‘This is a government careening wildly from crisis to crisis. They wait for a crisis to become untenable before they try to fix it. It’s like trying to plug the leak when the basement is already flooded,’ says Nenshi
The Who. Big song. Look it up on Google.
Nenshi, the former Calgary mayor and now the Alberta NDP leader, uses the pinball handle a lot in describing the premier.
After speaking to 1,000 cheering party faithful in Calgary on a Saturday morning, he used it again with newshounds.
“This is an image that is just stuck in my mind. This is a government careening wildly from crisis to crisis. They wait for a crisis to become untenable before they try to fix it. It’s like trying to plug the leak when the basement is already flooded,” says Nenshi.
He talks about the Alberta is Calling campaign, originally cooked up by former premier Jason Kenney, trying to lure workers to Alberta.
Nenshi says the campaign was launched but the government waited until the people got here before they thought of the schools, teachers or family docs they would need.
Then there is the political jousting.
Nenshi makes sure to tell us in the Alberta NDP leadership contest he received the most votes of any provincial party leadership candidate on the first ballot in Canadian history.
In the last battle for ballots, Smith pointed out how if the UCP pretty well ran the table in rural Alberta she would need to win 10 to 15 seats in total coming from either Edmonton or Calgary.
The plan worked last year.
“Her plan is not going to work,” insists Nenshi.
“If an election were held today, according to the latest poll, we would win a majority, just in Calgary and Edmonton.”
That would mean the NDP winning every seat in Edmonton and almost every seat in Calgary.
The UCP have very different numbers.
While he is at it he talks about Take Back Alberta, a self-styled freedom-loving group who didn’t like Kenney, liked Smith much more and has no time for those they consider the ruling elites.
“I sort of feel we need to take back Alberta,” says Nenshi.
“This is the big problem. We’ve allowed the government to be captured by a small minority of Albertans focused on things that don’t matter to the majority of Albertans.
“Folks from Take Back Alberta think they’re the best political organizers in the world because they can get 2,000 to a convention. We sold 85,000 memberships.”
Nenshi is talking about the Alberta NDP leadership race.
Then he mentions “smart columnists” with more than a little sarcasm. Your scribbler is the only columnist in the house.
“The real momentum, the real political movement is here and it’s up to smart columnists to think about what it means that 6,000 people are showing up in Red Deer
“Is that good for Smith? Is that bad for Smith? It doesn’t matter to me.”
He’s talking about the UCP get-together in Red Deer the first weekend of November where party members will vote on Smith’s leadership and the record-breaking crowd is so big a certain scribbler will likely have to get a hotel room in Innisfail.
For Nenshi, 6,000 souls at the UCP event or more than 6,000 souls the Alberta NDP leader considers it all small potatoes.
“We are rowing our own boat here and we are building a movement that is much larger and much more powerful than theirs.”
While he’s at it, he pushes a hot button.
Then, he says, if you have an accident you get a payout but you lose the opportunity to seek more damages.
Premiums go down briefly before they go back up again.
Nenshi is in his usual form. He tells us he calls his party Alberta New Democrats and not NDP. It’s a minor thing but it clears up confusion.
He claims he will never forget NDP icons like Tommy Douglas or Jack Layton but the party represents mainstream Albertans.
And Nenshi sounds as he did when he was mayor of Calgary.
He tells one and all how the NDP will be bringing back joy and hope and optimism and blue-sky thinking about what is possible in Alberta.
When people hear these words they either swoon or gag.
The vast majority of party members, many newly signed up to the cause, have placed a big bet on Nenshi.
It is a party where many yearned for a messiah and they believe they have now found one.