Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss Alberta negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Ottawa, fall sitting priorities, and more. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: Ottawa has not announced a west coast pipeline, but negotiations continue that could push past the Premier’s stated deadline of the Grey Cup weekend. Your assessment of what’s currently playing out here? Naheed Nenshi: I kind of laugh at the Premier’s deadlines. In the early part of this year, she said there were three months to get rid of the paper straws law until she would cause a national unity crisis. Now we are many, many months beyond that. We’ve got yet more deadlines. Let’s get to the basics of this, which is having that memorandum is a good thing. Figuring out how we’re going to work together is a good thing, but there are no pipeline projects. That’s the critical thing to understand. We need more pipelines. I know how to get pipelines built. The New Democrats know how to get pipelines built. But what we have from these folks, from the premier in particular, is a pipe dream, not a pipeline. The process that she’s put in place, make an announcement without a proponent, without a route, without any investment, without the approval of communities or Indigenous people along the line, without giving a heads up to the prime minister or the premier of British Columbia that you’re going to do that, is a recipe for failure. Albertans can ask themselves: is it because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, or the government doesn’t know what they’re doing, or is it because they actually don’t want a pipeline? Because they do better when they lose, and they make people really angry. I don’t know what the answer is. What I do know is we need a pipeline, and the government of Alberta’s approach isn’t doing much to get us one. There are other projects that need to be in place. We’ve heard some really good work from Enbridge, some really positive things about increasing capacity on their main line. We’ve heard great things from Trans Mountain about what they can do to increase the capacity of the Trans Mountain expansion. These are all really good things. Ultimately we need to be able to roll up our sleeves and do the work, and sometimes that happens outside of the public eye. MH: So you agree there is a need for a memorandum of understanding. What does it need to deliver for Albertans? NN: What it needs to do is set up a stable investing regime, and it needs to get rid of a lot of the red tape that has gotten in the way of all kinds of projects, not just oil pipelines, all kinds of projects. For example, building the Springbank dry dam as a flood mitigation project in Calgary took years of federal environmental assessment. So having the major projects office in Calgary is great. Having a one window system where your project is approved once, and your permitting goes through quickly once your project is approved, that stuff really matters. If we can get to some more specificity on how that works for projects that are important to Alberta, not just an oil pipeline, but also the pathways, carbon sequestration projects, also public transit projects, rail projects. That’s very, very helpful for creating the investment stability that private industry needs to put billions of dollars on the table. MH: The fall sitting resumes next week. What are you prioritizing in the remaining weeks? NN: Let me tell you, my first two weeks in the legislature have certainly been eventful and kind of spicy. On my very first day in the legislature, we had the unprecedented pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause to take away the rights of workers. We will probably see the notwithstanding clause used again as soon as Monday, maybe against vulnerable children. This is pretty shocking stuff, and it certainly wasn’t what I expected when I took my seat. We are still laser focused on the things Albertans have told us are important: the affordability crisis, cost of living, jobs, health care, education, public safety. On Monday, for example, we will have a vote on a bill that we have put forward called Protecting Workers Pay. That is about reasonable, predictable increases to the minimum wage, and indexing the minimum wage to inflation to deal with the youth unemployment crisis. It’s about protecting workers tips, so that when you press a button on the terminal to give a worker a tip, the worker actually gets that money. These are things that we’re focused on, because they’re the things Albertans are focused on. You’re going to hear a lot more from us on the economy, on jobs, on cost of living, on education, on health care and on safety. MH: Your party is also out with a new video produced by an American political ad agency, putting a big focus on your backstory. Why do you need to be reintroduced to Albertans? NN: This is part of a big campaign that we’re starting, which is on the theme of Albertans deserve better. In order to have a better Alberta, we have to elect a better government, and as Alberta’s New Democrats we are ready to be that government. It starts with a conversation. You know about me, a lot of people know me, but a lot of people don’t know where I came from and why I do the public service that I do. We thought this was a great way to launch and bring it in. I’m just so proud of our New Democrat staff. They’re so creative. They’re so talented. They put this together with the help of some outside consultants, and I’m really happy with it. It’s gone totally viral. I hope people share it, because it gives people a sense of what a New Democrat government would look like. MH: It has an election campaign feel to it. Is this the NDP targeting 2027, or the NDP being ready for an early election call? NN: We don’t know. Certainly last spring, the Premier’s office brought together all the UCP staff and said, look, things are only getting worse. The NDP is getting more popular. The economy is not in a good place. Let’s call an election immediately. In the end, they didn’t do that. Instead, they called the byelections, including the one that put me in the legislature. Right now, they’re not in great shape. When I look across the aisle, I see a bunch of folks who are, shall we say, questioning their life choices. They got elected as a conservative government, but they’re in the highest spending government in Alberta’s history. They got elected as people who believe in human rights and freedom, and yet they’re the first government in Alberta’s history to knowingly pass an unconstitutional law. It looks like they’re going to do it again and try and shield themselves from courts using the notwithstanding clause, which means we’re passing something that’s unconstitutional and we don’t care. Even the caucus is very uncomfortable with where they are. This is not what they signed up to do. So you never know. The premier might roll the dice thinking things are only going to get worse. We could have a very early election. She might wait until the actual fixed election date, which is in October 2027. Regardless, we’re ready, and our job is to show Albertans that we’re ready to govern.
