So where’s Naheed?
Alberta’s New Democrats need to know!
Since June 22, when Naheed Nenshi posted his crushing 86-per-cent victory on the first ballot in the race to replace former premier Rachel Notley as leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party, we’ve hardly seen the guy.
The moment the former mayor of Calgary announced his intention to seek the NDP leadership on March 11, the race was all over but the crying. Nenshi surfed to victory on a great wave of hope that with his track record as a three-term Calgary mayor he had the formula required to beat Danielle Smith or anyone else the United Conservative Government might run in her place.
So what if he didn’t have a history with the NDP?
Alberta New Democrats, even many long-time party supporters who knew and respected candidates with a track record inside the party like former health minister Sarah Hoffman and former justice minister Kathleen Ganley, were relieved NDP members had chosen a leader who they expected would aggressively promote an alternative to the Smith Government’s determination to dismantle pubic health care and education and its full-throated adoption of MAGA weirdness from south of the Medicine Line.
Instead, it’s been unnervingly quiet.
I know, I know, it’s not been that long. Less than two months.
Plus, there’s been the occasional cricket chirp from Nenshi – a Stampede breakfast here, a video defence of his policies in civic government there. His record in Calgary, after all, came under immediate attack by the UCP’s well-oiled online bot machine the minute he was named leader of the NDP.
But there have also been precious few attacks by the NDP on the most egregious policies of the UCP government, which most of Nenshi’s supporters expected, and even many backers of his opponents in the leadership race trusted him to deliver.
Not only has Nenshi, who is yet to seek a seat in the Legislature, been troublingly quiet, but so have his caucus critics on major files where Premier Smith and her government are pushing ahead with their most dangerous and unpopular policies – health care, education, the pension grab, renewable energy, and the environment.
A few hours ago, a commenter on this blog addressed Smith’s obvious support for the anti-vaccine craziness of Calgary-Lougheed MLA Eric Bouchard, who appears to believe not only that no one should ever have to receive a vaccination but that those of us who want them shouldn’t be allowed to get what one of his pals calls “the murder shot”!
“Where is the NDP in all this?” the commenter asked. “Where is Nenshi? Where is the health critic? I saw some NDP MLAs at the Calgary and Edmonton folk fests. Which is perfectly fine, but don’t they have time to play their role as His Majesty’s official Opposition? After all the leadership hoopla they completely lost all momentum. Disappointing!”
For his part, Nenshi finally surfaced yesterday in an interview with CTV to say he’s been “travelling all over Alberta, visiting communities large and small, meeting Albertans, sensing the excitement that they’ve got.”
Describing himself as “hitting the ground running,” Nenshi said “there has been a lot of organizational work, the sort of less sexy stuff. Figuring out how things work, how they have worked, how they could work better, bringing some of my expertise to the table, getting to know my colleagues, my caucus team, a little bit better, all 37 of them, and getting ready for an upcoming by-election in Lethbridge West. So it’s been a busy, busy summer.”
Well, OK. But this is the first news story about Nenshi that Google could find in the past two weeks, and the previous one was a column about the former mayor arguing with former UCP Premier Jason Kenney about who was responsible for cost overruns on the Green Line LRT system in Calgary.
Other than that, it’s been about a month since he was mentioned in a news story published by a respectable news outlet.
Meanwhile, we’ve been seeing a terrific example of what hitting the ground running really looks like in the United States presidential campaign.
Premier Smith has been providing plenty of excellent targets for attack by an Opposition party doing its job – yes, even when the Legislature isn’t sitting. (Indeed, attacks outside the Legislature are always going to be more effective than performative Question Period nonsense that most voters immediately tune out.)
Where were the NDP attacks on the Sky Box Scandal and general UCP corruption? Why isn’t the NDP producing and publishing research about what the UCP is getting up to? We’ve heard nada about that from the Opposition party.
Where’s the background information about how bad the UCP’s seniors’ and children’s dental supports are? Did the NDP give its researchers the summer off?
Are Nenshi and his core staff such policy wonks that they can’t see it was the public’s perception of Progressive Conservatives’ entitlement, privilege and arrogance – combined with a whiff of corruption – that brought down premier Alison Redford in 2014 and left Jim Prentice holding her handbag full of troubles in 2015?
They’re missing a huge opportunity, because Redford was practically Saint Joan of Arc compared to the crowd of UCP Orcs we’re being governed by now!
As for the Green Line, fine Calgary issue though it may be, why has Nenshi allowed the UCP to put him on the defensive? Maybe it’s time to link Smith to Calgary’s Sprawl Cabal, the developers and Manning Centre bagmen who have declared war on public transit, safe streets, and a liveable inner city.
Unsexy organizational work is all very well. But the time has come to saddle up and take the fight to the UCP.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
