Alberta NDP leadership candidate Naheed Nenshi admitted he made many mistakes when he served as Calgary mayor for 11 years. Since Nenshi issues public apologies, he said it makes him different than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. “But Kathleen [Ganley], if I can do it in 90 seconds, I’ll give you a bonus,” said Nenshi in a Sunday speech at the Vote Leadership 2024 Debate in Edmonton. “I’ll give you three, because I think those three kind of reflect some of the things that have taught me about leadership.” The first major mistake he said he made as Calgary mayor was on the Olympics file. He added he is disappointed with how he managed that file, particularly with the City of Calgary’s relationship with the Alberta and Canadian governments. When impossible demands were placed on Calgarians, he said the City of Calgary should have walked away from the negotiating table and talked more about the affordable housing benefits the Olympics could have brought. When he watches the Olympics in 2026 in Italy, he joked he “will be salty about it.” The second major mistake he said he made was when Calgary was asked to build multiple safe consumption sites. The original plan was to build several safe consumption sites in Calgary, and he said no. He called for one to be built, placed it in the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre, have it studied thoroughly, make wraparound services available, and be replicated as needed. Because one safe consumption site was built, he said it centralized the problems and social disorder. When Calgary was having serious budget problems in 2018, he allowed city council to make a $60 million midyear budget cut. He said he should have never done it. While Nenshi returned the money a few months later, he said it caused a ton of pain. Ganley said she has learned plenty from her rivals in the Alberta NDP leadership race. “Mostly I’ve learned that strength comes in multiple forms,” said Ganley. “So why should I be chosen to lead this incredible team?” She pointed out she knows where the NDP came from. While it has hope today, she said she knows it “was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the last decade.” Additionally, she said she knows the strength of its team. She called for people to join her team. Alberta NDP leadership candidate Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse acknowledged poverty can be turned into prosperity through job creation. “We have to do the work,” said Calahoo Stonehouse. “We have 177,000 orphan wells.” Calahoo Stonehouse said those orphan wells could be turned into jobs. If Alberta wants to see prosperity, she said it has to double down on renewables, create jobs, and spend the royalties wisely. When oil is more than $70 per barrel, she said it should go to Albertans to reduce poverty. Under her leadership, these royalties would go to housing and wraparound services for people who are hard to house. Alberta NDP leadership candidate Sarah Hoffman agreed with Nenshi about having more desegregated safe consumption sites. “So I’m glad you brought that up around using evidence to help drive decision making, and I look for the support of all of you in working with our partners, because it was really important to me that when he did bring in harm reduction sites that were evidence driven, that we did it with the support of municipalities that we were doing it with,” said Hoffman. “So there are some times maybe where we might not see eye to eye.” While people might not be looking at the evidence, Hoffman said her rivals can help her in facilitating conversations in an open, respectful way. Another issue she said the NDP government had was not enacting policies fast enough, but that stemmed from a lack of experience. Four cabinet ministers had been MLAs before 2015, and two had served in local governments. However, she said it is not going to have this problem again because it will have more experienced candidates. Nenshi came out swinging at the Vote Leadership 2024 Debate in Lethbridge in April, saying he was surprised to be back in politics. READ MORE: Nenshi says he came out of political retirement to save Alberta at NDP debateWhile he was enjoying his retirement, he said he is an Albertan. “I grew up here, I chose to make my life here after living and working all over the world in my 20s, and like all of you, I’m deeply troubled by the direction of our province and the direction of our government,” he said.
