From the basement of the Greater Forest Lawn 55+ club near where his family owned a laundromat, former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi dusted off his political duds to take a shot at the Alberta NDP leadership.

Nenshi made the announcement Monday, just a few days prior to the March 15 deadline for registration in the leadership contest.  Nenshi joins a growing field with MLAs Sarah Hoffman, Kathleen Ganley, Rakhi Pancholi, and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse in the mix, along with union leader Gil McGowan.

The voting for new leader begins May 22 and concludes June 22.

Nenshi told LWC that the decision to run came after a confluence of events, including the UCP government’s attack-style messaging around January grid alerts, and the “punching down” on frontline workers and transgender youth.

“I realized this government doesn’t have our best interests at heart,” he said.  

“They only want to play politics even when life is dangerous. I realized that we can’t afford any more of this government.”

It’s after those events that the voices urging him to run got louder, Nenshi said. Many of those people told him he had the skills and the experience to make a run, and he said rather than pretending to just help behind the scenes to help another candidate, to just throw his hat into the contest.

“Enough people said that to me so sincerely with such, not just fear in their eyes, but such hope for Alberta that we’re not getting right now. That’s how I ended up here,” he said.

Different race for a party leadership

Polling done right after Rachel Notley announced her departure had Nenshi, who was only rumoured to be a candidate, as a heavy favourite to win.

The Alberta NDP leadership race is not a general election, however. Nenshi said he’s well aware of the different dynamics.  This one’s about selling memberships and getting those already card-carrying progressives to choose him as the leader.

The question of a party leadership versus a general election is one he and his team have given considerable thought to. He admits that he hasn’t sold a single membership – immediately, that eliminates him from a front running position.

“These strong, capable brilliant women who’ve been out there for a month already are way ahead of me,” Nenshi said.

“But I know how to be an underdog.”

Nenshi said he understands the front-runner syndrome all too well, as it played out during his third election as Calgary’s mayor back in 2017. He said he may have forgotten the crux of the conversation that was important to Calgarians and Albertans.

“That’s a lesson I learned, but certainly something that I’m going to not repeat in terms of those mistakes,” he said.

Nenshi is also notably an outsider to the NDP. Even union leader Gil McGowan could be considered and insider, having close ties to the party. But, he’s clear that he doesn’t think the NDP needs a saviour. In the 2023 general election, they garnered 44 per cent of the vote (777,404 votes).

He said when he first ran for mayor in 2010, he didn’t know about being a councillor or mayor, but he knew how the city worked. Now, he doesn’t know a lot about being an MLA or party leader, but he knows how the provincial government works.

“I think that being someone who comes in from the outside with extraordinary history of electoral success is something that this party could use,” he said.

“I think that having some fresh eyes on some historical things never hurts.”

‘It is killing me’: Nenshi keeping policy at bay

Nenshi said a potential provincial election is three years away. Despite the fact he loves nerding out on policy, he said he’s trying to maintain some discipline as they map out the leadership run.

“Anyone who knows a thing about me knows that I love nothing more than getting into the details, details, details of policy, and it is killing me to try to have the discipline to not do that,” he said.

“We don’t really know what the fiscal environment of the province will be or what horrifying things the UCP will do that we will have to undo.”

Nenshi said instead, he’s going to focus on overall values of the NDP, and to ensure they have a conversation with all members about things they want to see from the party. He said he won’t be making decisions on what’s popular or not – like some candidates wanting to axe the carbon tax.  He said those policy details need to coincide with broader plans on how to stimulate the Alberta economy while charting a path for the province beyond today in terms of the environment.

Smarter government is also a top priority for Nenshi. He said he’s never been a fan of debt or deficit and he’d prefer to find better ways to deliver government so the front-facing public services  – education, health care and social services – are better for Albertans.

He also said that his time as mayor of Calgary gives him a unique insight to the challenges municipalities in Alberta face, at a time when the province offloads a lot of responsibility in areas like healthcare and housing. Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek has mentioned on multiple occasions the $311 million annual funding gap created by provincial and federal offloading.

“Being able to work with the cities better and say, ‘Listen, we’re going to get rid of all this red tape on you but give you some money to actually get the stuff done,’ is I think, really the way that we need to move forward,” he said.

“Right now, the provincial government doesn’t trust the municipal governments. So, in fact, they’re doing the opposite. They’re creating more red tape and they’re making it harder for the cities to do their jobs.”

Where does orange fit in the colour wheel?

When Nenshi arrived on the municipal political scene with his purple wave, the legend goes that it is due to a blend of Liberal red and Conservative blue.

So, how does orange fit in?

He did find a pair of orange and purple socks to wear for Monday’s interviews. The two colours blend well on his campaign backdrop. Still, Nenshi said that the purple represents the centre, or the “muscular middle,” as he called it.  

“The deeper meaning is that it encourages people…don’t think of yourself as your tribe. Think of yourself as our common humanity,” Nenshi said.

He admitted that if you asked him a year ago if he would consider himself a New Democrat, he would have recoiled.

“But in my journey of just talking to people in the party, supporters of the party and what they really stand for, I’ve become increasingly comfortable that building a prosperous economy while looking after climate change, of balancing the budget while providing strong public services. that these are values that most people in this party actually share and want to put into place,” he said.

At the interview’s outset, when asked why we were there, he said to run for the NDP leadership… and to be the next premier of Alberta.

He said he wanted to be at the Greater Forest Lawn 55+ location because it’s where he grew up, but it was also a seat that used to be held by the NDP, and he wants it back. It was also the location for one of his first mayor debates back in 2010.

“I want to really highlight that my candidacy is a candidacy that I hope will help build the appeal of the party to more people who have historically been supporters and those who have never considered voting NDP,” he said.

But, does he think he’s the candidate to beat Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP in a future election?

“Yes,” he said.