It is to be hoped that Premier Danielle Smith’s continuing strong polling numbers will catch the attention of someone in Alberta’s New Democratic Party Opposition, preferably somebody to whom Leader Naheed Nenshi will pay attention.
The former Calgary mayor who cruised to victory as previous NDP leader Rachel Notley’s replacement a year ago this June – which in case you missed it starts tomorrow – is seriously underperforming and serious people are starting to notice.
If you doubt Mr. Nenshi is underperforming, consider the Janet Brown Opinion Research poll done for the CBC between May 7 and May 21 that shows more than half of Albertans still supporting the premier – dodgy contracts scandal, deconstruction of health care, footsie with separatists, and Alberta’s emergence as the Republic of Measles* notwithstanding!
“It’s really quite amazing that two years in, she continues to enjoy a honeymoon,” Ms. Brown told the CBC when the broadcaster released her survey results last week showing that if an election were held right now, 52 per cent of decided and leaning Alberta voters would vote for the UCP.
Arguably Ms. Brown’s characterization of this phenomenon as a “honeymoon” isn’t quite right – it sounds more like the premier is holding onto her base while Mr. Nenshi is failing to hold onto the NDP’s. But we need to take her conclusions seriously. There is no pollster with a better take on what Albertans are thinking, and how they’re likely to behave. I’m very glad the CBC has asked Ms. Brown to poll for the benefit of the public.
So it’s no longer just some blogger who admits he’s an NDP supporter grumbling about his frustration with Mr. Nenshi’s apparent disengagement, and that of a good part of the Opposition caucus with seats in the Legislature too, and when that happens a narrative will start being written.
And, inevitably, that narrative will eventually winkle its way down to even the most uninformed voters, and bad things happen to leaders who don’t listen to messages they need to attend to.
In Mr. Nenshi’s case, this is now starting to happen.
Yesterday, the CBC’s Jason Markusoff offered some commentary on why Ms. Smith seems to be doing well, and Mr. Nenshi not so well.
“It seems like the hero of 2013 Calgary isn’t stirring hearts in 2025 Alberta,” Mr. Markusoff concluded. “The massive enthusiasm that surrounded his big win last year as the Opposition party’s leader appears to have failed to resonate beyond his base.”
Ms. Brown’s poll shows “NDP fortunes have fallen sharply in Calgary under its first Calgarian leader,” Mr. Markusoff reported, with the party now trailing the UCP by 13 percentage points in Cowtown, “nearly as far back as they are provincewide.” (Thanks to Mr. Markusoff, by the way, for his shoutout to this blog for its early acknowledgement that Mr. Nenshi was not living up to the expectations of the NDP base who chose him as leader.)
Also yesterday, the profane but often prophetic Evan Scrimshaw drilled into Mr. Nenshi’s “Dangerously Nothing NDP Leadership” in his Scrimshaw Unscripted Substack column.
“Nenshi is a candidate with high name recognition and bad approvals,” Mr. Scrimshaw wrote. “He’s not a candidate you’d expect to poll badly but grow as the province gets to know him more. He is a known quantity and he’s 13 per cent underwater and at 40 per cent giving him low marks. This is a five alarm fire for the NDP and for believers in progressive values.” (Emphasis added by me.)
Or it should be, anyway.
“Nenshi is the available progressive option in Alberta, for good or for ill,” Mr. Scrimshaw noted, so we can’t just flounce off and forget about him. The problem is, according to Mr. Scrimshaw, “Nenshi has yet to give anybody a sense of what a Nenshi NDP looks like – either how it is different to the Notley party or how it is going to bring the province together.”
In his Daveberta Substack column Thursday, commentator Dave Cournoyer also observes with reference to the same poll that “despite implementing a political agenda much more radical than anything that was promised on May 29, 2023, and being dogged by controversial scandals and allegations of corruption, Smith’s UCP continues to hold its support in the province.”
The column looks at the three Alberta by-elections scheduled to take place on June 23. Mr. Cournoyer argues convincingly that while Mr. Nenshi is likely to capture Ms. Notley’s former Edmonton-Strathcona seat, and the NDP to hold onto Edmonton-Ellerslie, the UCP’s biggest problem is potentially not from the NDP at all, but from the openly separatist Republican Party of Alberta in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding north and east of Calgary.
“You wouldn’t know that it’s a safe UCP seat from the way Smith’s government is acting,” Mr. Cournoyer wrote. This explains Ms. Smith’s footsie with separatists and culture war about school libraries, he argues. “The UCP is spooked that influential separatists inside the party will leave to create their own party or join another one, making the United Conservative Party not a very united conservative party.”
Well, maybe it’s as simple as Ms. Brown’s suggestion that the collapse of the federal NDP has wounded the Alberta NDP as well. Personally, I think the opposite might result. But something is wrong, and it needs to be addressed.
We can’t expect Mr. Nenshi to ship out, but he does need to shape up. A good place to start might be by listening to some of the party veterans who kept the provincial NDP’s flame burning during the party’s long years in the wilderness.
Q: Mirror, Mirror on the wall: Who’s the fairest of us all?
A: Not the same guy we were swooning over last June.
Wait a minute, only the government is allowed to turn the courts into a political circus!
“Alberta accuses auditor general of turning court into a ‘political arena,’” says the headline over yesterday’s Edmonton Journal story about the latest sparring between the legal teams representing the provincial government and former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, the plaintiff in a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit.
But wait! This is Alberta! Only the government is allowed to do that!
Journal reporter Matthew Black does a good job of explaining the government lawyers’ argument that the court should ignore AG Doug Wylie’s effort to keep them from upsetting his investigation of the dodgy contracts scandal by cross-examining Ms. Mentzelopoulos about documents she emailed to herself soon before she was fired, so I’ll leave it to readers to get the basic facts from him.
That headline, though, is steeped in unintended irony when nobody uses the courts to score political points like Danielle Smith’s UCP does.
Mr. Wylie is obviously not trying to play politics. He’s an independent officer of the Legislature, a serious guy charged with the serious responsibility of seriously auditing serious matters. He is trying to do is his job without political interference.
*This is journalist Andrew Nikiforuk’s great line, found in a Tyee piece published Wednesday that should also be required reading for anyone who follows Alberta politics.
>>>AHS Third party investigation update– DM McPherson
Deputy minister has issued the following update……
” Given the volume of documents and interview requests ,in consultation with and by mutual agreement with Judge Wyant and Deputy minister of service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, I have extended the term of the investigation. An interm report will now be delivered by Sept 24/ 2025. A final report and recommendations will be delivered by Oct 15/2025 and it will be posted on alberta.ca I have conveyed the information to Premier Smith. <<>Action 4 Canada and PCE<<
" highly organized and well funded lobby organizations….and in the case of PCE one with strong ties to the UCP government and Alberta's conservative movement."
CTV news- May 30th
Conservative activists gave Alberta government list of 'inappropriate books ' in school libraries.
So is
” don’t get measles, get vaccinated ” …
like ” don’t get stage 4 cancer ” ?
Ironic that the “Premier” who is supposed to be the head of the government, standing up for ‘all’ Albertans , sure seems to be deflecting responsibility for things she doesn’t want to deal with.
How rude of you people to inconvenience my time with your problems.
“Leadership at it’s finest “..
NOT
Smith’s strategy of picking lots of fights is not good for Alberta, but it may be politically for her. It does seem to have satisfied and motivated the UCP base and distracted from all her shortcomings so far. Also not just a minority, but when they are getting around or a bit more than 50%, that’s a big enough coalition to win.
Wil this strategy continue to work so well for Smith? Its hard to say. The NDP took a heck of a beating in the most recent Federal election and while this is not the main or only problem for the Alberta NDP, I really don’t feel this helps.
Also, its not quite clear what the Nenshi NDP stands for. It seems closer to the Liberals who while fairly popular nationally are definitely not in Alberta now.
It is probably too soon to make definite conclusions about the outcome of an Alberta election that will not happen for a couple years yet. The Federal NDP may recover some and the animosity to the Federal Liberals, a large part may be a reaction to their sudden Federal turn around, may diminish considerably.
However it is surprising that the UCP scandals and all their fights with various people hasn’t hurt their popularity more so far. People are starting to get concerned so Nenshi will have to turn things around quickly once elected.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS…….this is the MAGACON way………
The #1 indicator of a party in any democratic country that can overturn an incumbent government is door-knocking. Yes, good old-fashioned door-knocking. Policy is not the winning strategy, oddly enough.
If the NDP wants to win, they need the candidates, they need the volunteers and they need to get out there. Nothing says, “I care enough to meet you where you are” to voters than a candidate showing up at the door. In the USA where m/billions are spent by candidates the only ones with less money who have ever upset the status quo against The Duopoly’s chosen darlings have been door-knockers. Nenshi and his compatriots need to show up at every level, from landlord disputes to healthcare hearings in support.
Send around some volunteers to poll the constituents in major ridings about what they need before the politicking even begins. THEN build the platform. That is “democracy” in action.
If the NDP can’t or won’t do that–they don’t deserve to win any more than the UCP, does.
Two years of door-knocking worked for Bruce Fanjoy. We’re two years away from the next election in Alberta.
Yup…….hard work with sprinkles of honesty and truth tastes great……
@Abs.
Exactly. The NDP need to lace up their walking booties and start being *everywhere*. Nothing says, “I’m here for YOU” than showing up at events and door-knocking. Fanjoy did it and he won in a landslide in a conservative district.
AOC won (not that I’m a fan) because she did exactly that, over an incumbent of decades with millions of dollars behind him. Bernie would have taken the DNC and likely the presidency had the DNC not cheated due to his “be everywhere” and thousands of fervent volunteers. Ron Paul keeps winning as a Libertarian because he’s accessible to the voters.
If a candidate can’t inspire legions of volunteers they’re not going to inspire their potential voters, either.
“…the UCP’s biggest problem is potentially not from the NDP at all, but from the openly separatist Republican Party of Alberta in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding…”
I have wondered if that might also be a concern for Pierre Poilievre in his upcoming by-election in the federal riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, which includes Three Hills. I read a news story a few weeks ago about a separatist party that was planning to run a serious candidate in the by-election.
The fun thing about a by-election is that you can use your vote to make a statement without worrying about a party winning that you don’t really want. In this case I am sure there will be CPC voters who will vote for the separatist candidate, just to send a message.
If Pierre Poilievre loses the by-election I think it will be the last we see of him.
Is it not an oxymoron to put ‘serious candidate’ and ‘separatist party’ in the same sentence?
Just asking.
I like that comment.
Look, Nenshi entered the NDP leadership race as an outsider who had never engaged in partisan politics before — somewhat like a certain Liberal Prime Minister we all know. As a longtime NDP member, I was skeptical, and in the leadership vote I supported someone else with deeper roots in the party. But the party’s membership rolls exploded after he announced he was running, and the Nenshi juggernaut rolled right over such NDP stalwarts as Sarah Hoffman and Kathleen Ganley. So I was willing to give him a chance and see what he could do.
Then came months of “thundering silence” as the UCP government ricocheted from one crisis to another. I don’t know what the NDP brain trust has been up to since that vote in June 2024, but whatever it is isn’t working.
That said, I’m not sure what would work. The left’s fundamental problem in Alberta is microeconomic. Albertans see themselves and their province as being economically dependent on extractive industries — not just oil and gas, but forestry, mining, and everything else in that category — and agriculture. And, accurately or not, the NDP, with its environmental awareness, is widely seen here as hostile to those sectors of the economy.
Across the country, regions whose economies and labour markets are dominated by those kinds of industries overwhelmingly vote conservative at both the federal and provincial levels, while urban centres, with economies and labour markets dominated by knowledge workers and the public sector, tend to vote for more progressive parties.
The problem here, though, is that Alberta’s self-image and political culture are more aligned with the extractive industries narrative. People’s livelihoods depend on them, either because they are themselves employed in those industries, or they’re employed in other industries that support that kind of economic activity.
That makes it tough for a leftist party concerned with more than just digging stuff out of the ground and cutting down trees to get any traction with voters, even among unionized workers.
I like Nenshi too but like you, I voted for someone with deeper roots in the Alberta NDP. Danielle made sure to keep Nenshi out of his seat for the maximum time for a reason. Now we see the results of her reason.
Trudy G. There is only one reason for Danielle Smith keeping Naheed Nenshi out of the Legislature. She is very fearful of him. He will easily defeat her in any debates.
The majority of voting Albertans obviously endorse Smith’s brand of cruelty. It also seems that as long as Alberta Government policies hurt the people her supporters hate more than it hurts them, they are fine with it.
@djc
This is the reputable poll I have been waiting for, and yes, it is disappointing. I agree with Evan Scrimshaw’s and Dave Cournoyer’s analyses, and your own. Mr. Nenshi does need to shape up, and the byelection campaign is where to start.
Intefereing with your enemies self-destruction does not preclude helping actively helping them to self-annhililation. God knows, the UCP is making it easy.
The worrisome part here is that this is the same thing that defeated Kamila Harris. (Not that she had a chance anyway.) Nenshi doesn’t seem to know if he’s the leader, which is problematic without a platform in the Leg. I would recommend podcasts, and I can think of two. I’d also use op-ed pieces in the Medicine Hat News, which is the only real newspaper outside the Postmedia bubble that does credible journalism. (Postmedia should be starved to death, and canning that annual weird transfer of fed funds they get should do the trick. Carney? How about it?)
Did you see Seth Klein’s op-ed about the federal NDP last week?
“Is this really the end of the federal NDP?’ (National Observer, May 27, 2025)
“… The forthcoming NDP leadership race will be a battle for the soul and rebirth of the party. Will it see the party continue its long march towards centrist ‘respectability’ and ‘pragmatism,’ or will it see the re-emergence of a proudly left party that seeks to confront corporate power and build public wealth? Will it see a move towards restored grassroots democracy, less centralization, and a casting out of the corporate and fossil fuel lobbyists who have long dominated the party’s backrooms, or will it see these interests reassert and consolidate their grip?
“Some of those fossil fuel-connected insiders and pundits blame the NDP’s poor outcome, at least in part, on a purported abandonment of working people by becoming too green and opposing fossil fuel projects. Nonsense. The NDP should absolutely re-assert itself as the defender of working people. But in a world in which declining fossil fuels is inevitable, the party will most fruitfully defend fossil fuel workers and communities by refusing to consign them to the scrapheap of history – by pressing for robust just transition plans that genuinely leave no one behind.
“The NDP’s curse hasn’t been that it’s too radical, but rather, that it hasn’t been radical enough; it has not brashly and unabashedly defended its views in nearly the way we have seen from the new Conservatives and far right. Having failed to truly distinguish themselves from the Liberals, it wasn’t too hard a stretch for many of the NDP’s traditional voters – desperate to avoid a Poilievre win – to line up behind Carney in April.”
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/05/27/opinion/federal-ndp-future
The federal NDP has a choice.
Either to boldly forge its own future or remain a Liberal-lite party on the fringe.
In B.C. and Alberta, the provincial NDP parties have become Conservative-lite.
In Alberta, Rachel Notley tried to outconservative the conservatives. That strategy failed. Voters with conservative values united behind the real conservative party, and the NDP lost by a landslide in 2019. (Not that the wingding UCP is actually conservative, but that’s another story.)
In B.C., Eby nearly lost the 2024 election to the upstart brain-dead Conservatives. Does the NDP’s future lie in adopting the opposition’s policies, chasing the Conservatives to the right? Or in defining its own progressive vision?
Canada does not need a Liberal-lite party. Canadians with moderate, centrist values will just get behind the real Liberal party, unless the Liberals give them irresistible reasons to toss them out.
Alberta does not need a Conservative-lite party. Likewise, Albertans who support pipelines will just get behind the real pipeline party.
The Alberta NDP’s shift to the right, aping UCP policies and parroting Smith’s rhetoric around climate and energy, is a political blunder of first magnitude.
If progressive politicians cannot defend, promote, and sell progressive policy, why enter politics in the first place?
“To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
I thought we had a pretty strong and well organized Liberal party in Alberta. In just 10 years or so, it was all just dust in the wind.
Klein’s excellent article would be useful reading for his partner, newly-elected MLA Christine Boyle, who this week voted in lockstep with the rest of the BC NDP caucus to pass Bill 15, which enables discretionary end-runs around provincial environmental and indigenous consultation policies in order to expedite Eby’s pet projects.
I’m with you there Geoffrey. I’ve said since Layton and especially with Mulcair the NDP isn’t NDP *enough*. Nobody wants or needs liberal-lite. We are in dire need of some working class representation. We need a wealth re-distributing, pro-union, UP with the workers, DOWN with the bosses big-time revival.
Albertans have been told that they’re screwed because of the feds. Deep in their little cowboy hearts they know it’s bullsh*t. But nobody is offering them anything better. They *are* suffering and that suffering is only going to get worse as oil prices tank.
They need their healthcare fixed. They need social housing built. They need working class support. They’re angry and I get it.
They just need someone to point them in the direction their dogs *should* be barking and it ain’t at the federal postman.
WTF? (Can I say that?)
How can Danielle Smith and the Unhinged Crackpot Party even register on a popularity poll? Even in Redmonton the UCP and the NDP are in a statistical tie.
Are Albertans not paying attention? Are they watching too much hockey? Is it something in the water? Too much selenium?
If Albertans read Alberta Politics every day, as they surely must, surely they must all be outraged. Up in arms. Ready to tar and feather the premier. Run the UCP out of town.
The only conclusion I can come to is that most Albertans are not taking their vitamins every day. Not engaging their rational brain cells. And — and I hate to say it — not reading Alberta Politics (AP).
Regular readers of AP congregate online every day and sometimes we offer our two cents. How easy it is to fall into the trap that everybody sees what we see. How easy to assume that everybody thinks like us.
Take rational, progressive Albertans and semi-rational NDP zealots (you know who you are) on the one hand, and irrational UCP wingnuts on the other. How easy to forget that these subspecies live and breathe in separate universes.
This week a Facebook post attempting to rehabilitate the Freedom Convoy somehow ended up in my FB Feed. 3300 shares and counting. More views than all my FB posts combined. Ever.
How can all these people possibly think the Freedom Convoy was a noble enterprise? Much less a law-abiding one? Are they out of their minds?
For all my shock and horror, I realize that they must think the same of me.
Hi Geoffrey; I generally agree with much of what Seth Klein says yet I think there are deeper problems which “progressives” have to overcome. The NDP should “re-assert itself as the defender of working people” says Mr. Klein. Well I find it really troubling to say this but the vast majority of working people are moving to the right and basically the NDP is following them in order to survive. I didn’t feel this way most of my life but it’s what I see here now and I blame it on education – not the formal school system we have, although that’s a contributor, but from the day we’re born we are bombarded or “educated” with propaganda and it has a tremendous influence. Maybe in Alberta its the selenium but working people almost everywhere are shifting rightward and governments don’t get elected if they don’t shift with the voters, the voters need to shift first and they’re not at this time, even the working-class voters.
This is Capitalism in action and virtually all the parties are Capitalist, with the odd exception all support the capitalist system. If you vote for the Greens you’re voting for Capitalism, yet Capitalism is the problem. Seth says correctly “As the new Carney-led government takes shape, it is quickly becoming apparent that Carney will govern to the right of the Trudeau Liberals, which potentially opens up political terrain for a revived NDP.” But that political terrain isn’t the “Left” it’s traditional Liberal territory. JT’s Liberals had nothing in common with the Left.
Speaking of the Green Party, how’s that going? 1.2% of the votes last election, evidently the Greens don’t register with working people either.
They probably do think you’re out of your mind but that’s an ok badge to wear…
MR wrote: “the vast majority of working people are moving to the right and basically the NDP is following them in order to survive. … the voters need to shift first”
To accept this shift as inevitable is to admit the defeat of progressive politics and leadership. Throwing in the towel.
Is that a good idea?
True, both “working people” and formerly/nominally progressive political parties are abandoning progressive politics — and embracing neoliberalism instead.
Which leaves no one in the legislature to promote and defend progressive policies that actually benefit “working people”.
That the poor regularly vote against their own interests is by now a well-known phenomenon:
“Six Millions Standing against Their Own Economic Interest
“Millions of white working-class and middle-class Americans vote against their own economic interest by defending policies that hurt them while profiting the rich, including the 1% wealthiest Americans. Several factors help explain this peculiar dimension of U.S. politics: myopia fostered by anti-intellectualism; the relationship between religious fundamentalism and free-market fundamentalism; blind faith in the American Dream; and how racism hinders economic solidarity.” (Mugambi Jouet, Oxford University Press, 2017)
“Under neoliberalism, the role of government is to create and enforce markets and prop them up when they fail.” Shovelling public money into corporate pockets. Neoliberalism doesn’t help working people. It helps the rich get richer at the expense of working people.
“Its essence is captured in former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s famous maxim: ‘Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.'”
Not what they say, of course, when the market fails. In the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic, industry and big corporations demanded government support.
For neoliberals, government for the people is the problem. Government for corporations is the solution.
“Politicians are weathervanes when they are supposed to be compasses.”
It is not just our political class that is failing us. Government itself is failing.
The party faithful offer up mindless slogans: “Politics is the art of the possible.” “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.”
No. Politics is the art of persuasion. Cars do not sell themselves. Carbon pricing does not sell itself either.
Politics does not stand still. Politicians sell new ideas and policy change to voters all the time. That’s the job.
“The art of the possible” is a slogan, not an argument. An excuse for failed leadership. An attempt to lower expectations and diminish responsibility.
Politics is the art of the necessary. Anybody can do the politically expedient. Anybody can govern by poll. Anybody can follow the parade. Anybody can pander to industry. True leaders do what is necessary, even if unpopular. They persuade people to follow.
If “progressive” politicians are not willing or able to defend the public interest, why run for public office? If progressive politicians cannot defend climate policy as wildfires devour town after town and hundreds of Canadians die in a single heatwave, why are they in politics?
Why enter politics in the first place if you cannot sell and defend your values and policies? If all parties simply go where the votes are, that eliminates any role for leadership. Government by poll fails to serve the public interest.
We do not need nominally progressive politicians who blow with the wind. Politicians, political parties, and governments that merely follow the parade, ignore the best available science, and turn their backs on reality are worse than useless.
What is a “semi-rational NDP zealot” fifty years into the neoliberal assault on the post-war welfare state?
What is a “rational, progressive Albertan” in an economy in which the richest 1% of Canadians control at least 25% of the wealth and in which the tar sands generate 18% of Alberta’s GDP, and real estate generates 10%? I haven’t been able to nail down recent stats, but TD Bank claimed in 2004, in the lead-up to the 2008 oil peak, that 40% of Calgarians were low income. Again, this is a bank copping to this degree of inequality.
Andrew Nikoforuk, referred to by the esteemed blogger, painted a picture of the tar sands in his 2008 book of a truly vile phenomenon, and when prog supreme-o Rachel Notley landed in Edmonton during the interregnum of 2015-19, she cozied right up to the bitu-men who actually run this province.
The Uhinged Clown Posse enjoys widespread support across the province because from an economic perspective, the people perceive no alternative. Construction is more important in Canada than manufacturing, and under the truly amazing super awesome Lougheed Kons, the industry in Alberta was rendered almost entirely union-free. CAOEC sets wages for rig-hands in a manner that is totally not monopolistic, and they currently stipulate that a driller is paid $55.70 per hour. A journeyman electrician in Calgary can expect $37.oo per. So who exactly is going to take the political reins in this province and produce any kind of change in the economic circumstances of Albertans in the midst of the collapse of the economic position of the US empire?
Welp, having done my share of protesting, the truckers were within their rights to protest, agree or disagree with their complaint.
The endless whinging afterwards about “rights violations” just blows my lemons.
Anybody doing anti-poverty activism couldn’t believe the kid-glove handling. I was gobsmacked. I WISH it had been that civilised for us. We’ve had people who were busted every month then given restrictions that they couldn’t attend any protests which, in the case of some of them…was their *job*. The court cases would be held up for over a year before it came up for trial and get thrown out every time…meanwhile they had massive restrictions on their right to associate and restrictive bail conditions. The chill factor was huge. The arrests weren’t all stage-managed where activists put their hands behind their backs and got politely cuffed–they were grabbed full force and thrown into the dirt.
Yet there the truckers were, bouncy castles and all, yakking it up with the cops and honking away. Yet cops would come to us and rip up banners, threaten protesters with force, beat on riot shields, run over folks with horses, bring snarling dogs and all manner of abuse. Not a word in the media until the G20 showed up in Toronto and it started to go public.
And the trucker organisers are *still* publicly whining. If they were serious, they’d realize that’s the gig. Fighting for freedom ain’t free. Read some history of labour organizing. Brutal.
That’s how you know it’s astro-turfed. When protesters *actually* stand up against the powerful, it’s not pretty.
B wrote: “Having done my share of protesting, the truckers were within their rights to protest, agree or disagree with their complaint.”
To be clear, the issue is not whether “truckers” (how many truckers in the Freedom Convoy?*) had the right to protest.
The protest turned into an indefinite siege. The protest itself — and many protesters — broke the law.
A protest is not a licence to break laws. Most protests take place entirely within the law. If protesters break laws, they can expect to be arrested and charged. Those who commit acts of civil disobedience do so knowing they will face the consequences.
“Prosecutors argued everyone’s rights to protest are protected but also limited, and it is illegal to block streets and obstruct people’s enjoyment of personal property.
“The Crown argued a peaceful protest does not automatically mean it was legal. They say the protest was not violent, but that doesn’t make it lawful or peaceful.”
“Was the Freedom Convoy legal? Trial of protest leaders tackles that debate” (CBC, Nov 29, 2023)
Sure, “truckers” had the right to protest.
But “truckers” did not have the right to lay siege to the city.
“Truckers” did not have the right to make Ottawa residents’ lives hell.
No right to assault a city with non-stop horn honking.
To deprive people of sleep.
To fill the air with toxic diesel fumes.
To harass health workers outside hospitals.
To harass staff at a food bank.
To attack citizens wearing masks.
Anti-vaxxers do not have the right to ignore public health measures, passed for the safety and benefit of all.
No right to block ambulances and harass medical staff outside hospitals.
No right to infect one’s neighbours and co-workers.
There is no right or freedom to walk around unprotected and spread a potentially lethal virus.
Freedom Convoy types insist on their own rights and ignore the rights of others.
They extol freedom without responsibility.
Block ambulances, but demand a bed in the ICU.
*”Trucking groups criticized the protests, asserting most participants were not truckers.” (Wikipedia)
Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan: “Let’s be clear: hurling racist insults, harassing outreach workers to take food meant for the homeless, entering businesses and refusing to follow public-health guidelines and intimidating workers, brandishing symbols of hate like the Confederate flag and swastikas, yelling at schoolchildren, assaulting journalists, deputizing themselves with unlawful authority to detain people, using international money—or cryptocurrency—to help fund this illegal occupation, issuing a pseudolegal document to overthrow a democratically elected government, and to install in a governing coalition with this group with the governor general and Senate is not peaceful protest.”
“Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan delivers devastating rebuke to those who claim the Ottawa protest was peaceful” (The Straight, Feb 21, 2022)
“‘[Independent Sen. Paula] Simons called it a ‘block party from hell’ and a ‘travelling hate circus’ rooted in a long-history of far-right extremism in Canada.
“While some ‘ordinarily decent Canadians’ may have taken part in the protest, Simons said, they were ‘seduced and hoodwinked’ by nefarious characters who preyed on frustrations and fears about the pandemic.
“‘This event was not infiltrated or appropriated by racists. It was organized by them. Those bouncy castles, barbecues and hot tubs — those were stunts designed to distract, delude and troll us,’ Simons said.
“Simons said the event was not a ‘street party’ or a ‘festival’ or a wintertime version of Canada Day but rather an event marked by people waving Confederate flags, ‘mouthing slogans about freedom’ and screaming about free speech while attacking journalists.
“Simons said protesters brandished antisemitic symbols like the swastika and the yellow Star of David while equating mask mandates with the horrors of the Holocaust. She said ‘thugs and drunks’ stole food from a homeless shelter and attacked women and people of colour on the city’s streets.
“‘It was a veritable carnival of hate, endorsed and condoned and even cheered on by some Canadian politicians — craven cowards, people who knew better but chose to exploit this volatile and dangerous moment for their strategic advantage and to exploit these damaged and deluded people for petty personal political gain,’ Simons said, taking aim at what she called the ‘naiveté and willful blindness of those who minimize this ugly campaign of intimidation as though it were some sort of authentic expression of working-class Canadian angst.’
“Simons condemned the protest as ‘an organized grift, a giant con’ that had to be cleared away by police.’
“Conservative senator says ‘friendly … patriotic’ Ottawa protesters have been demonized” (CBC, Feb 23, 2022)
I think the answer, Geoffrey, is that most Albertans don’t have two brain cells to rub together. I’d say that Albertans are the dumbest Canadians, bar none.
The fault lies exclusively on the media for the Alberta NDP’s defeat in 2023 to the UCP. If the columnists didn’t tell lies, like Danielle Smith does, and they bothered to take the UCP to task for their major missteps, things would be different. We’d still have Rachel Notley as our premier, who happens to be respected by true Conservatives and was even compared to Peter Lougheed. Naheed Nenshi knows how bad the media spin is, and wants to change that. Furthermore, Naheed Nenshi has known Danielle Smith for well over 30 years. They attended the University of Calgary together. Danielle Smith will easily be defeated by Naheed Nenshi in a debate. She can’t get away with lying to him.
Just an observation. I wonder if Nenshi’s low approval ratings have something to do with his lack of publicity from being held out of the Legislature by DS.
You can only do so many Facebook videos to get noticed.
HAMMER: That is one thing. Another issue is how the media will not take the UCP, or Danielle Smith to task for their epic boondoogles. That’s evident, especially with Postmedia columnists.
He IS a party leader without a seat. I question how much of that changes how that the by election has been called, and it becomes campaign mode, and then assuming he gets a seat, and can actually do some work in the chamber?
I agree! I donated to the AB NDP a few days after the by-elections were called. Nenshi IS the leader and I am anticipating some great sessions in the Leg this fall.
all of andrew’s work over the past few decades, including his published material, is required reading. his piece referenced in your article is top notch.
A good start would be for the NDP to update their membership page as promised, so that people can opt out of joining the federal party. The issue goes beyond this, of course.
Very good analysis!! As an NDP supporter of Sarah Hoffman, I had my doubts as to whether Nenshi was the best choice and it is sad to see that others see it this way too. The problem that I have seen from traditionally left of centre parties since the 1990s is that they have shifted from their social democratic philosophy to neoliberalism which has led many of the problems we are facing today. As a volunteer for the 2023 election the only policy that was discussed was the building of the pipeline and not being able to cut child poverty. This attempt to be UCP lite didn’t serve them at all. Perhaps economic populism such as the kind that Gov Tim Walz and Bernie Sanders have embraced is the way to go. Nenshi does talk about labour issues that much and that is a mistake given that many union supporters, like myself, are their base. Nenshi does need to change but so does the party leaders too. Trying to be a fake UCP party will be doomed because to paraphrase Harry Truman, they will vote for the real UCP party every time.
Isn’t the NDP challenge more fundamental? It’s two most important constituencies no longer share objectives. The so-called working people want to build things and actually work while the elites look for reasons not to build things while pushing even more generous working conditions for their already overly pampered existence.
Nenshi is a dinosaur. Social media presence is so 2010. He wore out his welcome in Calgary and the 30% of its citizens who didn’t live there in 2013 likley have no impression of him. Finally, his purple persona is inauthentic. His big spending days as Mayor didn’t produce much of lasting value, countering his self professed fiscal prowess. At the same time, his supposed appeal to the party faithful is nothing more than name recognition. He would be a perfect fit for the federal Liberals.
‘ people are starting to notice’ hmm this was a surprise to me. I think most progressives in Alberta have noticed this almost since the day Nenshi won the NDP leader election. This has been the biggest fluke in Canadian Politics. Even worse than Michael Ignatieff.
Let’s hope that the NDP strategy is more long term: there’s no election for more than two years, the leader isn’t even in the Legislature yet and Albertans have extremely short memories.
CovKid: My money is on Danielle calling an early election. Strike while the iron is hot, and all that. DJC
I’ll be shocked if we’re not going to the polls this fall.
I might not be shocked, Gord. But I sure wouldn’t be surprised. DJC
I suppose delaying the original May date for “wildfire season” is entirely negotiable. Everyone knows that she’s a medical expert, has a profound knowledge of international relations but, meteorological expertise too?
How lucky we are in Alberta to have her driving us over the cliff.
You are right and if she does the New Democrats will do poorly. A weak centrism is just not going to do it.
My money is on the election call happening just before the date that the report is turned over to the government, and I expect that to be changed again, to suit Danielle’s election call plans.
The Nenshi-led NDP are going down the same road to defeat as the Notley NDP and for the very same reasons. Nenshi is spending his time attacking Smith just as Rachel did. He’s not laying out a platform. Nobody knows what the NDP’s plans are for governing. The slogan “better is possible” is not only weak, but Nenshi never goes into detail on the specifics of what “better” means. Just like Notley didn’t elaborate and it lost her the election, just as Brian Mason predicted months earlier that it would. But she didn’t listen. Nenshi should hire Mason to craft strategy now and run his campaign in the provincial election.
Michelle Hyman: That isn’t what happened. Rachel Notley was defeated in the 2023 provincial election in Alberta, only because the media would not take the UCP to task for their many missteps, and they did not call out Danielle Smith for her constant barrage of lies. It’s still that way for the media. They are always saying Mark Carney did this, or the Liberals have done that. No real mention is given to the epic blunders of the UCP, or Danielle Smith. In Postmedia newspapers, this is common. Naheed Nenshi can’t get into the Alberta Legislature, because Danielle Smith has delayed having the by-election. She doesn’t want to face him. The media has been so conditioned to support these phony Conservatives and Reformers, that it’s like they are scribes for the UCP. Rachel Notley and Naheed Nenshi can’t be blamed for this. These columnists at Postmedia will not even talk about the UCP’s major boondoogles. If they started to, it would be different. Long ago, there were columnists with integrity. That is sadly lacking these days.
He should hire Mason but the problem is bigger than. I disagree that Nenshi shouldn’t point out the problems that the UCP has wrought but you are right that they have to state their policy prescriptions. I said in my post, the kind of weak centrism will not work. The New Democrats need to be New Democrats and propose bold initiatives.
David Grant: That is impossible, because the media will not give the NDP the proper attention they deserve. The media is a mouthpiece for the UCP, and never takes the UCP to task for their epic boondoogles. For example, do you see Postmedia columnists, such as Lorne Gunter, Rick Bell, or David Staples taking a hard stance against the UCP for their many scandals? The MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal, which has a $614 million (or likely greater) price tag, is avoided like the plague. Speaking of which, the measles outbreak in Alberta continues to get worse and Danielle Smith is silent. Closer to 700 cases.
Then if that is the case then the situation doesn’t look too hopeful and we might as give up. I don’t see it that way and I think a move to economic left-wing populism has a better chance of moving Alberta in a different direction. The truth is that the media has never been or over will be friendly to the NDs(except for the CBC)and will need grass roots institutions to push them in the direction we need to go. We can’t rely on politicians or the courts to save us.
David Grant: This confirms what I was talking about. Licia Corbella also got into hot water for failing to disclose that she held a UCP membership. Regardless of this, there is a different chain of events, that will not make the UCP look good, or last. That’s the MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal. It’s much worse than people realize.
https://albertapolitics.ca/2023/05/copy-editors-checking-facts-thats-thing-of-the-past-at-postmedia-apparently-as-election-column-illustrates/
Damn. Perusing the blogosphere, the comments, and other SM spaces I can see no way forward.
Nenshi needs to drop the Fed NDP association, and/but get back to the “true leftist” space left open by Carney’s Liberals.
He needs to have more of a SM presence, and/but be knocking on every door.
He needs to be the pitbull that goes after Smith, and/but present a full “government in waiting” Plan.
He needs to abandon Capitalism and/but provide a coherent government platform.
Fight the AB separatists by being super-duper Albertan.
Change, by going back to the roots, by forming a new coalition, of groups that no longer exist.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I too am frustrated by the UCP (and the Freedummies, and the CPC) and I suspect every NeoLiberal success the banker-PM has will drive yet more young people to vote Angry Populist.
And I have such Climate Despair that I feel physically ill at the news of wildfires.
And Trump.
What to do?
This week I will try to provide a few more small kndnesses And contribute to a helpful cause.
…
But it sure don’t feel like anything is enough.
The NDP best start hammering home the message of the continual destruction of public institutions like HC&E and the continual transfer of public wealth from Alberta to the upper classes of BAY STREET and Wall Street…….The Corporate Welfare elites with grubby hands clenching CANADA back stabbing knives are continually pushing and winning the division of the masses narrative….thus allowing for a wealth transfer to the top like never before…….the in your face Corporate control of public institutions in the so called democracy of idiocracy to our south is also alive and thriving here ……All Canadians including Albertans must bow down to the glass towers of power for the sake of the Corporate Welfare state……If we truly are the government-the masters of our house…….then why are our public institutions crumbling?????Why are elected officials selling out their constituents to the Corporate elites?????The NDP have a job to do……We are ALL nothing without Healthcare and Education…..So the time is now to “get up, stand up, stand up for the fight”……and stand up for your rights…….
This poll is very suspect. Given how many epic blunders the UCP has done, this poll lacks any credibility, regardless of who did it. Naheed Nenshi isn’t the problem. A media that constantly uplifts the UCP, and will not take them to task for their major missteps areto blame. You see this in Postmedia newspapers, with their columnists alot. Do they write about the MH Care scandal, and how Danielle Smith is trying to interfere with it and cover her butt? No. Instead, it’s always Mark Carney this, or the Liberals that. Nor does the media challenge Danielle Smith for her lies. Election polls shouldn’t exist. They are manipulating the gullible electorate. In addition, when Naheed Nenshi is denied a seat in the Alberta Legislature, because Danielle Smith is intentionally delaying the by-election, this doesn’t help. What is he supposed to do?
As long as the NDP remain a party of toothless “progressives” they will remain in the political wilderness. “Progressives” = the capital class getting to have their cake and eat it too. It’s a dumb strategy and it’s not shocking that it doesn’t work very well.
Social democracy itself only came about as a sop to prevent countries like Sweden from going communist.
It’s a dumb strategy and it’s not shocking that it doesn’t work very well.
A Little Bird: Having a competent media who will take the UCP to task for their major blunders would help. That doesn’t happen.
Nenshi is not the man to take the NDP anywhere but further to the margins. I may never regain my interest in a party that slaughtered Mulcair for Singh and Notley for obscurity. They cling to a thin thread in B.C., have lost Saskatchewan to big oil and Alberta Trumpers. No federal presence or essence. Wab is the star in a big, dark sky. Nenshi is running on empty.
And I will say one other thing.
I hear so much whinging on the left about how it’s impossible to organize workers because we don’t have factories and unions anymore
In this country.
That’s not entirely true. For one, let’s stop pretending that there’s not a class structure at play here. Sure, with things like the gainers meat packing struggle and the battle for GWG, there was struggle involved in moving those jobs out, but there’s also a segment of the working class that was enabled to enrich themselves and it was specifically by leaving the protections afforded by a solid employer, hopefully with union benefits, to becoming a sole contractor selling his services back to
The company he used to work for; they don’t care because for every one of
Those there are a hundred workers they don’t have to pay benefits to. At the same time another segment of the workforce saw their jobs and wages hollowed out to the point that temporary part time work for minimum ( or close to
It ) wages are the norm.
Meanwhile, the nominal left has either pretended this didn’t happen, or
Whined about the fact that it’s much easier to organize factory workers, while maintaining their expensive corporate leadership that does…. (?)
My point is that workers are still here, they’re more exploited than ever, and they’ve been completely abandoned by traditional labour. Guess what ? That’s your voting block, that’s your general strike solidarity block, and right now they’re either being ground down to powdered bone or being picked off by right wing charlatans who are giving them AN answer for why their life is so difficult and hopeless; even if we know it is the wrong one.
As one of those workers for most of my life I can tell you ; I don’t f*cking blame them at all. Not everyone has the time, the ability, or the drive to read political theory, and bootstraps don’t exist. This neoliberal hell we live in KILLS PEOPLE. It makes me so angry to see supposed left parties try to make this all about identarian politics rather than addressing some of the fundamental flaws forty goddamn years of Chicago school economics has brought the country.
I will say it again, as long as the NDP wants to be a clown party that focuses on petty social issues instead of the CLASS POLITICS that actually are the broad determiners of how successful / healthy / safe a person is going to be, not only will they not form government, but they sure as hell aren’t getting this birds vote either.
TENET: Naheed Nenshi will not take the NDP to any other margins, other than the victory margin. The UCP are finished. There’s this pesky thing called the MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal, which Danielle Smith is now delaying the investigation on, until autumn. It is because she knows a very serious matter is about to go down.
I know about MH Care, but I also know Alberta voters for decades and every “scandal” is short lived, just like the NDP reign. Don’t you realize how entrenched the stupidity is?
TENET: This is much more different, and the way Danielle Smith has been acting, it definitely is. Also, any political endeavor that Danielle Smith gets involved with ends up in ruins. I am aware how a lot of very bad things were going on with the Conservatives in the province of Alberta for such a long time. The MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal will end the UCP. It’s just based on information that I happen to be aware of. Danielle Smith is trying to delay what’s coming, but she can’t.