Nenshi and Smith playing cheap political games helps no one

In the one of the latest sagas of Naheed Nenshi versus Premier Danielle Smith, both are being frustratingly difficult. Before calling a by-election in Lethbridge-West, Smith is insisting that Nenshi announces where he will run for a seat in the legislature. Nenshi won the Alberta New Democratic Party’s (NDP) leadership race in June. Now it’s November. He has no seat in the legislature and has expressed little desire to get one.

I agree with Smith that Nenshi should get a seat in the legislature sooner rather than later. But I also think Smith blaming the delay for Lethbridge-West’s by-election on Nenshi is a painfully transparent political ploy. 

Lethbridge-West has been without a sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) since NDP MLA Shannon Phillips decided to step down. Some thought Nenshi might try to fill the seat, but he insisted they “deserved a strong voice in the legislature”. Now both the NDP and United Conservative Party (UCP) have picked their candidates for the riding. But, there’s no by-election.

Smith needs to stop publicly quarreling with Nenshi and give Lethbridge-West its by-election. In fact, the summer would have been a perfectly fine time to call a by-election. The legislature was out of session and someone could have been elected before the next session began. But now here we are, a couple weeks into the fall legislative session and Lethbridge-West has no representative.

That’s a huge failure on Smith and only Smith. It’s not Nenshi’s fault, though she seems to be trying to blame him for it. Smith simply seems comfortable sacrificing Lethbridge’s representation for political games.

However, Nenshi isn’t exactly being the bigger person here. He insists that he won’t ask a sitting MLA to step down for him to get a seat in the legislature. Now he’s saying he would run for a seat if one of the UCP’s candidates stepped down from a Calgary seat. This won’t happen and Nenshi likely knows that. He went one further and called Smith a hypocrite, which did nothing to help anyone.

Outside of the childishness, Nenshi’s reluctance to get a seat in the legislature makes little sense to me. He’s still new to provincial and partisan politics and without a seat in the legislature, he will watch from the sidelines. He won’t be participating in debates. He’ll simply be calling the shots from a distance. 

But it’s not like this time without a seat has been super productive for Nenshi. Sure, he toured around Alberta this summer talking to folks, assigned MLAs their “shadow cabinet” roles, and made a bunch of campaign style videos for social media. However, the NDP still lacks vision.

His lack of direction was a consistent problem in Nenshi’s leadership campaign. And it doesn’t seem like he’s come up with any plan aside from being anti-Smith. It seems like most of what he does — since he’s not representing Albertans in the legislature or debating policy — is making videos. Video after video after video. They are largely the same: Smith does something, Nenshi says he doesn’t like it and bashes Smith. That’s not leadership. It’s cheap politics. 

If that’s all he has to offer as leader of the opposition, that’s not going to win over Albertans. And if Nenshi can’t handle sitting as an MLA, then there might be doubts he can handle the job of premier. He could show some leadership, but unfortunately, he will likely keep playing Smith’s games.

Both leaders of Alberta’s big political parties could do with a little maturity. While transparent efforts to score political points is nothing new from Smith, Nenshi has stooped to her level. Albertans deserve better than this, especially those living in Lethbridge-West.