshi: As I've traveled Alberta, it's clear that the vast majority of concerns that Albertans have coalesce into five areas: the cost of living; jobs and the economy, and particularly jobs for the next generation; health care; education; and public safety.
The premier has unlimited power. She can do what she wants. Of the 14 bills she introduced, there were zero on affordability, zero on jobs, zero on public safety.
Her only bills that dealt with health care and education were anti-trans bills targeting vulnerable kids. That's it.
So the UCP are not actually interested in solving problems. It's not always been like this, and I think it can be better.
I'm not saying that if I were the premier, it would just be this wonderful place of enlightenment in the legislature. But it might be a place where you listen to amendments.
When the opposition party tells you there's an error in your legislation and this is how to fix it, you don't just go screw you. But that's been our experience so far.
MG: Examples?
Naheed Nenshi: Let’s start with the All-Season Resorts Act, which we’re in favour of. We believe in the tourism economy, and we believe that we need more resorts and hotel spaces and so on, so that more people get to experience this beautiful land.
But there were serious but fixable concerns in the legislation. We believe that it will tie up every one of these resort proposals for Crown land with litigation, and then nothing will get built.
There's nothing in there about Indigenous consultation. There's nothing in in there about relationships with neighbouring municipalities, which know about land-use planning and could be helpful in planning the roads and the related housing and so on, and will also probably supply water, wastewater and road infrastructure.
And the minister of tourism has the right to forego an environmental assessment. Not the minister of environment, who knows what they're doing. The minister of tourism.
So all three of those are going to mean some massive lawsuits anytime a proposal comes through, making the resorts too expensive to build because of regulatory and legal costs, and no one's going to want to invest in them.
We told the UCP you can fix this relatively easily and then we'll vote with you. They just weren't interested when we put the amendments up.
MG: Another example?
Naheed Nenshi: It’s to do with all the anti-trans stuff that’s happening.
The way the UCP has written the health-care legislation, think of this. You're a parent sitting in the doctor's office with your child. The doctor says, I know what the best treatment for your child is, but I’m not allowed to provide it because it's illegal.
You've got Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and Premier Danielle Smith sitting in the doctor's office with you.
The bill is supposed to be about parents’ rights, so we put in an amendment that said if the parent consents to the treatment, you can give them the treatment. And the UCP said no.
So they don't care about parents’ rights. They want to take away the right of parents to get the best treatment for their kids.
MG: What about other legislation affecting trans-gender Albertans and their families?
Naheed Nenshi: When the premier first announced anti-trans legislation, I personally and many Albertans were very alarmed.
The way she described it was that a kid could be outed to their family without the kid’s consent. For hopefully a very small number of children, that could be an abusive family.
They could get beat up. They could get kicked out of the house. They could fall into self-harm and suicide.
I waved the flag before I was back in politics, and I received assurances. The premier herself said no kid will be outed to their parents without their consent. They have a choice.
They can either go through this or stay in the closet. Maybe it’s not a great choice but at least they aren’t getting beat up or killed.
But the legislation actually says that once a child talks to a teacher, they start an inexorable process that ends in the parent being told — with or without the kid’s consent.
So we pointed this out to the government. We said, listen, we have an amendment. You can have it. You can take the credit for fixing it. Let's not make this political. Let's save kids’ lives.
But they didn't care.
MG: A final example of the UCP not listening to the NDP?
Naheed Nenshi: Here’s a funny one.
Late last night during the final sitting before Christmas, one of my colleagues stood up and spoke in favour of a portion of a government bill. It was about sharia law financing, OK? This is a good thing and it will help people, he said.
And a UCP member got up and started yelling about how bad sharia financing is, and how dare we give special treatment. And Muslims and her own colleagues were like, it's our bill.
So they don’t even read their own bills.
MG: Anything more about your experience so far as the party’s choice to lead the NDP?
Naheed Nenshi: I’m sad about how unserious the government is about the job. They just want to perform and get likes and hits on social media rather than govern.
I am also surprised by how little they care about rural Alberta. How they just live under the legislature’s dome and don't seem to really care about what's going on in their own communities.
The broadband thing surprised me. The province has been promising better, more reliable broadband to rural Alberta for almost 30 years. And it's shocking to me that we’ve spent so much money and we haven't really got there.
I don't think this government has any economic development strategy for rural Alberta. You know, the renewables ban cost hundreds of jobs in Cardston County. It caused $33 billion minimum of investment to leave the province. That ain't never coming back. Thousands of jobs, mostly in rural Alberta.
And the only thing they've come up with to replace it is this dream that Amazon and others will build data centres in rural Alberta for artificial intelligence.
Everyone in the world is chasing AI data centres. But how many jobs do they create? A big data centre needs fewer than 100 people running it and it doesn’t require a lot of people to build.
Data centres usually have to be off-grid, because if you attach them to the existing grid, you'll get more grid alerts. Or you have to build massive generation capacity.
So this is not a rural economic development strategy and has enormous resource requirements.
The UCP has also announced that they're no longer supporting regional economic development alliances with ongoing operational money.
I hear all the time from people in small communities that they want their kids to stay. It's not just on the farm. They want there to be opportunities for kids to grow up in the beautiful places where they grew up.
And it's heartbreaking every time I hear it.
MG: Talk about your team, as you've come into this new experience in provincial-level leadership.
Naheed Nenshi: So on June 21 I thought that I was the leader of the opposition. And then I was quickly told on June 22 you're not actually leader of the opposition.
And your first job needs to be to appoint one. And by the way, you have no choice: it will be Christina Gray.
And I said, she seems nice.
And my goodness, I am so lucky. Gray [the member for Edmonton-Mill Woods] is an extraordinary leader who knows parliamentary procedure like nobody's business, who can stand toe-to-toe with the premier in question period. She’s very impressive.
We have 36 colleagues, hopefully 37 on Dec. 18.
They're great. They're so good. They're people who care about the community. They're not there for themselves. They're not there to perform. They do like the occasional quip, yeah, but that's not what drives them.
They go to work every day prepared to fight for the citizens of Alberta. They have cogent, thoughtful things to say.
I've got an embarrassment of riches to choose a shadow cabinet from and, knock on wood, when we get in government to choose a cabinet from.
MG; How’s the mentorship from Rachel Notley been?
Naheed Nenshi: As senior adviser to the leader, she has not been shy about giving me senior advice — or seniors’ advice, if I'm teasing her about her age. No, she's been so generous with her time, her advice, with her thoughts.
She built this party from two MLAs to government to the largest opposition in Alberta's history. Nobody else could have done that. She's a once-in-a-lifetime politician, and she's been so helpful to me.
Of course I'm doing things differently. I'm not a carbon copy. [Quipping again] I'm much taller, for example.
It's been so helpful for me to be able to build on what we know, what we did before, and what we have a possibility of doing in the future.
MG: If you form the government, what are some of the things you and your NDP colleagues would address legislatively?
Naheed Nenshi: Cost of living, better jobs, health care, education and public safety: those are the five things that we really need to focus on and show people that we can do better on.
Alberta needs a real, job-focused economic development strategy, because the best thing you can do to help with the cost of living is have better paying jobs. It’s not the only thing you can do, as the UCP keep suggesting, but it is part of it. So we need proper economic development.
We’ve got to increase minimum wage. We have the lowest minimum wage in the country.
Then there are the three areas that the provincial government has direct control over when it comes to cost of living.
One is auto insurance. Alberta is paying the highest insurance rates in the country, and the UCP wants to increase them by 15 per cent.
The second is utilities, where the costs quadrupled when the UCP took power. They've gone down again now, but they're still 50 per higher than they were in 2019.
And the third is housing. This government just fights with municipalities and the federal government on housing, and we have to be able to build housing supply to bring down the overall cost of housing. And they just haven't done anything to do that.
MG: Let’s dig a little deeper into one of the areas you’ve mentioned: public safety. How would you characterize the UCP’s approach to public safety?
Naheed Nenshi: They're making it up as they go along. Some days there's going to be provincial police. Some days there isn’t.
Studies have consistently shown that replacing the RCMP with Alberta provincial police is both very unpopular and very expensive.
Danielle Smith’s latest is she's somehow going to have an Alberta border patrol checking out people going to the Target store in Billings, Montana.
It’s just incoherence, and we expect better than that.
Rural crime has gone up since Danielle Smith has been in power. She has done nothing on rural crime, which is a very serious concern for so many people outside the big centres.
MG: What about underlying drivers of crime?
Naheed Nenshi: I will not deny that bail reform needs to be addressed. But the root cause stuff is important, too.
Everyone who's worked in public safety understands that mental health and addiction are an issue. Anyone who's encountered people on the street understands it, too, that these are problems for federal and provincial governments.
This spring, you're going to see from this government what they call compassionate intervention, meaning that you can round people up and force them to go to treatment.
But there are two really big problems with that. Number one is that there are massive waiting lists for people who want treatment. So where are we putting the people who don't want treatment? Are we pushing back people who are ready for treatment even further?
And the second is that, as anyone who has worked in treatment can tell you, if you are not mentally ready to take the treatment, it's not going to work.
And by the way, there is no plan for once you’re done. What do we release you to? Are we releasing you back to the homeless shelter where the drug dealers are preying on citizens? How is that going to be a healthy place?
So there’s no housing strategy.
There's also no jobs strategy for folks coming out of treatment, and one of two things is going to happen.
First, you’ll relapse. And when you relapse, you'll take the same dose of drugs you took before you went into treatment and your body won't respond in the same way, and you may die.
And the second thing that could happen is you’ll feel like a failure. You went into this treatment, it didn't work. There's nothing for you. Nothing can help you. Your life is over, and what happens? Again, you die.
I continue to believe that many of the public safety and social disorder issues we're seeing are a direct result of people not having a decent, safe place to go.
MG: Thanks for your time, Naheed. And Merry Christmas.
Naheed Nenshi: Thank you. And Merry Christmas to you too.
I'm going to finish my burger and then we're driving.
