2 hours Ago By Noah Brennan
While speaking at an NDP town hall on Saturday morning, Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi did not shy away from criticizing the provincial government over its decision to pull funding from the City’s Green Line project last month. Around 1,000 people gathered inside the University of Calgary’s MacEwan Student Centre for the town hall, with more tuning in online to hear the provincial opposition leader speak about issues affecting Albertans. A major focus of the party leader’s speech was the province’s handling of the Green Line, dubbed the “Nenshi Nightmare” by UCP leadership.
Nenshi was a major proponent of the Green Line LRT project during his 11-year tenure as mayor of Calgary from 2010 to 2021, and recently raised suspicions that the provincial government pulled out of the project just to make him look bad, effectively wasting billions of dollars, he said. “They lit 2.1-billion dollars on fire.
” Nenshi seems to be leaning into the nickname, making multiple plugs throughout his address for members to buy mugs and T-Shirts brandished with the “Nenshi Nightmare” slogan — a cheeky fundraising tactic for the party. Nenshi said the province’s decision to pull funding for the project was “the most shameless act” he had ever seen from a government, and made it clear he still believes in the project. “That’s something that we need to build,” he said.
Throughout his speech and a follow-up Q-and-A, the provincial opposition leader continued to take shots at Smith’s UCP government while outlining his stance on issues such as affordability, education and health care. Speaking about the province’s commitment to education spending, Nenshi called Smith a “pinball Premier,” who “goes from crisis to crisis, careening wildly, patching up holes in the wall after the water has already come in.” The provincial opposition leader gave credit to Smith for the recent announcement that the province would invest $8.
6 billion in education over the next three years, but raised concerns about whether the Premier knows how the money will be spent. He also criticized Smith for creating massive inflation in the construction industry with the announcement. Other issues addressed during the town hall were hospital wait times, overcrowded classrooms and proposed legislation affecting transgender youth in the province, which recently came back into the spotlight after first being announced in January.
The proposed legislation touches on several matters affecting transgender youth in the province, such as outlining the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the purpose of gender reassignment, and notifying parents about changes to their child’s preferred personal pronouns. Nenshi said the legislation will likely lead to more harm among vulnerable youth, citing a recent that showed the risk of self-harm and suicide among transgender youth increased by more than 70 per cent in jurisdictions where laws similar to Smith’s proposed legislation came into effect. “Danielle Smith, under the guise of parents’ rights, is taking away the rights of parents and doctors to choose the best possible medical care for their children,” Nenshi said.
“There are very real consequences to Danielle Smith’s political games.” Nenshi won the provincial NDP leadership election June 22 with an overwhelming majority of support from party members. The Alberta NDP said at the time this was the most individual votes cast for a leadership candidate in any provincial party leadership race in Canadian history.
The Alberta NDP currently has more than 85,000 registered members, Nenshi said, adding he believed the number to be highest for any provincial political party in Canada..
