Ex-Calgary mayor, former PM Harper pitch late day endorsements in Alberta election

In a day of last-ditch Alberta election endorsements, former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi backed NDP Leader Rachel Notley on Friday while former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper urged voters a second time to step up for the United Conservatives' Danielle Smith.

In a day of last-ditch Alberta election endorsements, former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi backed NDP Leader Rachel Notley on Friday while former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper urged voters a second time to step up for the United Conservatives' Danielle Smith.

"On the balance of probabilities, the (election) platform for the NDP is better than the platform for the UCP, but that's not the critical thing to make a decision on," Nenshi, with Notley beside him, told reporters in Calgary.

"This is about leadership, it's about competence and it's about trust.

"There's an enormous risk in returning Danielle Smith. She is someone that cannot be trusted, and I hate saying that. I've known her for 30 years. We've been friends, and yet when she said (earlier in the campaign), `Don't look at what I say, look at what I do' – you can't say that as a politician."

Both leaders were spending their final campaign days in Calgary, considered the key battleground of the election.

Voters are now casting ballots in advance polls and election day is Monday.

Earlier Friday, Smith pointed reporters on social media to a video of Harper in which he states, "Rachel Notley and (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau are a combination that puts Alberta's economy at great risk."