There's so much to talk about in Alberta politics as our premier continues her fight for tax fairness against the feds, and the NDP are in the throes of a leadership race, things are getting wild here on the prairies. My guest tonight is Peter McCaffrey, the President of the Alberta Institute, and he's got a lot to say on carbon taxes, the Alberta Budget and the leadership race.
00:00:00.000Alberta continues its fight for tax fairness against the feds and the NDP here in Alberta
00:00:19.320are in the throes of a leadership race so things are getting wild here on the prairies
00:00:25.100I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show
00:00:30.000it's a very exciting time to be an Albertan you see we have a very staunch conservative
00:00:49.820premier Danielle Smith and she seems to get more lovely and more youthful the more she fights with
00:00:56.200Justin Trudeau and the NDP in Alberta after sort of stagnating and being you know just sort of
00:01:03.700relegated to the fringes since the last Alberta election while they are in the process of a
00:01:11.180leadership election and some interesting characters have thrown their hats into the field and I feel
00:01:20.460like Albertans are going to be taken on a very wild roller coaster ride from now until the next
00:01:27.840provincial election so from the time the NDP choose a leader to the next provincial election they are
00:01:35.100going to be in full attack mode and in full rebrand mode will we forget the past as Albertans I don't
00:01:42.820think so and if we try I'm going to do my best to remind everybody just how bad things were under the
00:01:48.480NDP my guest tonight is Peter McCaffrey he's the president of the Alberta Institute and he's got a
00:01:53.840lot to say on carbon taxes the Alberta budget and the NDP leadership race I'm going to button it up
00:02:03.760because it's a long interview with him but it is a great interview with him take a listen
00:02:08.080so joining me now is Peter McCaffrey he's the president of the Alberta Institute there's so
00:02:19.300much to talk about in Alberta politics as our premier continues her fight with the feds on just
00:02:24.700about everything and then there's the whole NDP leadership race which gets more interesting but
00:02:30.960further left all the time I think if that is even possible Peter thanks for joining me it's been a while
00:02:37.300since you've been on the show and that is to my great regret but why don't you tell us a little
00:02:41.340bit about the Alberta Institute before we get into more of our topics sure great to be with you the
00:02:48.160Alberta Institute is a public policy research and advocacy organization we work across Alberta on a
00:02:57.240wide variety of issues everything from economic to social issues to municipal a little bit of
00:03:03.600everything so we we try and research and develop and promote new ideas and advocate for those ideas
00:03:10.360to be implemented try and improve freedom and choice and people's lives across Alberta now you are you say
00:03:17.820you're a bit of a libertarian think tank or small government think tank one of the ways that the Alberta
00:03:24.900premier has said that she will fight back against Justin Trudeau's carbon tax is to create a regulator of last resort
00:03:33.180or at least energy retailer distributor of last resort so that we may be able to mimic what's happening in
00:03:40.980Saskatchewan because Saskatchewan has a crown corporation which manages their home heating and electricity and so
00:03:47.520they are not collecting the carbon tax and thus not remitting it to Justin Trudeau what is your take on you know I'm torn as a small government kind of person
00:03:58.180um what is your take on the creation of a crown corporation which normally I'm against
00:04:04.600uh to insulate Alberta taxpayers from a hike in the carbon tax yeah my understanding is it wouldn't be
00:04:13.020like a regulator of last resort it would be like an operator of last resort right so um I think if what
00:04:18.840they're talking about is literally you know if the only alternative is we have to turn the lights out and
00:04:23.920we run out of electricity um and you know we literally cannot continue to have electricity
00:04:30.020otherwise uh that that would be the last resort would be having the government come in and actually
00:04:35.480operate natural gas power plants that the federal government says are illegal um and I think in that
00:04:40.780very narrow last resort situation that might make sense um you know we're talking about a situation
00:04:47.380where the private sector is unwilling to generate electricity because the federal government will
00:04:54.000deem them criminals if they do so and in that situation having the government step in and saying
00:04:58.740okay fine we will generate electricity so that people's lights don't go out I can understand where
00:05:04.000they're coming from as long as we're talking about it only being an option in that absolute last resort
00:05:09.320situation we don't want to get into a scenario of saying oh well there are pros and cons of having the
00:05:14.140government running a market and running electricity system and you know one of the pros is this like
00:05:18.400no we want a competitive free market and electricity like we've had in Alberta for a long time um and we
00:05:24.920want to protect that and only if literally the only other option is we won't have any electricity anymore
00:05:30.300should we be looking at an option like that one of the I think selling features that the
00:05:37.020provincial government has said is this might be a pass-through for electricity because we cannot ask
00:05:45.120our privatized distributors to break the law and not collect the carbon tax so this might be a pass-through
00:05:53.640buffer to protect our privatized industry here um and also be able to mimic what's happening in
00:06:01.860saskatchewan by not collecting the carbon tax yeah again I I see the benefits but deep down inside I'm
00:06:10.480just fundamentally opposed to crown corporations yeah and and you see the challenge even in saskatchewan
00:06:17.020which you know I think them taking the fight to Ottawa is great but the reality is as soon as you say
00:06:21.700well we're not going to collect this portion of the carbon tax the federal government come back with
00:06:26.120the threat and say okay well then you won't get any of the rebate at all even though people in
00:06:30.400saskatchewan are still paying what 90 95 percent of the carbon tax on everything else um the federal
00:06:35.560government is now threatening to take the entire rebate away from them so you know you can get into
00:06:40.020some really tricky situations when you do this the the simple solution obviously is just to get rid of
00:06:45.720the carbon tax wouldn't that be great um I want to ask you um your opinions on the latest Alberta budget
00:06:54.420there's good stuff in there bad stuff in there I talked to Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers
00:06:59.020Federation you know very happy with uh investing surplus into the heritage savings trust fund uh very
00:07:07.060happy with you know taking some of the surplus and paying down the debt great but then there's you know
00:07:13.820there's borrowing in there while we're still in surplus so help us make sense of this
00:07:19.300the the reality is that spending is still increasing far too fast and the government is still spending
00:07:27.180way way way way too much money um and and the current government's plan is to hold increases in
00:07:35.220spending to below the rate of population increase and inflation and therefore over time the size of
00:07:43.320government as a share of the economy will reduce the size of government uh you know the government debt
00:07:48.500will reduce uh the dependency on oil and gas revenues will reduce so long as you grow the size of
00:07:53.920government more slowly than the economy is growing more slowly than the population is growing but if
00:07:59.140you if you come from the starting point that the government is already way too massive and there's
00:08:03.620huge amounts of waste that we should be getting rid of uh then you know that's really not enough we
00:08:08.920should be going in there and we should be getting rid of programs that we don't need we should get
00:08:12.200getting rid of departments that we don't need um and making some significant cuts to a lot of the
00:08:18.620waste that is in there right you remember um that uh you know jason kenney's government grew the size
00:08:26.140of government rachel notley's government the government was too big before rachel notley even
00:08:30.660came to power uh under allison redford ned stelmack so you know i think at a minimum we should look at
00:08:36.440going back to levels of government spending uh that we used to have uh and you can adjust for
00:08:41.680inflation population growth if you want um but actually i happen to think that you know the more
00:08:45.880uh the more time government has shouldn't they be fixing problems shouldn't they be resolving the
00:08:50.640things that government is designed to be working on and so shouldn't over time there be less need
00:08:54.880for government as we resolve some of those problems if if government is continually growing and
00:08:59.200continue or continually operating that's actually proof that government isn't working because it's
00:09:03.680just continuing to grow and continue and to be uh you know dependent on the government um so you
00:09:11.540know i i think there's significant areas that we could be cutting spending and that would be
00:09:15.640my preferred option the other risk with uh you know reducing the rate of increase of government
00:09:21.400spending is it takes a very long time to have a significant impact you know if you control the
00:09:28.600growth in government to less than inflation population growth for 20 25 30 years at the end of that
00:09:35.400decades long period of time there will have been a substantial change but what happens if in four
00:09:42.080years or eight years time a different premier whether from the same government or a different
00:09:46.120government comes in and increases spending again um so if your plan is well we're always going to be
00:09:52.880in power and we're always going to control the growth of government at this level that's not a brilliant plan
00:09:59.120because you can't control 10 15 20 25 years out from the now you can only control uh what's being done now
00:10:06.960so you know god forbid if the ndp come in and massively hike spending again uh then your entire plan of
00:10:13.680controlling the growth of government for the next 25 30 years is gone um so no we actually need to be
00:10:19.440cutting some of the waste and cutting some of the useless spending that's been introduced by previous
00:10:24.080governments and then controlling the growth of government from that lower starting point right i remember when the ndp
00:10:31.440took power they went on hiring spree um because we had and uh you know i speculate but you know it's the ndp um but i at the
00:10:42.880time i suspected it was to pad their unemployment numbers because we've had such massive layoffs in oil and gas in
00:10:49.680the wake of the ndp and i think they hired about 50 000 government workers across the province and it sort of drove
00:10:57.440drove artificially drove the unemployment rate down in the province but we're still dealing with the that
00:11:05.280hiring spree that happened in 2015 now we're responsible for wages benefits pension liabilities
00:11:11.520for all of those people how would you well if you had you know the peter mccaffrey machete um how would
00:11:20.480you where would you start cutting well you you have to remember as well that the ndp and the lift in
00:11:26.240general are coming from the ideological world view that the government is better at delivering
00:11:33.200services than the private sector so they see a smaller private sector and a larger government sector as a benefit
00:11:40.240they think that having more and more products more and more services delivered by the government will lead to
00:11:46.640better and better outcomes of course all the evidence is the opposite uh when we when we socialize things when we have the
00:11:52.240government take over things uh services and quality go down while cost goes up um but this is the other
00:12:00.160problem of not coming in and fixing those issues and cutting programs is that if you maintain all of
00:12:06.560those new programs and employees and systems that were brought in by previous governments not only do you
00:12:12.480grow the size of government but then you're also going to take the blame for those things not working
00:12:17.520so yeah the the the ndp government uh massively increased spending on a whole bunch of different
00:12:22.640social programs those social programs are not working if anything those programs and those
00:12:28.560deliveries are much worse now than they were when the ndp came to power and that's that's not because
00:12:34.880oh there's a different government now and this different government is worse at managing a socialized
00:12:39.520system it's because socialism doesn't work socialized government programs don't work but if you don't
00:12:44.880come in and you don't correct that you don't get rid of those programs you don't return them to the
00:12:49.040private sector that is better at delivering them well then you are going to take the blame for those
00:12:53.200things not working so so the current government has this has this double problem where both government
00:12:58.640is larger than it should be but also they're getting the blame for all that extra government spending
00:13:03.680not working um so so yeah they really need to get their head around that and and deal with that the the
00:13:10.560opposite of course the corollary is also true which is that when you return those services to the
00:13:16.080private sector when you get rid of the government waste when you allow the private sector to innovate
00:13:20.880and improve services then you see the benefits and you actually get better services and better delivery
00:13:26.960at a lower cost and to the government's credit they are doing some of that around some of the areas
00:13:31.520of health care we're seeing more private construction of surgical facilities more private
00:13:37.680provision of surgeries and things like that and and suddenly when you allow the private sector
00:13:41.680to do surgeries you get more surgeries and you get shorter waiting lists and you actually get
00:13:46.480better quality services and then the government can reap the rewards and the credit for improving
00:13:51.920those services so but the problem is they need to be doing that across the economy across government
00:13:58.320and then they'll get credit for all of those improvements across all of those different areas
00:14:02.400of government and all those different areas of services as well you know and i think there's
00:14:06.400something to be said for moving fast to pulling out the weeds of the prior government because people
00:14:11.600become i don't know what the right word is inculturated inculturated with the idea that government
00:14:18.240should be doing these things because in your recent memory the government has always done those things
00:14:23.120but that hasn't always been the way and i i think the government if it is to weed out um the you know
00:14:34.160the the waste in government they should do it fast they should do it as early um from being re-elected as
00:14:42.320possible so that people have time to mentally deal with the fact that despite what the media and the
00:14:47.440ndp are telling you the sky is not falling and then the problems will not fall into disrepair
00:14:53.200the the there's two issues the first is the speed at which you go allows you to get more done great
00:14:59.280which allows you to see the benefits of those changes sooner which allows you to get credit for
00:15:03.920those changes if you go slow the next government will end up getting the credit for the improvements
00:15:11.600that you made in your policies and if the next government is of a different persuasion
00:15:16.880then often unfortunately that makes it look like the next government's more left-wing more
00:15:22.640socialist policies were responsible for the improvements in services that were made by a
00:15:27.120previous government so that's one risk the other thing is that the left and the unions and all those
00:15:33.120different groups are going to shout and complain as hard as they possibly can no matter what speed you
00:15:39.360go right so you go slow and cautious and you only make little tweaks and little changes and you do
00:15:44.960trials and you test things out and you just do make a few small you know tests of having private
00:15:50.480surgeries or charter schools or things like that they're going to scream bloody murder no matter what
00:15:55.120you do and you're going to get all of the negative political consequences but none of the benefits from
00:16:00.240actually fixing the problem whereas if you go and you actually go in and you actually fix the problem
00:16:05.120and you do the whole reform all at once they're only going to be able to complain the same amount as
00:16:11.600they did when you did a small amount right so the consequences to the government politically will be
00:16:16.400exactly the same but the improvements to the service delivery and the cost savings and ultimately
00:16:22.400people's lives will be much greater because you actually went in and fixed the problem rather than
00:16:26.880tinkering around the ridges so that that that's one issue um and and then the second issue is is
00:16:34.080really around when you when you when you come in as a government and you're trying to fix things
00:16:40.880and and you mentioned before okay you're dealing with consequences created by previous governments
00:16:45.760um that the concern is uh like you said this kind of built-in assumptions about the way that things
00:16:54.240have to be done right and and there's a it's a psychological thing that people have a bias
00:17:00.080towards the way things are done now health care right if yeah yeah but but also if you came in and
00:17:05.600you said well we're going to change how supermarkets work and we're going to make supermarkets work like
00:17:10.400the school system so the government will build the supermarkets the government will hire all the
00:17:15.360people who work in the supermarkets you will only be allowed to visit your local supermarket you don't
00:17:20.080have any choice you don't get to go to a different one we're going to have a government-run
00:17:23.280supermarket system um everybody would think that was insane but when you propose doing that or
00:17:29.680when you do that for education people kind of think that's normal luckily in alberta we have a
00:17:34.480decent amount of choice in our education system and people can choose to go to different schools and
00:17:39.120they can choose to go to charter schools and independent schools um but but that kind of choice is normal
00:17:45.840for supermarkets right and and a lot of the left-wing arguments are like oh but education is so
00:17:50.800important we we can't trust that to the private sector we have to have the government running that
00:17:55.040um and yet we do trust things like food to the private sector and the private sector does a good
00:18:00.560job now we could argue about whether you know the prices of groceries are going up um and and of course
00:18:06.000they are because of inflation and the cost of food and things like that but the price is going up
00:18:10.480isn't because the government isn't running the supermarkets the prices are going up because of
00:18:14.240other government interference right not because we we don't have a socialized grocery system and a
00:18:19.200socialized grocery supermarket system would not solve the problem of prices of food going up it
00:18:25.360would just make it worse right yes the the prices at the grocery store are still the problem of the
00:18:31.200federal government or at least the doing of the federal government to some extent and it's funny you
00:18:35.600mention that because well although although i will just say you know the the the naivety of some of
00:18:41.920the proposed policy solutions to the affordability crisis right like right uh the idea that oh well
00:18:46.960if electricity prices are going up we're just going to pass a government regulation to cap the prices
00:18:51.360right and and and suddenly electricity will be cheaper it's like no electricity won't be cheaper
00:18:56.480it's just that you'll pay less on your bill and more in your taxes and you know we could do the
00:19:01.280same with groceries if we had uh government-run grocery stores uh we could cap the price of groceries
00:19:08.160so that people pay less at the grocery store but the government would just be subsidizing that and
00:19:12.560you would just pay more in taxes so you didn't magically make groceries or electricity or insurance
00:19:17.840or anything cheaper just because a government proposes a cap you know rent cap is the most recent
00:19:23.200one i'm so glad you're bringing that up we we just won't allow people to raise the cost of housing
00:19:28.960we'll just have a ban on raising the cost of housing that doesn't make housing cheaper it just means
00:19:33.920it's illegal to charge the market price and that just messes up the market even more um so yeah
00:19:41.520i'm so glad you brought that up because we'll come back to that in a second in uh the bad ndp
00:19:46.640ideas portion of our conversation but it is true when you think about um you know even just how booze is
00:19:53.840sold across this country alberta does it much differently than ontario and ontario makes these bizarre
00:20:01.600um prohibitionist arguments like if we don't sell it in a government-run store and pay the people
00:20:08.880government wages and benefits to sell you a case of beer then won't you think about the children and
00:20:15.120you look at alberta and we're like we're doing we're doing okay we're doing okay but it's just because
00:20:19.680it's the way things are always done they don't know it's like in alberta yep yes we have private sales
00:20:25.520of alcohol but supermarkets aren't allowed to sell it right so you have to go in one door to get your food
00:20:30.080and then come out and go in a different door to get your alcohol which is kind of ridiculous and
00:20:33.680increase the cost of groceries because it means grocery stores have to comply with stupid rules
00:20:39.120like that um and also of course we have aglc which is a compulsory purchaser of alcohol right so if you're
00:20:44.880a liquor store or a bar or something like that you're only allowed to buy your alcohol from aglc
00:20:50.320you're not allowed to buy it directly from the the producer of the alcohol itself and so that raises
00:20:56.000prices as well so there's certainly things alberta could improve on in there as well there's
00:20:59.200there's really no reason for the government to act as a middleman there in in the alcohol industry
00:21:03.680either so that's another way area that we could improve and we could come some of the regulation
00:21:07.600the red tape and bring costs down as well from your lips to god's ears now let's talk about the
00:21:12.880ndp because the ndp are in the middle of a leadership race um and it pains me to say this but i feel as
00:21:19.520though rachel notley of all people and i've written two books about the woman um was a bit of a moderating
00:21:26.160force in the ndp and again i can't believe those words left my mouth but i believe they are true
00:21:34.160given what we're seeing unfold in uh the ndp leadership race we've got sarah hoffman which
00:21:41.200wants who wants to nationalize all the schools um we've got a proposal for rent control which will
00:21:50.000eliminate i think rental housing supply it's going to compel large um developers to just build condos
00:21:58.240and not rental properties and when they tried this in ireland it created slums because landlords
00:22:04.240couldn't afford the upkeep and we've got former mayor of calgary naheed nenshi um entering the race
00:22:12.960and i always kind of thought the guy was a federal liberal i never actually thought that he would ever
00:22:17.360go away and i think i was right about that but you've got a lot to say about naheed nenshi
00:22:23.520because i think you kept a careful encyclopedia of everything he did wrong in calgary so give us
00:22:28.880the rundown on nikki nenshi please yeah so i mean the first thing is you know if i put my political
00:22:35.200analyst hat on of of course during a leadership race the candidates are going to attack more towards
00:22:40.720the membership to the left uh you know we know that the membership of the party is more left-wing than
00:22:45.440the average voter and so yes they're going to trot out all of these crazy ideas to try and win votes
00:22:50.400during the leadership race um the reality is when the ndp were government yet to take rent control as
00:22:56.480an example uh there was pressure from the left to implement rent control when the ndp was government
00:23:01.600and rachel notley and her cabinet studied the issue and realized no this is actually an insane idea this
00:23:07.040would be terrible even almost 99 of left-wing economists agree that this is a dreadful idea never mind
00:23:14.160conservative or right-wing economists and so they didn't actually do it so the reality is when
00:23:18.080your government there's a there's a bit of a moderating force there in that you know you can't
00:23:22.160actually be insane when you're government you can only get away with being insane when you're
00:23:26.640opposition right right um so you know everything is relative uh and a lot of the ideas that are going
00:23:32.240to get thrown out when you're in opposition are are not going to see the light of day if and when you
00:23:36.560ever become government that's just the reality um so so that's one thing to consider um with with
00:23:43.040regards to naheed nenshi um it's an interesting one because uh you know everyone's saying oh i've
00:23:48.640never seen him as you know a partisan person or a or an orange ndp or something like that it it really
00:23:55.440all depends right like if you look at the policies and the way that the calgary council was run under
00:24:02.400his tenure if anything you could argue he was far more left-wing than the ndp because he was mayor while
00:24:09.280the ndp were in government and it was often naheed nenshi pushing the ndp uh to change the rules to
00:24:15.920allow him to do more uh left-wing ideas at city council you know he wanted to be able to run
00:24:20.880deficits he wanted to be able to introduce more city specific taxes and he really pushed the
00:24:26.320provincial government to introduce uh changes to the municipal government act and city charters
00:24:31.520that would give him and the city council more powers to implement more of those ideas and in some of
00:24:37.200those areas he was successful in convincing them uh to do so and and in some he wasn't you know
00:24:43.200another example would be the calgary olympics 2026 he was all gung-ho on spending five six seven
00:24:51.360whatever billion dollars the end in cost would have been and in the end it was rachel notley who stepped
00:24:56.400in and was like no you guys are crazy this is an insane amount of money uh and we won't give you
00:25:01.680provincial money uh towards this olympics campaign unless you hold a referendum and you know show
00:25:07.920that calgarians actually want this uh and guess what we had a referendum and then she lost that
00:25:13.200vote and he didn't get his way uh and the olympics idea got killed because people like we can't afford
00:25:18.160this right um so again you know i don't want to uh sound completely crazy here but actually it was
00:25:24.240rachel notley that stepped in and saved a calgary taxpayers five six seven billion dollars by
00:25:29.680uh requiring that referendum so you know nancy has always claimed to be purple he's always claimed
00:25:35.680that you know that's some kind of centrist moderation of blue and red and and that he's
00:25:40.000you know really a non-partisan person but if you judge on policies he's does he i don't see him having
00:25:46.240any issue fitting in with the ndp and a lot of people saying oh you know it's it's kind of an ndp
00:25:50.880takeover um his his moderate centrist people are going to come in and take over the ndp
00:25:55.600um but in reality you know we just have this quirk where you know there hasn't been a liberal
00:26:01.440party in alberta for a long time um the alberta party was never really a thing i'm sure he would
00:26:08.800prefer from a branding perspective if the alberta party or the liberal party was more of a force in
00:26:15.200alberta and he could lead the alberta or the liberal party and continue claiming to be a centrist moderate
00:26:22.160um you know that fits with his branding style uh but the reality is that the ucp and the ndp are
00:26:28.640now the only two games in town and uh you know i don't see any issue with him fitting into an ndp party
00:26:35.360promoting tax increases and spending increases and uh all sorts of you know more uh attacks on the
00:26:43.600the private sector yeah 60 tax increase in calgary while he was in charge that's uh that's an ndp
00:26:50.560policy if there ever was one um go ahead well yeah 60 plus for for individuals for homeowners
00:26:58.240over the time that he was uh in power um and uh you know but if you were a business owner some
00:27:04.640of the businesses were looking at way way more than that you know there's examples that you can
00:27:09.760find of businesses paying five six seven hundred percent more you know just absolutely massive increases
00:27:17.120um and this is really interesting because i think this will be the one challenge that it'll have
00:27:22.080which is that um there's a quirk of how municipal governments work in in alberta and in other places
00:27:28.640which is that they're not allowed to run deficits right um so side note i've seen some of nenshi's
00:27:34.560supporters claiming that he's a fiscal conservative because he never ran a deficit no he never ran a
00:27:39.360deficit because he legally was not allowed to run a deficit he absolutely would have run deficits had
00:27:44.320even been allowed to um but because municipalities legally aren't allowed to run deficits the way
00:27:49.280that they work is that they first calculate how much they want to spend and then they change their
00:27:55.200tax rate to make sure that they generate enough money to cover how much they want to spend and so you
00:28:02.000know that that's why in provincial government we have tax rates and depending on how strong the economy
00:28:08.640is that determines how much money the government generates and it's a big deal in provincial
00:28:13.600politics if you want to go in and you want to raise taxes right the ndp proposed a two percent
00:28:19.600increase in the corporate tax rate and basically no personal income tax increases and that really hurt
00:28:26.080them in the election campaign because people really didn't want even just a small tax increase at the
00:28:31.040provincial level yet nenshi is used to be able to do six eight ten massive ten percent tax increases
00:28:40.320year over year over year over year because he's used to picking how much he wants to spend first
00:28:46.640and then figuring out what the tax rate should be to collect that amount of money later guess what you
00:28:50.720can't do that at the provincial level uh he's not going to be able to lead an ndp that come in and
00:28:54.960said comes in and says well we want to spend x amount and we're just going to raise taxes to
00:28:59.840whatever they need to be to be able to collect enough money to spend that because it just doesn't
00:29:03.680work that way provincially so that's the first challenge he's going to have if he becomes ndp
00:29:07.840leader is like actually running a budget uh you're going to have to actually prioritize spending
00:29:14.880whereas at council he was used to just throwing money at every single problem and then just
00:29:19.840collecting extra tax to pay for it and and that's how he was balancing the budget at city hall so that
00:29:25.600that's i think going to be the first challenge he has to face now i'm going to ask you to speculate
00:29:31.680what are his chances of winning because i think if he does win it's a game changer um i think in calgary
00:29:39.680i think also in edmonton um and i hate to even think of it but what are what do you think his chances are
00:29:47.680uh given that he's coming from the outside sarah hoffman as much as i disagree with her on
00:29:53.840literally everything has been grinding it out for her spot to take over from rachel notley
00:29:59.360since she was elected back in 2015 um you know what what are his chances of being accepted by the
00:30:07.200party membership well well there's two parts to this this first can he win the leadership race and then
00:30:12.720can he win an election so let's talk about the leadership race first um honestly i think the leadership
00:30:18.160race is over um i think the the name recognition and the campaign organization of all the other
00:30:26.400candidates running is nothing compared to what nahid nichey is um you know putting aside the policy
00:30:34.160um of what he pursued at city hall he's a very smart guy very competent has a really good campaign you
00:30:41.280know professional campaign team behind him that have won multiple elections both for him and for
00:30:47.200the ndp this is another reason why i think he's a perfectly fine fit for the ndp by the way pretty
00:30:51.760much all of his campaign team from his mayoral runs were the campaign team for the ndp it's this it's the
00:30:58.080same people it's the same consultants it's the same uh businesses and and and and contractors um so the
00:31:04.960idea that he's some kind of outsider to the ndp no we we know for example well we don't know but we
00:31:10.160pretty much know for example that a lot of ninji's people were heavily involved in the process for
00:31:15.200writing the leadership rules for the ndp because they're high level senior ndp people who were
00:31:22.480involved in that process um and that's a big part of why the rules are written in a way that is quite
00:31:27.600open to outsiders you know the ndp uh that the ndp have a clause in the constitution that allows the
00:31:33.520unions to have up to 25 of the delegate votes in a leadership race and yet for this leadership
00:31:39.840race the unions get zero um and and you know the ndp could have written much stricter rules on
00:31:47.360the ability to sign up members um which would make it easier for insiders to run and more difficult
00:31:53.440for outsiders like nenshi to run and yet they didn't they wrote the rules in a way that actually
00:31:57.280it's quite easy for an outsider to sign up a lot of members so we know that nenshi has been
00:32:02.080considering this for a while we know that a lot of his senior you know supporters and campaign team
00:32:06.800were involved in the process for writing the rules and and made sure that they get a got a rule set
00:32:11.280that would work for nenshi coming in from the outside um and uh you know the the other thing is
00:32:20.000from his time as mayor and from his time involved in politics he doesn't just have a lot of name
00:32:25.200recognition he also has a massive database of supporters one of the benefits of being a mayor is
00:32:31.040that you're an independent and you control all of your own data all of his email list all of his
00:32:36.240supporters all of his volunteers they're all his they're not party data so the other candidates
00:32:42.880are trying to appeal to existing volunteers and donors and supporters of the ndp they don't have
00:32:47.920access now he has his own massive list of supporters that he's been building for years and years and years
00:32:53.440so i think he's going to come in i think he's going to sign up a ton of people as members of the ndp
00:32:58.480from the outside i also think he's probably going to do quite well with the existing membership of
00:33:02.960the ndp um i think if i think if the ndp had set rules that had much more restrictive uh regulations
00:33:10.080for signing up new members it would have been more difficult for him but i would not be surprised if he
00:33:14.320ends up getting a majority of the existing ndp support as well um so so that's the first thing
00:33:19.520that's the that's the leadership race i think it's over um just look at twitter um you know his
00:33:25.280first campaign event hundreds of volunteers showed up to help out pretty much through at the moment
00:33:30.000because you know they're excited by his campaign uh i don't know how the other campaigns teams
00:33:35.520volunteers events are going and things like that but i haven't seen a lot of photos of a lot of events
00:33:40.480on social media which suggests to me that it's not going too well because if they were going really
00:33:44.400well and they were having huge audiences they'd be posting those photos so yeah i think the leadership
00:33:50.160race is over okay now can he win a provincial election so this is a much more complicated
00:34:00.320question and and the shorter answer is yes he can but that doesn't mean he will um and and the the
00:34:07.280thing to consider here is that there's there's two main kind of inputs into election results uh you know
00:34:17.520very simplified and that's the the public's image and the public's perspective on the party brands
00:34:25.040and the public's image and the public's perspective on the leaders and and sometimes
00:34:30.160the leaders are more popular than the parties and sometimes the parties are more popular than the
00:34:35.040leaders and you know you see this all the time when the party isn't polling very well when the party
00:34:40.400isn't particularly popular there'll be much more of an emphasis on the leader the leaders in all
00:34:46.000all the photos the leaders on all the billboards uh when the leader is not so popular and the party
00:34:52.400is more popular than the leader then all the colored billboards come out without the photos
00:34:56.860you know you see that with uh you know justin trudeau for example right first couple of elections
00:35:02.160he's on all the billboards last election he's on basically none of them and it's the local
00:35:07.760candidate or it's just the liberal brand and things like that and you know that happens across
00:35:11.380all parties all parties do that you you you play to your strengths and you promote the thing that's
00:35:15.860popular and and and you know that's perfectly natural the ndp is massively less popular than
00:35:23.520rachel notley and that's why rachel notley was the front figure at the last election now having said
00:35:28.920that that's not to say that rachel notley was massively popular there was this big misconception
00:35:33.820at the last election that somehow rachel notley had much higher approval ratings than danielle smith
00:35:39.000um well rachel notley had slightly higher approval ratings than danielle smith when danielle smith
00:35:43.460first became premier um but over the course of the year or so uh after danielle smith was leading
00:35:52.720the leadership race and became premier and then we got into the election uh rachel notley's approval
00:35:57.160ratings came down a lot and danielle smith's approval ratings actually improved in the run-up to the
00:36:02.440election to the point where by election time the approval ratings for the two were about the same
00:36:07.100um but even though rachel notley's approval ratings had come down they were still higher than it was
00:36:12.500for the ndp party so the the way that um the way that the ndp can win an election under nahid nenshi
00:36:23.480is i think either a general improvement on people's perceptions of the ndp
00:36:30.300and or a decrease on people's approval and perceptions of the ucp um rather than necessarily
00:36:38.300nahid nenshi being highly popular and again nahid nenshi is making a big fuss about how popular he
00:36:46.340was in calgary and you know he claimed on ryan jesperson's show yesterday that that even after
00:36:52.48011 years as mayor when he left he was more popular than danielle smith had ever been
00:36:56.120it's factually untrue nahid nenshi was reasonably popular when he became mayor but let's not forget
00:37:03.580he only became mayor thanks to a vote split in the first election and then after the floods in calgary
00:37:09.240he became incredibly popular and that led him to a runaway victory in his second election
00:37:15.400but by his third election his popularity was still decent it was about 60 percent but he only won 51
00:37:22.560percent of the vote um which interestingly the ndp won 49 of the vote in the 2023 election so the ndp
00:37:32.160in 2023 won pretty much the same share of the vote as nahid nenshi did in 2017 but nahid nenshi has not
00:37:41.160run for anything in seven years since that 2017 election when he had a 61 popularity and got 51
00:37:50.680of the vote by the time he left and decided not to run again his popularity was down to 35 percent
00:37:58.400and and maybe since he left office there's been you know some some fading of memories and and uh you
00:38:06.820know some nostalgia kicks in a little bit um but no the reality is by the time of the 2021 election
00:38:13.080nahid nenshi's popularity rating was down to 35 percent 32 percent actually i think which is
00:38:19.640significantly lower than rachel notley's popularity was in calgary um and you know the simple fact is
00:38:26.640he would not have won that election had he run again so he is banking on either people forgetting
00:38:31.880uh you know about his his time in office in calgary or on the ndp brand actually being improved or
00:38:41.240different and and you know there could be some discussions around changing the ndp brand there as
00:38:46.480well um but no this idea that nahid nenshi is is massively popular in calgary and that he will
00:38:52.020therefore carry the ndp to victory almost automatically by picking up calgary seats i don't think is there
00:38:58.080and the final point on that as well would be that it's not just calgary overall either you have to look
00:39:04.680at the different parts of calgary so nahid nenshi lost south calgary even in 2017 when he was still
00:39:13.980quite popular and a lot of the seats that the ndp need to pick up in order to get a majority are in
00:39:19.960south calgary which he lost in his last in his 2017 election so even if he just did as well as he did in
00:39:27.3602017 the election result would be very very tight um maybe a one or two seat ndp uh majority um if if
00:39:36.200nahid nenshi were able to lead the ndp to the same result he got in 2017 but but that was seven years ago
00:39:42.640and he's got quite a history over the last little bit of not uh saying kind things about conservatives
00:39:50.940i think that'll come back to bite him the man i think is probably a walking attack ad of himself
00:39:56.280sometimes uh peter i i want to thank you so much for your uh opinions and your take on the ndp
00:40:03.940leadership race uh gives me some food for thought i wasn't quite sure what to think
00:40:08.080um but at least i have some things to digest and i think my viewers do too how do people support
00:40:14.120the alberta institute and find out what you guys are up to what you're talking about each day
00:40:19.280this way would just be to go to the website alberta institute.ca and sign up to get our emails
00:40:25.440uh we send a weekly newsletter uh talking about everything going on uh in alberta politics which
00:40:31.800uh i think a lot of people find very useful just to get a very short summary of what's going on and
00:40:37.940keep on top of things i know people are very busy and they don't necessarily have the ability to track
00:40:42.100every story all the time um and uh yeah we'll keep people up to date uh through emails as well about
00:40:48.940uh you know different events that we're hosting or different campaigns that we're running and and
00:40:53.160everything that's going on in alberta politics whether that be economic issues or
00:40:56.780municipal issues or leadership races and and and more well peter i appreciate that so much um and
00:41:04.060i'm i'm so sorry it's been so long since you've been on the show and we'll have you back on again