Since Naheed Nenshi replaced Rachel Notley as leader of the Alberta NDP last June, the Opposition party appears to have gone from all tactics and no strategy to all strategy and no tactics.
The crucial by-election to replace former NDP cabinet minister Shannon Phillips in Lethbridge-West is one week away yet very little has been heard from Mr. Nenshi since he became leader of the Opposition party, if not quite the leader of the Opposition, last June.
The former three-term Calgary mayor is known to be a smart guy who has been surrounded throughout his political career by other smart people – so one has to assume they’re all thinking smart strategic thoughts about how to win the next provincial election, which is right now scheduled to take place in October 2027.
But there is little evidence Mr. Nenshi is doing anything much beyond talking to party supporters about how they feel and persuading members of the NDP’s 38-member caucus in the Legislature that he listens to them and is easier to get along with than Ms. Notley was. By many accounts, most members of the NDP Caucus are quite happy with his easygoing approach.
But he is strangely reluctant to take public positions on key issues that are widely understood to be NDP strengths and which are popular with NDP supporters. Where does he stand, for one obvious example, on protecting public health care in the face of UCP’s policy of breaking up Alberta Health Services and setting up what’s left for privatization?
No one seems to know. Apparently Mr. Nenshi still figuring out what he thinks.
The Lethbridge by-election will be the first crucial test of Mr. Nenshi’s heads-down approach, à la the late federal Liberal rainmaker Keith Davey’s successful 1980 strategy to win back power by letting Pierre Trudeau read only one boring speech a day and hold no news conferences. “Our strategy involved low-bridging Pierre Elliot Trudeau,” Mr. Davey famously explained.
“Well, welcome to the 1980s,” Mr. Trudeau said on Feb. 18 that year, nine months after he’d lost power to the Conservatives and been written off as yesterday’s man.
By all accounts, NDP strategists on the ground in the southern Alberta city are confident their candidate, former city councillor Rob Miyashiro, is doing well on the doorsteps and will beat the UCP’s John Middleton-Hope, a current member of council. But it’s unlikely the by-election will end with a slam dunk, whichever candidate emerges victorious.
The only prediction I feel confident making is that the winner won’t be the Alberta Party’s Layton Veverka, the only other candidate. Advance polls opened yesterday.
If the NDP holds the seat, Mr. Nenshi’s low-bridge strategy will appear to be working.
Meanwhile, though, there has been chatter about a recent private, unpublished poll showing Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP not only leading the NDP in all parts of the province, but widening the gap. I have not seen the poll. I’ve talked to several people who have, though. I do not find such a scenario difficult to believe.
We’ll probably have to wait for another poll or two to get a fix on what’s actually going down. One would think the NDP is also starting to do some polling of their own, and not just in Lethbridge. Perhaps we’ll get a hint of what their polls say if the party begins to perk up its strategy.
Lately, at least as the fall sitting of the Legislature drew to a close last week, the number of NDP news releases and statements appeared to pick up somewhat, although with little evidence of a focused communications plan.
Meanwhile, I suspect a lot of people in the NDP Caucus are thinking, Why panic? There won’t be an election for another three years.
Don’t count on it, though. As the Nov. 26 Nova Scotia election won handily by Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives illustrated, and as PC Premier Doug Ford may demonstrate again soon in Ontario, Conservative enthusiasm for American-style fixed election dates wanes considerably once they’re in power for a while.
Premier Smith and the UCP have plenty more bad ideas that are likely to be unpopular with voters – grabbing our Canada Pension Plan retirement savings, for example, or more dangerous Sovereignty Act posturing. If they see a chance to cement their hold on power first with an early election, they’ll not hesitate to take it.
Whatever happens in Lethbridge on Dec. 18, it’s time for Mr. Nenshi and the NDP Caucus to start paying attention and up their game.
Shithole Alberta is a lost cause.
CX: Normally I might spike this one. But what the hell? I’m in a mood myself this morning. DJC
I lived in Alberta for three years. It was a wonderful experience, friendly and helpful people, western hospitality at its best.
An absolutely absurd generalization.
You reminded me that Nenshi is still around.
Thank you, DC. Totally agree!
Nenshi is a regular Sphinx when it comes to getting out the word. As for Smith and the UCP increasing their lead in the polls, it would appear that Albertan’s rather like the idea of Smith beating up on trans teenagers, running our pensions into the ground, poisoning our water with selenium and making education and health care private for profit. Who knew? My question is after Grassy Mountain is razed to the ground and is nothing more than a giant black pit, can we put up a solar panel or would it still be considered a “pristine view?
JE: We’re talking, of course, about a poll that none of us have seen. That said, I think the issue here is that Ms. Smith and the UCP are seen to be doing stuff while Mr. Nenshi and the NDP are seen to be doing nothing. The latter is not a good look. As the 2023 election here in Alberta and the recent presidential election in the United States both suggest, a strategy of saying I’m better than the other guy and nothing else is not enough. DJC
Since ‘I’m better than the other guy and nothing else’ seems to be Pierre Poilievre’s MO, I really hope you are right.
Anecdotally, in just general conversations with people, I am hearing a considerable amount of unprompted contempt for Smith. Almost as much as Kenney was getting before his railroading. Now this is in Edmonton, so there probably is a locational bias in play, but still, it is there. I would dearly like to see a poll from, say, Janet Brown, or Nik Nanos. Someone who is competent and has proven history of low bias and detailed reporting.
All that said, yes, Mr. Nenshi is disappointing me too. I expected far more from him. I was willing to give him the summer to plan, then start executing in fall. The very few zingers he has released are encouraging, but still just teasers. I know Mr. Nenshi doesn’t have a seat. Neither did Smith at first. It’s not a valid excuse for his inaction.
Smith has well and truly proven she is not the sharpest rhetorical tool in the political forum. She can campaign, but her Achilles heel is governing. Time for the ABNDP & Mr. Nenshi to load up their quivers and shoot often and accurately.
For example, why not, after Christmas, ask the 5 losing NDP candidates of the “squeaker” ridings in Calgary to launch recall petitions? Watching the UCP collectively “ammitant cacas” strikes me as great start for a new year. It’s the whole hoist on their own petard vibe you know.
If the young people don’t bother to vote in Lethbridge and leave it up to these ignorant easy to fool mindless seniors you can bet Smith will win another seat, that’s how stupid it is. Just like we saw in Red Deer.
Mr. Spiller: The UCP timed the by-election so that as many University of Lethbridge students as possible would be at home for the holidays, and unable or disinclined to vote. I would not condemn students for wanting to spend the holidays with their families. DJC
David Climenhaga: This is done by design, because the UCP has shown no respect for democracy.
Alan K. Spiller: The UCP’s AGM in Red Deer was very cleverly set up so only Danielle Smith’s followers could be present.
insulting people always a sure fired way to win voters over to your political party
There is such a divergence between municipal and provincial politics on so many levels. A skilled mayor (hmmm, was he so skilled or was the opposition weak?) may occasionally win the provincial big prize (John Sewell) but it’s no guarantee. And do you keep listening to the same advisors from the glory days?
Like most lefties, the ANDP is too soft and polite for the trench warfare perfected by the UCP. I believe you, David, referenced the tactic of “Flood the Zone”. Well, now’s the time. En jeu.
In Alberta, mayors jumping provincial and succeeding is a thing. Ralph Klein and Laurence Decore come to mind. So does Amerjit Sohi.
As Bannon finished the flood the zone quotea: with sht.
As the UCP dismantles Alberta, the NDP is asleep at the wheel. Drifting right off the QE2 and into the ditch.
“Alberta’s UCP wants to pave paradise and put up an all-season resort”
“Alberta thermal coal mine expansion gets green light without federal impact assessment”
“Alberta’s new wolverine trapping rules lead to divide between trappers and researchers”
“Alberta quietly opens cougar hunting in provincial park”
“Alberta releases new rules and no-go zones on wind and solar projects”
Where is the NDP?
Is no policy the strategy? Is radio silence the tactic?
How is that working for them? And for Albertans?
Not a murmur of dissent from the loyal opposition. Loyal to whom?
The NDP should be having a field day. Instead, they seem to be on vacation.
My late father shows more signs of life.
As long as the NDP refuse to swing at UCP pitches, Alberta voters are likely to give the Narcoleptic Dormancy Party a pass, not a walk.
Today’s NDP rejects consumer carbon pricing. Now supports carbon capture and storage. Supports O&G subsidies. Supports new pipelines that sabotage Canada’s climate targets. Opposes a just transition for workers. Opposes the federal greenwashing bill.
Not my father’s NDP.
Geoffrey: I agree completely. You ask, “Is no policy the strategy.” I would say yes, that’s what the evidence suggests. “How is that working for them?” Not well, by the sound of it. However, if you look at responses to my post on BlueSky, you will see that there is a group of people who believe this is a good strategy. I sure don’t. DJC
My lovely parents are interred mere metres from the memorial to the Douglas’s in Ottawa. Nenshi isn’t their NDP either. The view of the Peace Tower is awe inspiring.
Exactly what I have been saying though perhaps less poetically. The party members and local reps are so laconic you’d think they are on tranqulisers. I joined the NDP in June to fight back. There’s been no fight in the NDP, only in small groups of citizens. We feel used and abandoned. Dismissed as we get comments like ‘We can’t just fight any old issue like coal mining! unless approved from above.’ Huh? Pick an issue any issue and get the province involved. As an exorganiser I really feel insane about this lack of action and understanding. Tge NDP needs to get on tge ground and get one campaign and get us all involved. Sheesh even numpties like Pp and tRump figured that one out.
There will be a litmus test for how the Alberta NDP is faring under Nenshi’s leadership next week Wednesday. If Rob Miyashiro wins Lethbridge West by more than the 54% of the vote Shannon Phillips achieved in the 2023 election, this would be a vindication of Nenshi’s leadership and approach.
Regarding Nenshi’s media visibility, I saw him fairly often on the local TV news responding to the legislation brought forward by the UCP during the fall session. Despite not being elected, the media was seeking him out and reporting his comments during scrums or in pressers in the Legislature media room.
Is the graduation from civic to provincial politics too bewildering for Nenshi? Is he determined to school the NDP into a non-partisan party? Perhaps his mayoral mitre is screwed on amight too tight.
Message to Nenshi: Westminster parliamentary politics is by nature a partisan affair —unless, of course, a single party sweeps every seat (like Frank McKenna’s New Brunswick Liberals did in 1987) when any opposition must come from the peanut gallery or by way of news media which aren’t always cooperative for— the NDP leader should note, btw— partisan reasons. The educational objective of this college’s course is to instil in the graduate a clear sense of the partisan world democratic freedom entails and that politics is the art of distilling partisan proposals into workable public policies. Given his incognitishness since assuming the orange mantle, it’s amply fair—indeed a duty—to ask: to what degree does Nenshi deserve a diploma?
He at least implied —and Dippers might have inferred before electing him leader—that he would remake the party, often repeating his maxim that he would add a bit of his mayoral “nonpartisan purple” to the NDP’s orange. When the new leader was asked if he’d seek a seat in the Assembly and become an MLA ASAP, if not PDQuicker, he replied that he was going to take his time and get to know his way around the party, that strange thing etymologically conjoined with the word ‘partisan,’ as well as travel around the province and get to know its citizenry which, to be fair, might be taking longer than he forecast since almost all ridings surrounding Alberta’s urban principalities are represented by MAltaGA-TBA-UCPee-ers.
He alluded to having a kinda laid back style which he might have thought would, along with the aforementioned nonpartisan purpleness, endear him to all a them white, Bible-thumpin’, gun-totin’ stand-your-grounders (has hell frozen over yet, Naheed?) But that’s kinda like a school principal who tells students their teacher is away for the day, “so just do your homework or whatever it is you were studying,” which, as I recall, was always quite popular in principle, if not it taken very seriously. But no way would students ever say he was doing a bad job. Thus the speculation that Nenshi’s caucus is enjoying its assignment to comparatively light-duty is probably near the mark.
Apologetics aside, though, Nenshi is turning not a few political nostrums upside down—not that shaking things up is necessarily a bad thing—but not knowing what he is doing in his own absence naturally conjures up images of spitballs, paper-airplane flying, and dunking braids in inkwells (yes, I’m that old!), and some impressive ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ creative-writing substitutes when the teacher gets back. The public is likely to give it the dreaded ‘could-do-better’ grade. Nenshi’s report card this semester includes Math: not seeking an Assembly seat sooner; Physics: not availing the momentum former NDP Premier Notley bequeathed him (for those who might have missed it, her NDP almost won the last election, significantly increasing her Loyal Opposition’s number of seats, the most ever in Alberta history); Machine Shop: not holding the government to parliamentary account; PhysEd: and of course not personally leading an aggressive charge against the Smith&Parker Gang’s roughshod trampling of the people’s government and their very constitutional rights. However, the former leader’s name is no reason to have so many ‘nots’ on the new leader’s report card.
The laid-back nonpartisan probably realizes by now that not having an Assembly seat tends to be delegitimizing in the public’s eye—which could conceivably explain his apparent reticence to engage with the government until he wins one; forgoing any by-election opportunity (like Lethbridge) tends to be seen as an overabundance of caution which inspires less than flattering speculation (and, no, pointing out Danielle’s equally overabundant by-election caution does not remedy).
Nenshi has, in fact, spurned two momenta: the one Notley left him with and his own impressive election to party leadership. The thing is, momentum is like waterskiing: when you lose it, you sink, and then it takes considerable effort to get back up from floating neck deep in the water. DJC’s point that an election could happen anytime, the partisan-right’s vaunted fixed election dates notwithstanding, is reason enough not to be embarrassed like the proverbial hare (of tortoise, not Poilievre, infamy): Nenshi shouldn’t look complacent about how much time he has to come up to speed or improve his grades. The odds of an early election aren’t the point, though: in the adversarial Westminster system the Loyal Opposition is obliged to be prepared to assume power at a moment’s notice in case the governing party loses its ability to maintain parliamentary confidence by, say, risking too many airline junkets which might, heaven forbid, result in a debilitating crash. Recall Chrétien’s 1997 snap-election, a deft, partisan flanking-manoeuvre which the Governor allowed, agreeing that the Opposition plainly showed it wasn’t so-prepared and that electing a new parliament was a reasonable remedy—which caught the hapless Stockwell Day with his wetsuit down around his ankles (and the wily ‘tit gars de Shawinigan won a 3rd strait majority). Accordingly, Nenshi shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that Smith could make the same argument for a snap election herself and catch him with his own purple pants down around his orange sneakers.
Naturally we can’t know for sure what’s in the NDP leader’s mind (since he’s done so little to relieve our—to put it charitably—‘curiosity’). But it could well be a majority of intentional voters who would approve taking the reckless ideo-demagogic UCP out behind the woodshed. Good as it ever was, the maxim goes: justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
Even a simple Henny Youngman routine would be better than nothing: stand naked on a busy corner, tongue sticking out, holding a placard that reads, “Take My Danielle—PLEASE!” At least Nenshi would be seen—probl’y even make the news.
@Scotty
Well said!
And the “braids in inkwell” was almost a coffee spit take. I must be a couple decades younger than you, the spitballs and paper airplanes was a thing for me.
Gerald: attending the Whitevale Public School was one of the best times of my life. It was an anachronism even back in 1964-65 when my kid brother and I were there. There were two levels of semi-literacy: Junior Room and Senior Room.
Yep, two rooms, grades one to eight. 20-foot-high ceilings, tall, pre-electricity windows to let in light, and a hand-pump on the water well out front. It had a bell on a long chain, and a belfry, rang us into class every morning, lunch and recess. The school yard was divided, boys’ side and girls’ side. It closed in 1965 at 100 years old. They bussed us to Green River school after that. My mother was distraught when she found the school yard there was co-ed— of which she strongly disapproved: “Nothing but trouble gonna come from that!”
I was informed just the other day that the old school is going to be knocked down—our neighbour had lived in it for decades, but he died a few years ago—at 101 years old—(I loved that old fella; he kept the blackboards up with my favourite teachers Parkinson’s scrawl still on them decades later); the place had been vandalized. I can’t get back there anyways, but my old friends tell me I would be heartbroken to see what Doug Ford’s doing to this area (it was expropriated in 1967 for an airport that never got built). Our dad is buried across the concession road from the school—which was the last time I was there, 20 year ago by now. I shudder to think he might feel the earthmovers working nearby.
Yes, we had inkwells and used fountain pens—like, so much more modern than quills, eh!
Lol I under estimated – I was 1 year old in ’64!
Your description of Whitevale Public School reminds of when I visited my father’s school near Zeneta, Saskatchewan.
Very disappointed with the ndp approach. I thought being in opposition meant….. opposing not hiding. Giving all the airways to the UCP is troubling at best.
When the media props up the UCP at every turn, and Danielle Smith won’t allow Naheed Nenshi a seat in the Legislature, what is he supposed to do?
From what I’ve seen, Naheed Nenshi gives a thoughtful, reasoned response to whatever crackpot idea the UCP puts forward. Premier Danielle Smith says outrageous things, and Nenshi calmly explains why she’s wrong. She repeats the lies as if he never spoke. Well, look…., and she’s off! The outrageous statements get the press – the response doesn’t.
Recently, I watched a video in which Mehdi Hasan analyzed the Democrats’ loss in the U.S. election. He said that Trump’s entire campaign was one lie after another, frequently repeated but never explained. No matter how many times Kamala Harris explained why Trump was wrong, he was so outrageous that everyone was talking about him.
Mehdi Hasan suggested that the Democrats should have promised a $30 per hour minimum wage. If they were questioned, they should just say “Wait and see.”
Maybe Naheed Nenshi and the NDP, instead of using reason to stop the UCP from closing supervised consumption sites, should be asking “Why is the premier promoting an increase in AIDS cases?”
https://www.sudbury.com/local-news/experts-say-consumption-site-closure-will-raise-rates-of-hivhep-c-9730953
Good one. Up the ante tge Pp dies. It works!
This is a rather passive strategy of letting a government hang itself in its own web of policy mistakes. Unfortunately, it usually is more effective with an aged and rotted government. Sadly, much as I dislike the UCP, I am not sure they meet this qualification.
People I still think, vote for an alternative that is not too far from their general view, with the promise of solutions to their top of mind problems. If the ANDP can present such a choice to the Alberta voter, then it is likely they will achieve power. Short translation Mr. Nenshi must show himself, grow some manure on his boots, and assemble an appealing province wide team with policies to match. The Party has a good solid base in the urban areas, it now needs to add 5 to 10 suburban and rural seats. Think Sherwood Park Leduc Beaumont and northern Alberta ridings. Possibly some ridings west of Calgary in the foothills affected recent coal mining decisions.
Around 15 years ago, an ex-friend of mine tried to recruit me to a political movement.
That movement was simple:
-white northern european christian people in charge
-one party rule
-the chinese government was the model
-everyone in the movement gets rich and gets revenge on their enemies, just toe the line and obey
Who were the local albertans behind this movement?
-a prominent and now current alberta UCP mla was hailed as their leader and inspiration
My personal background has shaped the way I understand the roughly six year attempt of these people to flatter, suck up and get me to scrap my principles and all the beliefs I have in the basic goodness of people.
Boy, was I wrong about the basic goodness of people! They can be turned into horrible people if they are convinced of their own superiority, however unearned. And if some political asshole is feeding these people that superiority crap for a political end? Eventually, a lot of people will blame everyone else for their problems, while the liars, the bullshitters and corrupt egomaniacs line their pockets. And if you believe people cant be flattered and scammed, read any recent news piece on the latest hapless person.
Now here is my background, not just on paper. My family relationships and the stories the older ones told have shaped how I look at things:
-citizenship – Canada, U.S.A.
-ethnicity – danish, german, polish, ukrainian, russian (maybe belorussian?)
-religion- catholic, orthodox and roman; protestant, southern us non segregationist; possibly russian jew married into a catholic family
I had a happy childhood, we moved around a lot because of my scientist dads work, and lived in several provinces, always moving every couple of years. He moved to alberta canada from louisiana, usa, because of a lack of his type of knowledge in canada. That was back in the late 1950’s and he was single.
The wisest woman I ever met was my dads sister Auntie El. She didn’t have any university education and was so common sense smart, would listen and ask questions and draw on her experience living in many different countries while her husband did whatever he did, he worked for the federal government. She was widowed young and moved back home to the us south to be with her family that still were there.
Never thought the ku klux klan would ever be involved with my southern us family.
That’s because they weren’t. No one in my southern us family would ever be associated. I was born in the late 1960’s and when we would go down south to visit, I remember being a little kid and seeing a noose hanging in some big old tree (it means coloreds aint welcome) and a no coloreds, no niggers sign at a gas station and I would ask one of my uncles and he would try to sugarcoat some explanation. Auntie El was honest and she put everything in context, knowing full well my little self from canada didn’t know the world her and my dad and all their siblings grew up in, the segregated south. They all grew up living in an American Foursquare house. You can look up that type of house if you want to see pictures. One of my uncles lived in it after my grandparents died. Granpa owned a carpentry business near a little town that doesn’t exist anymore and I loved going down there every summer as a kid. They objected to the segregation but were too poor to do anything other than vote for the anti segregationists.
And they really disliked the ku klux klan. Everyone knew who was a member and you just avoided those people as best you could.
My canadian family, on the other hand, knew full well about the ku klux klan. This usa based hate group had tens of thousands of members in saskatchewan in the 1920’s. Why?
All them Austrian Empire immigrants, the minority polish, ukranian and russian jewish farmers who came to canada between about 1890 and 1910. Poor farmers back in the Austrian Empire, they were promised by the canadian government a full and free 160 acres of uncleared land, If, they cleared the land of all the scrub And If they planted grain crops.
But why offer these non british people such land, when poor british farmers existed in england?
The canadian government made the offer first to english farmers. But the issue became one of farming techniques and development of a new nation. England is a small island country moderated by Atlantic breezes, no huge temperature swings, farmers could till under the last seasons growth in the fall, knowing the humidity and moisture over winter would protect the soil. The growing conditions for grain crops were very different on the canadian prairies.
The ukrainians, the poles, the russian jews from the Austrian Empire knew how to turn the barren scrubland of western canada into a viable crop growing place, given their natural experience in a place nowhere near humid moderating winds and mild climate.
The english farmers that managed to be successful felt overrun by by these foreigners. Plus these foreigners dressed in funny looking clothes, spoke a weird language, ate them perogies things and were mostly all Catholic, oh my lord christ.
The ku klux klan took on the hate a few english farmers had for the Austrian immigrants. These southern usa foreign invaders from the old usa confederacy had about 10,000 members in saskatchewan alone. Never mind alberta and manitoba.
Honey, I sure as hell cant instruct anyone on the details of history, other than my own personal, but history is history. Do your own research.
Fairness and rule of law is important to me. And no religion of any sort in any law is important to me. Most normal people have a sense of fairness.
This is based on my own curiosity, years of research into my own background, my very large and diverse family, where I’m from, where I’ll go. My canadian family, for the most part, was either very far left or far right politically. Most of them never knew/have known the Canada that I see now. Many were small community clannish and hurt by the meanness but too proud to admit it, when they did venture out to a big city like Calgary, their rigid beliefs and hard shells collided with reality. A few of my relatives have stolen money and other things from me when I was younger.
It’s a complicated story, I know, but most large diverse families have one, if you dig a little. Some people want to know the truth and some are too afraid or insecure. I had to find out why my many of my canadian relatives were so averse to their history.
My canadian grandfather was sent to a mining work camp during World War one 1914-1918, as he was unable, by british/canada law at the time to become a canadian citizen. His passport and immigration status said Austrian. The Austrians were declared belligerents by the british/canadians and he was therefore considered an enemy of canada, kind of like the japanese canadians that were sent to prison camps in world war two. I aint the history teacher, you do your own research. Pierre Trudeau finally fixed that problem by passing a law that gave the granting of canadian citizenship rights solely to canada, not canada with britains consent.
The political garbage is about money and power and attention.
The puritanism of whatever the UCP has on the daily menu of lies and gaslighting, phony sovereignty, white superiority, white christian superiority, university education, electric vehicles, trans people there’s a slice and dice issue for every one. But the UCP has no interest in actually managing this province. Far easier to sell it off to billionaires like Australian Gina Rinehart for a cut of the billions she’ll make on the coal mine every taxpayer will end up paying to clean up.
It’s about fear and hate to get the votes and this works for right wing politicians like the UCP just like it works for the us MAGA party.
And while all the, oh, so superior white nativist pseudo-christian UCP coalition expands its fear and hate, the NDP does not fucking understand.
My ex-friend and her friends told me 15 years ago, the one party political state for alberta was a way to riches for them. China was the model back then.
I’d say Tucker Carlson and the Russians are the model now.
This is not a high school popularity, overachiever contest.
And the comms people at NDP headquarters, the one’s who keep sending me appeals for money, “the trans people need help!” should be fucking fired.
I was raised to be who I am honestly. My dad was such a good and patient man. And I was a hellion but he never gave up. My mother, on the other hand, thought that marrying me off to whatever rich mans son wanted to date was the way to go. Her insecurity, her childhood of being taunted, of being foreign, of being catholic in a protestant community in rural saskatchewan defined who she was.
I have never forgotten who I am. So many of my friends, my ex husband, the politicians that grab for our money with their toxic positivity seem to want to live in a phony make believe world.
If a politician has to fake being a human with emotions, people gonna figure that out. The problem is too many of the NDP haven’t figured that one out. The timidity, the lack of real understanding of real albertans, like me, the fear of what? being criticized?
The NDP emails I get seem to pander to a very small population of alberta, out of arrogance or timidness, laziness, I cant figure this one out. Someone needs to do some housecleaning. No more money from me.
The NDP cannot address the single over-arching issue that faces the overwhelming majority of the Alberta population, and that is the consolidated control of the economy by a tiny rent-seeking elite. Capitalism literally divides the population into the two classes of those who own and those who work. Master and servant never left. The NDP and nominally centrist political entities do not in any way address the real issue of who rules, and instead have decided that reshaping the social mores related to an array of complex behaviours related to human sexuality is as significant to most people as privatization and the reversal of gains made by the working class in the last century-and-a-half.
As a life-long AB NDP supporter and retired labour activist I thank you for saying what I’ve been thinking about. And I’ll just leave it there.
It is noticeable that Nenshi who was often ready with a quip or thought when he mayor, and after, has been so quiet this fall despite a supposedly even more high profile role. It is almost puzzling.
I have a few thoughts about the reason for this unexpected approach. I think two big parts are focusing on learning in this new role and not wanting to overshadow his MLAs, but it does give the impression the NDP seems a bit directionless while the UCP seems full speed ahead now.
Although I suppose there is something to be said for pacing yourself especially when the next election is unlikely to be soon. After all Notley did a great job in effectivrly destroying Kenney and his bunch way before the last election, so what did the UCP do? Of course they then replaced him with someone who seemed like an easy target but was actually harder to destroy.
I suppose the outcome of the byelection will give us some sense if Nenshi’s approach will work. I don’t think the majority of voters are keen on Smith, but she does seem to connect with a right wing base that so far seems motivated to show up for her. So in a byelection when turn out is generally not as high as a general election the NDP will also have to ensure its voters are motivated and well organized to turn out.
Notley was great in the legislature on many issues but her handlers chose to run the 2019 and 2023 elections, particularly the latter, with only the vaguest promises, and almost nothing related to the cost of living, the issue for swing voters and occasional voters. Instead the NDP campaign focus was on keeping out the whack jobs of the UCP. As with the Harris campaign in the US, that gets you close to the finish line but not over it. I’m not sure when Nenshi needs to get past the cliches that are mostly what we are hearing from him now but he can’t win the next election by repeating what the NDP did in 2023. Nor can he win simply on the issues of properly funding healthcare and education or dealing with environmental issues. It’s the cost of living issues that can motivate the people you meet at the door who don’t follow politics and aren’t sure if they will bother to vote. They can’t afford current rents, utility prices, or auto insurance prices. The Alberta NDP needs to follow other NDP governments that made auto insurance and electricity public monopolies, imposed rent controls and built a lot of social housing. Obviously they shouldn’t underplay the disastrous cuts in healthcare and education or the need to vastly expand the renewables industry and impose tough emissions controls on the oil and gas sector. But those alone aren’t going to win the votes of younger people who can’t pay basic bills and don’t much use the healthcare system or give much thought to what’s happening in the education system.
Could be the difficult nature of the modern media ecosystem (did anyone even know about this? https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1hc3sn6/im_naheed_nenshi_leader_of_albertas_new_democrats/)
Could be they are keeping their powder dry for …
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rachel-notley-mla-resignation-1.7408616
Not only are crickets coming from the NDP, but all opposition parties. Sad.
ROB WON IN LETHBRIDGE TONIGHT!! Woo hoo!