Nenshi predicting byelection will be called next week

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on November 16, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi expects premier Danielle Smith will call a byelection for Lethbridge West next week.
And the date will be when post-secondary education students have the left the city after exams
Nenshi made that prediction on Friday as he talked at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon along with the NDP’s Lethbridge West candidate Rob Miyashiro.
Nenshi visited Lethbridge two days after Premier Danielle Smith and UCP candidate John Middleton-Hope spoke to the Chamber, also at the Sandman Signature Lethbridge Lodge downtown.
Nenshi told the audience Smith’s had since July 1 to call the election and that he heard she’s blamed the delay on him. He said Smith took 916 days from when she became leader of the Wild Rose party to run in an election – 2.5 years.
One of the real reasons she hasn’t called the vote yet and will make that call the middle of next week is “so that Election Day occurs after final exams and all the students have left” so they will be disenfranchised and unable to vote, said Nenshi, pointing out there will be advance polls for students or others who live temporarily in Lethbridge West.
“That’s the kind of cynical politics we’re dealing with right now,” Nenshi told the Chamber and its guests.
He said there are many reasons he isn’t running in the riding, one of them being because voters deserve someone who understands the city and will fight for it every day in the Legislature.
In a media scrum, Nenshi added of Smith “she wants the election to happen when there are no students in Lethbridge West to vote. It’s pretty cynical, it’s pretty wrong and for an excuse, she’s trying to blame it on me,” said Nenshi, reiterating what he recently told The Herald – that if Smith wants to fire an underperforming minister in Calgary or Edmonton, “I’m happy to run.”
The NDP leader said the delay is a UCP tactic, the party which refused to call a byelection in the riding of Calgary Elbow because the party knew it would lose, according to Nenshi.
“The people of Lethbridge West deserve representation; Shannon Phillips was a terrific representative and just call an election already,” Nenshi added.
“All this stalling just to try to get students not to vote is not just worth it.”
Nenshi said the NDP will be keeping an eye on the non-binding referendum in the Crowsnest Pass on Nov. 25 when residents will be asked if they support a coal mine at Grassy Mountain which is in a neighbouring municipal district.
“I don’t even understand why this referendum is happening but we know the county around the town are universally opposed to this mine and that’s where the mine is. . .of course, we’ll be watching the referendum closely but we also have to understand these kinds of projects have a much broader impact. In this particular project – it’s not that we’re opposed to coal mining in general – but this particular project and how it impacts the watershed, how it impacts the agricultural industry in southwestern Alberta, that’s why the farmers and ranchers are up in arms about it. It has impact way, way, way beyond the town limits of the Crowsnest Pass and Albertans have been very clear in their near-universal opposition to this project,” Nenshi added.
During his talk to the audience, Nenshi addressed a number of issues in the province including health care, affordability and utilities, saying what sparked his interest in returning to politics was the grid alert in January when historically cold temperatures swept across the region. He said the situation was due to “extraordinary mismanagement” of the grid, pointing out that when he was elected as mayor of Calgary in his first term he had to learn about electric utilities since the City of Calgary owned one.
He talked about the types of conservatism that existed under former premiers Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein and how they strived to make the province a world leader whereas current conservatism encourages an attitude of isolation.
A former educator, Nenshi also noted he hates talking to teachers because “I hate hearing what they’re dealing with in the classroom.”
Nenshi also disputed pictures the UCP paints of the provincial economy, saying Alberta has the highest unemployment rate in Canada outside of the Atlantic provinces, adding that businesses need certainty. He referred to the UCP as a “pinball government” in that it careens from crisis to crisis.
He talked about the impact on the economy – including in Cardston county – caused by the UCP’s moratorium on renewable energy which Nenshi says has cost the province $33 billion and many thousands of jobs.
In response to a question by Shelby McLeod of the Canadian Mental Health Association, he said while the province’s abstinence-based approach to recovery is a critical piece of treatment for addictions, it fails to work unless done in conjunction with other components.
And he said involuntary treatment won’t work, that people who return to places such as Galt Gardens and relapse may overdose and die if they take the same quantity of drug they used before treatment.
Miyashiro spoke before Nenshi and noted while an NDP win in Lethbridge West wouldn’t put the party in power, he said a by-election is an opportunity for Lethbridge West residents to send a message to the government.
The candidate said he wants to make sure residents’ voices are heard in the Alberta legislature. And he talked about the issues in the riding citing health care as the biggest concern, saying the province needs a government that will work with the health care system.

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