Kristin Raworth: Naheed Nenshi is wasting what should have been his moment

Amid government chaos, Alberta's NDP leader is still sagging in the polls.

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, right, via X.com

By: Kristin Raworth

Naheed Nenshi entered provincial politics with what should have been an extraordinary political advantage: a governing party engulfed in instability at precisely the moment Albertans appeared exhausted by permanent conflict. The United Conservative Party has spent years cycling through health-care controversies, ethics allegations, separatist agitation, sovereignty fights, caucus fractures, and escalating battles with public institutions. Under ordinary political conditions, that kind of turbulence would create a clear opening for an opposition leader with Nenshi’s profile.

Instead, Alberta’s political landscape has barely moved.

That failure is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Polling conducted by Janet Brown Opinion Research for CBC suggests the UCP would likely win another majority government if an election were held today — potentially an even larger one than it currently holds. More significantly, the polling and accompanying analysis suggest Nenshi himself has not connected with Albertans in the way many expected when he entered provincial politics.

That is the defining paradox of Nenshi’s leadership so far: he arrived at the precise moment Alberta conservatives appeared vulnerable, only to discover vulnerability is not the same thing as collapse.

The separatist controversies should have been his breakthrough moment.

The Centurion Project scandal exploded into Alberta politics with allegations involving exposed voter data, legal threats, emergency injunctions, RCMP scrutiny, and growing fears about extremist-adjacent organizing around Alberta separation. Former premier Jason Kenney himself became one of the targets of the voter-data leak, alongside judges, journalists, prosecutors, and politicians. The controversy transformed Alberta separatism from an online grievance movement into something far more institutionally alarming.

On paper, this should have positioned Nenshi perfectly. He attempted to emerge as Alberta’s most forceful defender of federalism, warning repeatedly that separatist rhetoric was damaging investor confidence, destabilizing Alberta’s reputation, and creating economic uncertainty reminiscent of Quebec’s referendum era or Brexit.

But politically, something unexpected happened.

The figure increasingly resonating with Albertans on the federalism question was not Nenshi — it was Kenney.

Despite being a central target of the data leak and a long-time conservative figure often disliked by progressives, Kenney’s interventions have carried more credibility with many Albertans because they are perceived as coming from inside Alberta conservatism itself. His criticism of separatist excesses lands differently because he cannot easily be dismissed as an ideological opponent of Alberta conservatives generally. In the public conversation surrounding Alberta separation, Kenney increasingly sounds like a conservative attempting to preserve institutional stability, while Nenshi often sounds like an opposition leader prosecuting the government. That distinction matters enormously in Alberta politics.

The recent coverage and analysis of Alberta’s separatist debate underscored this broader dynamic: while most Albertans still oppose separation, the conversation itself has become politically volatile, emotionally polarized, and increasingly shaped by identity and grievance politics rather than conventional partisan alignment.

Nenshi has struggled to navigate that environment effectively.

Part of the problem is tonal. His remarks implying Danielle Smith and others were behaving like “foreign agents” may have energized existing supporters, but they also allowed the UCP to shift the conversation away from the substance of separatist instability and toward accusations that Nenshi himself was becoming excessive or theatrical. Smith quickly framed him as increasingly “unhinged,” a characterization amplified heavily in conservative media ecosystems. Even if unfair, politically the exchange benefited the government because the focus moved from institutional risk to rhetorical escalation.

That has become a recurring pattern.

The UCP repeatedly generates controversies that appear politically dangerous: health-care procurement allegations, fights with physicians, separatist flirtations, sovereignty legislation, internal divisions, and mounting questions about governance culture. Yet the Alberta NDP still struggles to consolidate those moments into a coherent public case for replacing the government.

Instead, Alberta politics resets after each controversy.

This is where the contrast with Rachel Notley becomes important. Notley understood that Alberta elections are not won primarily through outrage. They are won by creating psychological permission for moderate conservatives and swing voters — especially in suburban Calgary — to temporarily trust the NDP with government. Her success in 2015, and near-success again in 2023, came less from ideological conversion than from reassurance. She spent years carefully presenting herself as pragmatic, measured, and economically credible enough for cautious voters to cross the aisle without feeling they were abandoning Alberta’s identity.

But her defeats in 2019 and again in 2023 also revealed the limits of a strategy increasingly centred on attacking Kenney and later Danielle Smith personally rather than consistently anchoring the conversation around an affirmative governing alternative. As the political environment became more polarized, the NDP’s messaging often shifted from “here is why you can trust us” toward “here is why conservatives are dangerous.” Those are not the same argument. One lowers voter anxiety. The other can inadvertently reinforce it.

That distinction matters enormously in Alberta politics because conservative voters frequently interpret attacks on conservative leaders as attacks on themselves, their industries, or even Alberta more broadly. The more politics becomes framed around moral condemnation or existential conflict, the easier it becomes for conservatives to reunify despite internal fractures.

Nenshi increasingly appears to be repeating that same mistake.

Rather than consistently building a calm, persuasive case for what an Alberta NDP government under his leadership would concretely look like, much of the public conversation around him has become dominated by escalation, rhetorical combat, and reaction to UCP controversies. His sharpest moments generate headlines and social media engagement, but they do not necessarily create the emotional reassurance required to move undecided voters — particularly suburban moderates already uncomfortable with political instability.

That is why even controversies that should theoretically benefit the opposition have failed to produce major political movement. Albertans may dislike chaos, but dislike alone does not automatically produce trust in the alternative.

Right now, many Albertans appear unconvinced.

That is why the current moment feels so politically unusual. The governing party appears perpetually engulfed in controversy, yet remains electorally resilient. The opposition leader is one of the province’s best-known political figures, yet struggles to generate durable momentum. And on one of the biggest political questions facing Alberta — whether separatist politics threatens the province’s future inside Canada — it is increasingly a former conservative premier, not the opposition leader, who appears to be defining the federalist argument most effectively.

That should concern the Alberta NDP far more than any individual poll number.

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