Achi news desk-
What started as a race to pick a new leader for Alberta’s Opposition NDP has sparked a wider existential debate about why being provincially orange must automatically tie you to the federal brand.
According to party constitutions, provincial NDP members are automatically members of the federal party.
It’s a connection that caused headaches for the Alberta NDP when it was in government from 2015 to 2019 and remains politically problematic as it tries to wrest power from Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives in 2027.
The NDP got a big boost in profile – and a reported increase in membership – earlier this month when former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi entered the race.
Rakhi Pancholi, a two-term Edmonton legislator and one of the leadership candidates, immediately left the race to support him.
Nenshi says it’s time for the Alberta NDP to cut the apron strings.
“I think the membership has to have a very serious conversation about its relations with the federal NDP,” Nenshi said in an interview.
“I believe that our relations with the federal NDP are the remnants of a party that was not confident, a party that had not yet grown up, that relied on big brother to look after us.
“Now this party is confident and a modern force and I don’t think we need that anymore.
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“The costs of aligning with people we don’t control, whose values and ethics may not align with ours, far outweigh the benefits.”
Nenshi is not alone in his opinion. Pancholi started her now-abandoned campaign by questioning the link.
“Membership in one political party should not require membership in another party,” he said.
“Albertans who want to join the Alberta NDP should get to decide if they also want to become a member of the federal NDP.”
Candidate Kathleen Ganley, former Alberta justice minister and current member of the Calgary legislature, has said she will not close the door on the debate.
“I think the members’ concerns, especially when you hear them over and over again, are very valid,” Ganley said.
An alliance with their federal counterparts has forced Alberta’s New Democrats to walk a tightrope on energy and environmental policy in a province where jobs and billions of dollars in revenue are tied to non-renewable resources like the oil sands.
The two wings butted heads in 2018 when the Notley government at the time celebrated that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government had spent billions to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to ensure that more Alberta oil would reach the BC coast.
The move angered environmental advocates, including those in the NDP. Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh dismissed the purchase as a bad deal for everyone involved.
In last year’s provincial election, Smith’s UCP was happy to harvest anti-Trudeau sentiment among voters by happily painting the Alberta NDP as either enthusiastic co-conspirators or impotent defectors in the federal power-sharing deal between Trudeau and Singh.
In an interview, former Alberta NDP leader Ray Martin said it was wrong to let go of the ties, adding that there is strength and pride in a shared history.
“Nenshi made some statements about the federal party that have not gone over very well here,” said Martin.
“The reality is when you look at his history going back to Tommy Douglas and the whole history of the party, he’s been NDP provincially and federally.”
Douglas, the former premier of Saskatchewan, is widely regarded as the father of medicare. He also served as the first federal leader of the newly formed NDP in 1961 when it changed its name from the Commonwealth Co-operative Federation.
Martin is supporting Sarah Hoffman, a member of the Edmonton legislature and Notley’s former deputy premier.
Hoffman said the party doesn’t need to cut ties to sell itself.
“I don’t think we need to try to trick people into voting for us. I think if we tell people who we are and show what our values are, they are going to vote for us,” he said.
“I never deviated from our values and I never will.
“You’re not going to get some repackaged Liberal Party.”
Political scientist Lori Williams said that although cutting ties could be controversial, the debate does not just come from outside.
“It makes people angry because he (Nenshi) says it. He is not seen as someone who is on the inside,” said Williams, with Mount Royal University in Calgary.
“But Pancholi said (and) Kathleen Ganley expressed that she was open to him.”
Williams said moving away from the federal NDP could also make the provincial party more palatable to those alienated by Alberta’s move further to the political right under the UCP.
“There are many former Progressive Conservatives who do not see their conservatism in the current UCP government but cannot bring themselves to vote NDP,” he said.
Alberta’s new leader is expected to be announced on June 22.
The other two candidates for the leadership – Gil McGowan and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse – did not return requests for comment.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
