Big tent party or left-wing tradition? Leadership race reveals competing visions for Alberta NDP
CBC
Life after Rachel Notley was on the minds of about 100 Alberta NDP members who gathered in a central Edmonton meeting hall in early April to hear from the people who want to succeed the former premier as party leader.
Sunny Johal, a party member since 2017, hasn't decided who he'll support but he knows the qualities he wants the next leader to have.
"I'm basically looking for a candidate who would not only be the next leader of the NDP but the next premier of the province," he said.
Cheryl Hunter Loewen, a former candidate and party member since 2014, is also undecided. Like Johal, though, she knows what she's looking for.
"I think it's someone who can reach out to all Albertans. Not just members of our party, but members of what we call the 'small c' conservatives who would like to have something to vote for," she said.
Five candidates are vying for the NDP leadership, to be decided on June 22: MLAs Kathleen Ganley, Sarah Hoffman and Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse, labour leader Gil McGowan, and former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.
Some of the candidates, like Hoffman and McGowan, represent old-school NDP values. Nenshi, meanwhile, is a high-profile party newcomer who believes the route to victory in 2027 lies in bringing as many people as possible under the NDP tent.
Although the party won't release the number of new memberships signed up by the candidates until later this month, Nenshi's early totals were so high that Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi ended her leadership bid in March to join his team.
"We must move forward to offer a positive alternative to the UCP that Albertans can enthusiastically support in the next election," she said at the time.
"And I believe that means uniting behind the next leader, Naheed Nenshi."
Ganley has presented a broad platform that proposes overhauling the Alberta Energy Regulator, enacting public auto insurance, and raising the minimum wage. Newcomer Calahoo Stonehouse, who was first elected in 2023, has so far emphasized the need to conserve water for future generations and share resource revenue profits with all Albertans.
Hoffman and McGowan have been sticking with traditional NDP values.
McGowan is making his appeal to labour, which he argues has been abandoned by left-leaning parties, to come back to the NDP.
Hoffman has been emphasizing her long history with the party and her commitment to what the party has long represented. "We win when we are unapologetic about being New Democrats," she said during the April 25 leadership debate in Lethbridge. "We win when we stand up for our values. We've proven that time and time again."
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