Everyone's talking about Nenshi

There are many ideas about what the elephant in the room is, but few people are talking about the room itself.

As Janet Brown’s Opinion Research polling can attest, the United Conservative Party and Danielle Smith are enjoying higher approval rates than they had during the 2023 election. While this garners a lot of attention on what Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi has, and hasn’t, accomplished as leader, I want to bring the focus back to the problem the NDP has had since its incredible victory in 2015: Albertans overwhelmingly rejected the Progressive Conservatives, but I didn’t believe they turned NDP.

In Alberta, we have what Ralph Klein termed a “three-legged stool”; three electoral districts — Edmonton, Calgary, and rural — success in two of which are needed to form a majority government. It’s a useful depiction for the 2015 election as well, if you break it up into three categories that were on the ballot that year: the status quo, non-”anyone but the PCs” options, and conservative options. A clear majority of Albertans voted for non-PC options, and also for one of the two conservative options; the status quo was over.

Vote share by party in the 2015 election

I abhor the phrase “accidental government” because the NDP received the largest vote share of each of the three major parties, period. However, they only won one of the “legs” on the ballot that year — the anti-PC vote.

I wasn’t in the rooms back then, nor did I have any connections to those who were. What I saw, and how I understood the NDP, was strictly from the view of an outsider. One experience I did have, before the end of their term, was with the Alberta Party after Jason Kenney won the PC leadership on a platform of merging the conservatives to prevent an NDP government from winning again. As disaffected Progressive Conservatives moved away from Kenney’s vision, many filtered into the Alberta Party and the infighting began. Not between the new members and those who had been with the Alberta Party since Greg Clark became leader, but between the latter.

After the UCP formed government in 2019, I discovered that there were similar disagreements going on in the NDP. Some of the core membership who had been there before the Progressive Conservative loss wasn’t interested in expanding if it meant sharing internal influence and decision-making. Others had tried to advocate for growth. The Alberta Party had been the same.

One comment I recall well was “we don’t want to become PC 2.0.” The response was simple math; if the Alberta Party didn’t want to welcome those who had voted, donated, and volunteered for the Progressive Conservatives in the past, they were essentially rejecting most of the people in the province; and the hope that they could ever form government.

In that frame, there becomes “trusted” members, and those who showed up after the NDP formed government. Some would probably distrust that new group anyway, but everything else that went on in Alberta politics between 2015 and 2019 indicated that a huge shift was coming, and the opportunity was there for anyone who wanted to grow.

To me, that was not what the NDP did.

So, I found myself disagreeing with David Climenhaga in his recent piece when he said “it sounds more like the premier is holding onto her base while Mr. Nenshi is failing to hold onto the NDP’s.”

I was as thrilled in 2015 as anyone that the PC dynasty ended, even though I hadn’t voted for the NDP. I had a lot of hope that the NDP would bring change but that didn’t materialize. I didn’t begrudge them for it; they were my hopes, after all. I became somewhat disenchanted during the 2019 election when the message was “there’s no other choice”. In the 2023 election, I was gobsmacked at the “lend us your vote” campaign.

Over eight years, between government and official opposition, they hadn’t figured out how to reach the people they needed support from any more than “we get it, we’re not your first choice, but could you do us a solid”?

It was then that I worried about the staying power of the votes they had already switched.

During the 20 years between the mid-nineties until 2015, the most votes the party managed was 170,000 give or take. There were a couple of brief stints in 1985 and 1989 where they managed to get 16 seats in Edmonton, but their fortunes weren’t revived again until 2015.

The NDP enjoyed a higher level of support going into the 2023 election, with much of that due to the leadership of Rachel Notley, who had been, and remained, more popular than her party. However, I’ll posit that the “lend us your vote” campaign in that election effectively advertized the problem in flashing neon lights: they still hadn’t sold the party to a majority of Albertans.

Furthermore — and this is a big one — a majority of Albertans either truly believe they are, or at least want to be regarded as, conservative. The obstacle the NDP has always had is defining itself for a larger audience that used to vote Progressive Conservative, not just Progressive.

That’s the room Naheed Nenshi walked into.

The NDP needs a story

I’m not blind to some of the complaints about Mr. Nenshi and I understand that many (including myself, to be honest) were hoping to see bigger things from him since becoming leader of the party. I’m not a good partisan; I just want everyone to be a fabulous choice because I think that would work out much better for Albertans than having to vote against more than we get to vote for.

As Janet Brown told CBC News, “It's always difficult to look at a leader in isolation because how well a leader is doing is always related to how well the person on the other end of the teeter-totter is doing… Danielle Smith probably owes something to Nenshi for how well she's doing, and Nenshi probably has to acknowledge that Smith is one of the reasons that he's not performing as well."

Those who find Ms. Smith and/or the UCP extremely untrustworthy have struggled to understand how the party, and Ms. Smith, are still basking in so much support. In what I’m now going to term political fallacies: never make the mistake of thinking everyone hates the other guy as much as you do. No one thinks about this as much as poli-nerds. No one thinks about policy, or the representatives, or has an itemized list in their head of what the other party has done like we do.

So, when I see the itemized list of things the UCP has done that should “easily” be a “winning” position, I see a list of things that many Albertans aren’t talking about. I also see a lack of cohesive messaging and an inability to tell a simple story.

Naheed Nenshi’s campaign for the leader of the NDP had a far more inclusive story than what he’s chosen since, as did the other candidates, but the party since is not hitting any homeruns.

The oddly-named “Corrupt Care Scandal” is one of the worst offenders. It makes me think of caregiving. Charitably, I might think it has something to do with healthcare but I’m still thinking of those who provide care; like nurses and doctors. What I wouldn’t manage to do is leap to procurement and contracts. Worse, I don’t know who the villain is. I mean, I do, but if I heard it out in the wild I couldn’t assume the bad guy is the UCP because it says “care” (and take that any way you want).

There’s also a lack of salaciousness; “corrupt” and “scandal” are salacious words but “care” sounds like it could be really sad and I’m not encouraged to dig any deeper. The marketing strategy is lacking.

It’s not the same for the parties either. There’s added pressure on the NDP because they don’t have the same latitude that is afforded to the UCP. The latter can make mistakes, lie, and get caught, and lie again, because they’re “trusted”.

Not only that, but who’s still paying attention in the middle of a provincial election period after the Trump/Smith chaos of the first six months of the year?

You, me, and a few of our most highly-engaged friends.

Double double standard

It’s not as easy for the NDP because they can’t simply blame “conservatives”, or conservative parties. The NDP have to be more careful with their words and they have to choose battles they can win.

The over-caffeinated lefties can take the heat but as I’ve said many times, no one victimizes conservatives better than other conservatives. If it’s not Liberal ‘oppression’, or seniors getting adequate healthcare in eastern Canada, it’s academics, science, and 2SLGBTQ kids out to change their way of life. They’re being attacked by everyone, everywhere, any and all the time. Or at least that’s the story they’re told.

Conservatives are “trusted” while everyone else has to earn it.

It’s a double standard for a reason.

Accepting these realities are important, however, because they should dictate the tone and content from the party and their leader. Mr. Nenshi is known to have a very sharp tongue and he’s quick with his retorts. Knowing that almost any criticism lobbed at the UCP, if it’s not specific to governance decisions, can and will be expanded to include all Albertans by bad actors should give him pause. Though I imagine there’s a sub-section of people who would love to see some classic Nenshi barbs directed at certain actors, there’s less appetite for seeing it grace the Herald/SUN/Journal pages by three columnists sharing a brain cell for days, or weeks, on end.

The UCP, like most conservative parties in Alberta, don’t have to reiterate their values over and over again but the NDP does. Despite the fact that they have only recently become the singular alternative to the UCP, their party, and opinions of it, were formed decades ago. If those opinions are going to be changed, they have to find consistent messaging wrapped in the story they want to tell.

Then they need to tell it over and over again.

The NDP isn’t going to be able to wrap themselves in the conservative identity but the values conservative parties and their representatives purport to hold aren’t “conservative” values — they’re values most Albertans hold even though they vote for political parties that aren’t turning a blind eye from the corrupt practices of their leader.

There’s a story worth telling there and its a good place to start for anyone looking at more than just opposition for their future.

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