Nenshi Focuses on Smith and Separation at NDP Convention

Separation is all the rage these days in Alberta.

Separatists want it.

Premier Danielle Smith is toying with it — a point she reiterated during a special TV address to Albertans Monday afternoon.

Even Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi is demanding a referendum on it.

On Saturday, during an hour-long address to 1,000 delegates at the NDP’s annual general meeting in Edmonton, Nenshi delivered a message to Smith.

“You want a referendum? Give us the referendum now,” declared Nenshi. “Call the referendum, call it now, and when you get the defeat, the thumping defeat that you resoundingly deserve, stop playing games with the future of our country.”

Nenshi’s challenge was met with cheers from an energized audience that, for a few days at least, could forget the realities of Alberta politics where opinion polls indicate the New Democrats would fail to defeat the United Conservatives if an election were held today.

Alberta’s NDP might comprise the largest official Opposition in Alberta history, having won 38 seats in the 2023 provincial election, but it has struggled to connect with voters the past two years — even under the leadership of Nenshi, a former Calgary mayor who handily won the NDP leadership race last year to succeed Rachel Notley.

And who captured 89.5 per cent support during a leadership review on the weekend.

The cruel reality for the NDP is it’s trying to swim upstream against a never-ending torrent of United Conservative Party policies, controversies, schemes and blunders — and one brewing scandal.

As a born showman, Nenshi is not shy of the limelight, but Smith keeps stealing it.

What’s an NDP leader to do when the premier hobnobs with U.S. President Donald Trump one day while threatening the prime minister with an “unprecedented national unity crisis” the next?

And what’s an NDP leader to do when the premier delays calling a byelection in Notley’s old riding of Edmonton-Strathcona that would give Nenshi an opportunity to win a seat in the legislature? (Smith says she’ll call the byelection before the June 30 deadline, as required by law.).

Smith’s latest gambit, making it much easier for separatists to spark a referendum on splitting with Canada, has stolen the show altogether.

She did it again during Monday’s TV address where she used overheated and at times dramatically misleading rhetoric to, among other things, accuse the federal Liberals of undermining Alberta’s economy (while once again ignoring the fact the Liberals spent $34 billion of taxpayers’ money on the TransMountain pipeline). And she demanded a massive overhaul of equalization while also saying separatist or sovereignty voices should be respected with a referendum, if they want.

Never mind that a majority of Albertans don’t want to separate and never mind that separation is not simply a matter of voting and never mind that First Nations in Alberta are already pushing back hard against any talk of separatism, Smith has opened the door and invited chaos in for dinner.

Alberta has a long history of Conservative premiers inflaming sentiment against federal Liberal governments. But they always rejected separation as an option.

Smith, though, is playing with matches. She insists she would never actually light the fire, saying that’s up to the citizens of Alberta. If they want a referendum on separation, or on anything else, she says they are free to start the process — and it’s just a coincidence that the morning after the Liberals won the federal election she announced changes to provincial laws clearing the way for angry citizens to hold a referendum on anything they want but, really, all anyone is talking about is separation.

Speaking of splits, there was a touch of irony during the Alberta NDP convention where delegates, overwhelmingly in favour of Canadian unity, voted to separate from the federal NDP.

Not a slam-the-door-and-storm-off-in-a-huff divorce but Albertans who join the provincial NDP will be able to opt out of a provision that was automatically making them members of the federal NDP.

Delegates had strong feelings on both sides, with traditionalists saying New Democrats should stick together for the sake of NDP values and others saying, in so many words, the federal NDP is a dead weight.

The federal NDP’s abysmal showing in the federal election didn’t do much for the traditionalists’ argument.

Of course, this gentle parting will not stop the UCP from constantly tying Alberta’s New Democrats, who came close to defeating Smith in the 2023 election, to Jagmeet Singh’s NDP that ended up so far underwater election night their campaign bus should have been a submarine.

If nothing else, Singh’s loss among Canada’s blue-collar workers, who in some ridings voted Conservative, not just Liberal, is a cautionary tale for Nenshi.

“The difference between the federal Conservatives and what Alberta New Democrats say is we’re telling the truth,” Nenshi told reporters after his speech. “When we say, ‘We look after workers and we look after what workers need,’ we have a track record of it, and we actually also believe it. We're not cynically just trying to find votes and saying, I am the party of the working man. We believe that that's where our roots are, and that's where our future is.”

Right now the NDP’s future is in holding the UCP government’s feet to the fire to demonstrate to Albertans Smith’s party is not fit to govern.

For that mission their greatest weapon isn’t Nenshi or any of the NDP MLAs. It is an MLA who was not only voted into office twice under the United Conservative Party banner but was the first MLA to support Smith in her 2022 leadership bid.

Peter Guthrie resigned his post as infrastructure minister in February as a protest against Smith’s handling of what the NDP has happily branded the “CorruptCare” scandal involving (as yet unproven) allegations of wrongdoing in how the government handled millions of dollars in health care procurement contracts.

Rather than settle for Smith’s limited investigation led by a retired judge, Guthrie voted with the NDP for a full public inquiry and was kicked out of the UCP caucus for his troubles. He now grills the government over ethics and fiscal issues in the legislature.

And he writes scathing letters to his constituents in Airdrie-Cochrane with comments like this: “In my opinion, key conservative principles are openness, transparency, good governance and fiscal responsibility. Yet, these ideals have been abandoned by the premier in her handling of serious allegations facing the Department of Health. Staff operating in a toxic environment fear sharing potentially critical information that could be vital to uncovering the truth.”

Adding a giggle factor for the NDP is they have been giving Guthrie spots in their Question Period lineup so they can sit back and cheer him on.

Also contributing to the drama: a second former UCP MLA, Scott Sinclair, is taking shots at the government. Sinclair was booted from government caucus in March after he criticized the provincial budget for failing his constituents of Lesser Slave Lake where he said health care has “hit rock bottom.” He now joins Guthrie in aggressively criticizing the government during Question Period.

Perhaps Smith is so keen to toy with Alberta separation because it’s a convenient and dramatic distraction from her own internal government troubles, where two of her former political friends have chosen to keep themselves separate from her government.