Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi will be taking on a new role, that of leader of Alberta’s official opposition, after being chosen on Saturday, June 22 by Alberta NDP voters to head the party.

Voters, some 62,746 of them out of a total of 85,227 eligible voters, selected Nenshi to be the leader after the first round of votes were counted in a ranked choice ballot race.

The turnout was historic for leadership races, and for election contests anywhere in Canada, with 86 per cent of votes for a single candidate.

“I am of course blown away by this level of support from people from across the province. The fact that they’re putting in me again, even just for a second, their hopes and their dreams for their community… that’s a really humbling thing. It’s something I’ll try to live up to every day,” said Nenshi.

He said that the numbers coming in early polling about the level of support from NDP members, was almost unbelievable.

The election was also historic for the party, attracting the highest ever number of eligible ANDP party members ever to vote in a leadership election.

Calgary Mountain View MLA Kathleen Ganley came in second, with 5,899 votes. Edmonton MLAs Sarah Hoffman and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse came in second and third with 3,063 and 1,222 votes each.

The number of votes cast in the leadership race was on par with the United Conservative Party’s 2022 leadership election, which saw 84,193 total valid votes cast in the first round of that election.

However, Nenshi considerably topped UCP leader Danielle Smith’s ballot numbers, at 34,949 in round one of counting, and 42,423 in the final round six.

Premier Smith congratulated Nenshi on his win on social media on Saturday afternoon, saying that “serving as opposition leader is a great honour and I look forward to the dialogue we will have on how best to serve Albertans.”

Nenshi, in his victory speech, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King about the hard work the party had to do over the next several years to win government.

“Let us begin now. Now, let us rededicate ourselves. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter but beautiful struggle for a new world,” he said.

“So folks, we have a response for them. That response is that we will work hard for this Alberta, that we will work hard under this endless sky for those big dreams. That we will work hard so that every single person who’s lucky enough to share this land has that life of dignity. Folks, this is what we’re going to do. For Alberta. For all of us. For our home.”

Big vision for province says new leader

During that same victory speech, Nenshi criticized the United Conservative Party and spoke about their designs for Alberta as one of the reasons he chose to run for leadership of the ANDP.

“Five months ago I was living a really good life at home, that I, like all of you, was increasingly troubled by the direction of our government, by the direction of our province, by the direction of our home. The stories I was hearing from our premier and our government, the place they were describing didn’t feel like our home. They were describing an Alberta that I didn’t recognize,” said Nenshi.

“They were describing an Alberta that is so very, very small. In Alberta, we are many things but we are not small.”

Addressing questions from the media post-victory, Nenshi said that he was welcoming the fight between a reinvigorated NDP and the UCP over the next three-and-a-half years.

“Look, I’ve never been in opposition before, so I make no bones about the fact that I’ve got a lot to learn. The good news is I’ve got this incredible 38-member caucus who do know what they’re doing, who I will be leaning on a lot in the conversations that we have.”

He also addressed what was likely to become a bigger issue in the province over the coming days about the perception of Albertans of Nenshi as a person, and the attempts of his political opponents to shape that narrative.

“We can talk a little bit political, because I’m also a bit of a political nerd. So, of course, they’re going to come out and try and define me in their terms. Well let them try,” he said.

“I have a record of 11 years that defines me very, very well. I think if they find that they will try to define their own terms, they will find just how out of touch they are with over this.”

On Calgary, Nenshi said that over the next three years the party would have to re-win every vote that the party had gained in the last election.

“One of the things I’ve been a little bit critical of is that the path to victory in the last election for the NDP was very narrow. They basically had to win almost every seat in which they were competitive, and they just need we need a much broader path going forward,” he said.

“So, of course, Calgary is a critical part of it. But we also need to be viable in Lethbridge, in Red Deer, in Grand Prairie in Fort McMurray and smaller communities across the province. That’s the work we’ve got to do.”

Restoration of respect to municipalities

On the topic of Bills 18 and 20, which controversially removed the ability for municipalities to make agreements with the federal government and centralized previously held municipal powers to that of the provincial government, Nenshi said that he would be looking at repealing those and other bills passed by the UCP.

“You know, when my friend Jason [Kenney] first became the premier in that first summer, he had this great zeal for the ‘summer of repeal,’ which I thought was sort of tacky, and not very kind and not very gracious. Here’s the thing, I’m having trouble thinking about what we want repealed because we’ve got to rebuild the Alberta that is systematically being destroyed. For me, there’s gonna be a lot of work to do.”

Ward 9 Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra, who attended the ANDP’s voting announcement, described the election of Nenshi as a good day for Calgarians and for Albertans.

“For myself, as someone who served with Mayor Nenshi, I know he’s a once in a generation political talent. He’s a very, very good person, and I think that this is a very good thing for Alberta from that perspective,” Carra said.

“I know people who are maybe not NDP supporters, and never will be, but they recognize that when the teams are better, the league is better, the game is better. At the very least it’s going to be a better game, and at the very most we’re going to take the promise of this place and brace it for the future that’s coming at us, and and be prepared to meet that future in a way that that we deserve to.”

Coun. Carra said that on the topic of Bill 20, Nenshi wasn’t likely to forget his time as Mayor of Calgary when dealing with municipalities—should he be elected as Premier.

“Jason Kenney said he would respect the city charter, and the first thing he did was deal it a death blow. Then, Danielle Smith came along with Bill 20 and took it so far in the opposite direction our heads are spinning. It’s great that this particular politician is going to the province because they were a local politician,” he said.

“It’s amazing how quickly people forget what it was like to be a local politician and the needs that we have on the ground serving our populations. I’m absolutely convinced that leader Nenshi, Mayor Nenshi will never forget that.”