NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi talks referendum, pipeline in visit to the Hat

Posted on August 20, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Zoe Mason
Southern Alberta Newspapers

In a Medicine Hat College lecture hall, NDP staffers recently handed out lawn signs bearing the slogan, “SEPARATION IS NOT THE SOLUTION” to the few dozen supporters who filled the room to hear opposition leader Naheed Nenshi speak.

His primary message to the gathered crowd was about the upcoming referendum.

“Look, the separatists may not be large in numbers, but they’re very motivated,” said Nenshi in an exclusive interview with the Southern Alberta Newspapers after the event.

“If 20 per cent of the population are separatists and every one of them votes, but we only have 30 per cent voter turnout, things will look very different.”

Nenshi’s appearance in Medicine Hat was part of the NDP’s campaign ahead of the October referendum. He says the nature of the referendum necessitates a different approach to the campaign trail than a general election.

“The critical thing to remember here is this is a different kind of election. It’s not first past the post in every riding. Every single vote counts the same. So whether you live in downtown Calgary or Edmonton-Strathcona or Cypress Hills, your vote still counts the same.”

His message to voters writ large is to participate. He’s preaching to a frequently reluctant crowd in Medicine Hat, where only 37 per cent of eligible voters turned out for last fall’s municipal election.

His message to those sympathetic with his stance – that Alberta remain in Canada, a stance Premier Danielle Smith also publicly espouses – is to vote yes to Canada, and no to the rest.

The other nine questions on the referendum ballot, five on immigration and four on constitutional reforms, have received far less attention than the question on separation, but Nenshi cautions against an apathetic approach.

“They aren’t about what they appear to be about. They’re just about what I call slow-motion separation. They are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional and can never happen,” he said.

“But that is the goal of the premier and the UCP. They want the courts to say no, they want Ottawa to say no, because then they can say, “Well, look, Canada doesn’t work.’”

Nenshi’s arrival in Medicine Hat follows a string of marquee announcements from the UCP, including two new pipelines and multiple hyper-scale data centres. To some, they are evidence of a government that is delivering on promises to revitalize the oil and gas sector and bring new investment to Alberta.

Nenshi welcomed the west coast pipeline when it was announced. But he qualified his previous public statements endorsing the taxpayer-funded approach in conversation with Southern Alberta Newspapers.

“I’m not opposed to it, period. But we need to see the business case. We need to understand what the total investment is.”

He worries the lack of a private proponent is indicative of a lack of commercial viability.

“A lot of folks are saying there’s no private proponents because the regulatory burden is too high. But when you have the prime minister essentially saying this is going to be built, that really doesn’t hold much water,” he said.

The NDP’s energy platform calls for a balance between oil and gas expansion, renewables and emissions abatement. Nenshi describes the strategy as aiming to future-proof the oil and gas sector.

Preliminary estimates from clean energy think tank, the Pembina Institute, suggest that the present bargain, which sees a scaled-back Pathways carbon capture project accompany the new pipeline to the Pacific, will hardly keep up with the increased emissions new production would generate.

“These oil companies, through no work of their own, have had tens of billions of dollars in windfall because of Trump’s war in Iran. Why not spend some of that on future-proofing your industry? I would say to the oil companies, don’t move the goalposts on this.”

He demurred on whether that entailed a return to the original Pathways benchmarks, which proposed a carbon capture target nearly double the megatonnage retained by the current proposal.

As for the other notable investment, the data centres, Nenshi says he is in favour of economic development that creates jobs. But he isn’t convinced the present approach to data centres is doing enough to sweeten the deal for Albertans.

After construction is complete, data centres produce few jobs in the communities where they land.

“Fifty to 100 jobs doesn’t do it for me, for the massive land use and environmental impact. We’ve got to leverage these things.”

When Rogers acquired Shaw, Nenshi says Rogers agreed to relocate a number of high-skill jobs to Calgary, an agreement he says never came to fruition. But that’s the kind of negotiating he says could make data centres worthwhile for the communities that are buying in.

Nenshi walks a fine line between endorsing the premier’s more popular successes and criticizing them. He’s quick to point out the unanswered questions. That is the principal failing in these announcements, he says: a seeming willingness to celebrate before the dust has settled.

“When I started this job, I was shocked to learn, after 11 years in Calgary, where we were bound by our economic development strategy, that Alberta has no economic development strategy,” he said.

“It’s very ad hoc. We’ll go after pipelines this week, we’ll go after data centres next week. But there’s no integrated strategy for training, for workforce management, for investing in the kinds of industries that create real jobs.”

While Nenshi addressed Smith’s riding, Smith was in Charlottetown at the meeting of the premiers’ council. Outside the meeting, dozens of health advocates rallied against Bill 11, which will introduce a parallel private-pay pathway to surgical care.

Critics say it violates federal law, Nenshi shares their stance.

“The Canada Health Act has five core principles. I believe that Bill 11 on its face violates four out of the five,” he said.

Nenshi would like to see the federal government play a more active role in the discourse around the legislation. So far, Ottawa has stayed silent on whether Alberta’s approach contravenes the act.

Nenshi attributes their abstention to a reluctance to intervene in Alberta affairs at risk of stoking separatist sentiment.

“Way more people in Alberta support public health care than support separatism or support Danielle Smith. If the federal government comes out strongly in favour of public health care, I think that’s actually something working against the separatists.”