Local crowd cheers NDP’s unity message

By Lethbridge Herald on August 20, 2025.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

Can Albertans work “better together” as part of Canada?

A huge audience in the community room of Casa on Monday apparently felt so.

A standing room only crowd turned out for the first Better Together town hall being hosted by the Alberta NDP in communities across the province.

They heard party leader Naheed Nenshi, as well as Lethbridge West MLA Rob Miyashiro and Calgary-Mountainview MLA Kathleen Ganley discuss numerous topics relating to the value of Alberta remaining part of  Canada.

After speeches by all three, audience members were encouraged to have a dialogue among themselves about their hopes, dreams and what it means to be a Canadian and at various stations set up around the room.

In his opening remarks, Nenshi told the audience that through the community gatherings, the NDP is trying to show the concept of how the province is better as part of Canada.

He said political discourse in Alberta has become about division, anger and pitting neighbour against neighbour in the pursuit of short-term political gain.

“But to me, that’s not Alberta, that’s not who we are, that’s not who  we’ve ever been.”

Nenshi also talked about his family immigrating  to Canada in 1971, when his mother was pregnant with him. His family moved from Toronto to Calgary shortly after, driving across the country in a Dodge Dart with all their belongings.

The years that followed were years of struggle and sacrifice as well as service, but because of universal health care, the family didn’t have to worry if someone were to fall ill. 

Public health care was among the topics discussed at the gathering, along with anti-immigration sentiments of some in the province, pensions and public safety.

The audience heard about the potential economic cost of separation, with Nenshi pointing out that 368 companies left Quebec during talk of separatism in previous decades. A slide presentation stated that the risk of separation means investment drops with instability.

“What we have now is politics like I’ve never seen before,” said Nenshi, adding the UCP is breaking up the greatest nation in the world for its own political gain.

He said UCP town halls that are currently underway are giving the excuse “for division, for anger, for hatred between us and our neighbours,” he said.

He noted that a premier who last year wanted 10 million people in Alberta “is now saying we have the wrong kind of immigrants. That’s not a dog whistle, that’s a whistle every one of us can hear and that’s a dangerous game.”

Separation could also drive away students, researchers and talent because world-class universities power the provincial economy, the audience heard.

“We’re really worried because who’s going to come to a university in a country that doesn’t want to be part of Canada?” Asked Nenshi.

He spoke about the risk of separation also affecting trade, with uncertainly weakening Alberta’s position as a reliable, stable trading partner. And separation would require Alberta to re-negotiate trade partnerships not only around the world but within Canada itself.

“Nobody is going to invest a dollar in Alberta when they don’t know  what country they’re investing in,” said Nenshi. “Who’s going to build a pipeline when they don’t know if the pipeline has to cross a foreign border? Nobody.

“Let’s be clear about one thing, which is: Premier Smith is pushing  the separatist agenda. She’s pretending she isn’t. She is going to say ‘I am not at a separatist’ at some point. She’s  going to say ‘I believe in a sovereign Alberta in a united Canada,’ words which are meaningless, and she’s going to say ‘what I’ve heard in these town halls is that everybody wants to leave Canada and the only  way I can save Canada by doing this stuff, getting us out of the CPP, getting us out of the RCMP.”

Ganley noted that the Canada Pension Plan belongs to Albertans and  that an Alberta-only plan would be smaller, riskier and costly.

“Your pension belongs to you, that’s money you’ve earned,” said Ganley.

On the subject of health care, the audience heard that Canada Health  Act protections would vanish with vulnerable and rural Albertans being  hit hardest. And it would gut  the province of doctors and other  health care workers who want to remain Canadian.

Ganley noted that one million Albertans don’t have a family physician, which puts enormous strain on the acute care system. If the province were to leave Canada, “we potentially have doctors leaving the province because they want to be Canadians and they have the ability to move somewhere where they can continue to be Canadians. And that just makes our problem worse.”

And there would be no guarantee of a public health care system in a separate Alberta, meaning more costs for residents and the inability to access care.

Separation would also impact legal protections, with no federal laws being guaranteed while Alberta would have to rebuild its own laws from  scratch. The audience heard that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms may not apply if Alberta separates.

“If Alberta leaves, first of all there’s a massive administration cost of rewriting all of those laws that are currently governed by federal law,” said Ganley. “But secondly, in the interim, what are we left with? We don’t know what our legal protections are, we don’t know what our legal obligations are. That’s not how you build a good society.”

Public safety would also be impacted with replacing the RCMP having a cost estimated at $1.3 billion, and there would be no guarantee of better safety, the audience heard. Federal support for public safety would vanish, putting rural communities at risk.

Separation would also impact Indigenous rights due to treaties being signed with the Crown, not Alberta.

“We actually don’t even know if we can necessarily do this,” said Ganley. “Indigenous rights, the treaties were signed with the federal Crown, so it’s not even clear that Alberta has the unilateral right to take land that was ceded under treaty to the government of Canada.

“This could result in legal battles and mass uncertainty,”
she  added.

Travel outside Alberta’s borders would also be affected because Albertans wouldn’t have the automatic right to visit other provinces, Ganley said.