On this episode of the podcast, I sit down with my good friend and former colleague, Shannon Phillips, to talk about who she thinks is going to be the next leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. We discuss who would be a good fit for the party, who would make a good candidate, and who would not.
00:00:00.000Make a wild predict, two things. One, who would be the best dream leader for the NDP from an electoral perspective? And then two, who do you think is going to be, and I know that's wild and you're going to be wrong, because it's a wild guess to make.
00:00:16.220Yeah. I guess I'll start by pushing back a little bit on the way you've categorized them. So full disclosure, I worked for Shannon Phillips, not directly, but in the government of Alberta in her climate change office. I don't think she's on the left flank.
00:00:34.360Well, no, she's not the furthest left.
00:00:35.480She was the finance critic. She's actually been quite, I think, eloquent and effective at talking about the oil and gas industry, at talking about things in a way that are frankly more liberal federally than New Democrats.
00:00:50.340So I kind of put Shannon in the middle. I'm not sure she wants it, but I think having someone outside of Edmonton would be a great idea.
00:00:59.900You know, Nenshi is sort of like the wet dream that progressives in Calgary have and have had for a long time.
00:01:09.040You know, if we could just get Nenshi running the party, it would be amazing. And I think he would be a good leader.
00:01:17.040I don't think the NDP would ever accept him. He would be rejected by that party the same way if you just tried to put a different species' organ inside a human being.
00:01:29.240The body would not take to it. New Democrats are, for better or worse, I think very loyal and very attentive to loyalty.
00:01:39.020And so if they do not believe that you have been in the party long enough, if you've not paid your dues, if you have not served, they are not particularly interested in serving you.
00:01:49.600So I think that's one of the problems with the Nenshi name.
00:01:52.700I also think he's perfect for municipal politics because he can kind of go back and forth. He's not ideologically hemmed in on any one issue.
00:02:01.320I'm not sure that he would like provincial politics as much as he likes municipal politics, but...
00:02:06.880I'm also not sure he would be good in more of the team-based politics of a Westminster system where he has to, you know, as mayor, he speaks for himself.
00:02:17.560And he can try to corral council around, but I feel like he'd have a hard time with caucus management.
00:02:23.160A hundred percent. Yeah. I think he would be impatient in the same way that Pierre Trudeau was impatient with his caucus members.
00:02:32.160You know, I think it's the same vibe and I respect the vibe. I just not sure that it's the right fit right now.
00:02:37.520Now, Todd Hirsch. I mean, if he was going to run, he should have run this time.
00:02:40.980I love Todd. I think he's very, very smart. You know, his policies that he put out for the NDs around the economy, I thought were really...
00:02:48.640I mean, they're what we need. We need to have a conversation about how we get off this roller coaster of being sort of wedded to resource royalties
00:02:55.340where we, you know, we go from being rich to being broke, to being rich to being broke.
00:02:59.540And I think it would be great if Danielle Smith took a look at some of those and maybe incorporated those into her approach to managing the economy.
00:03:07.240But if he was not willing to stand behind those ideas in this campaign, I'm not sure why he would be willing to run for the leadership.
00:03:17.420A little bit in the sense that, like, he's the one that gets economists really excited.
00:03:21.300But when it comes to the sort of rank and file, it's just not there.
00:03:24.840You know, I mean, yeah, I think, again, love Mark Carney.
00:03:29.140I think as a leader of the Liberal Party, he'd be a disaster.
00:03:32.380And I think it would be the same thing with any economist.
00:03:35.500I'm not sure that they have the ability to talk to people and meet people where they are in the way that you need to, to be an effective politician.
00:03:44.400I think Rocky Pancholi, so she's not, I would not put her on the left.
00:04:31.460I think they might want to gravitate towards someone like Sarah Hoffman or David Shepard, who is the MLA for Edmonton Center.
00:04:40.380And I have lots of respect for those people.
00:04:43.000I think that would be kind of disastrous.
00:04:45.020Any leader that comes within, you know, who comes from a riding that is within walking distance from Edmonton Strathcona is going to get hammered down here.
00:04:54.700There is just a dispositional difference that I think Notley was able to partially bridge because she became premier and had that sort of sheen of authority and credibility.
00:05:06.680But if you're sort of a new leader from an urban Edmonton riding, I don't know how you do it.
00:05:12.420I don't know how you connect with people down here.