St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud announced last Thursday that she will support Edmonton — Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi in the NDP leadership race. Renaud will also act as one of Pancholi’s campaign chairs, helping Pancholi vie for the top spot in a party that grew substantially during Rachel Notley’s leadership and now seeks a post-Notley identity.
Last Friday, Renaud told an audience gathered at the St. Albert Rotary Club that she “lives in the centre” politically.
“When I chose the person that I want to support for leadership, I chose someone that I know what her politics are,” she said. “I know that she also lives in the center.”
Renaud said she will be “forever grateful” for Notley’s leadership, “but now it’s time to grow and become something a little bit different.”
"I have a lot of affection for everybody in my caucus," Renaud told the Gazette. “So it was a really difficult decision ... I've seen firsthand how [Pancholi] operates, how she works, how she thinks, her position on legislation, and it's always the same. It's always very positive. It's always focused on the future. It's bright, and it's different."
Renaud described Pancholi, who was elected as an MLA in 2019, as "hard working" and said Pancholi has many "forward-thinking" ideas, but she could not yet provide any details on what her candidate’s platform will look like.
However, Pancholi has signalled that she is willing to ditch the consumer carbon tax, a position that puts her at odds with the NDP of 2015, which first introduced carbon pricing in the province.
Chairing a campaign is a first for Renaud, but she’s already started selling party memberships and introducing Albertans to Pancholi.
“It's a lot less work than I thought it would be,” she said.
A Rotary Club member asked Renaud how she felt about former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi entering the leadership race.
“If he feels like he can lead this caucus and has a vision for this province that can win, then I'm absolutely willing to listen,” she said. “He's not my preferred candidate.”
The race is a chance to “breathe new life” into the party, she said.
“This is going to force us to have really excellent policy debates. We don't all agree on every subject, but I think we can all agree on our basic values.”
Ganley makes St. Albert campaign stop
Currently three NDP MLAs have entered the party leadership race: Pancholi, Calgary — Mountain View MLA Kathleen Ganley and Edmonton — Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman.
Ganley, a former Justice Minister, announced her bid on Feb. 5 and made an early campaign stop at the St. Albert Curling Club last Wednesday.
“It's my belief that we [win] by talking more about our economic message,” Ganley said in an interview with the Gazette.
That means interrogating the use of the GDP as a measure of economic success and instead focusing on the economic health of Albertans, she said.
“People are a little bit skeptical about our ability to handle the economy,” she said. “I think they're wrong — but that's not a ‘them’ problem. It's an ‘us communicating it to them’ problem.”
Political commentators have noted that Ganley’s position as a Calgary MLA gives her an advantage because the NDP need Calgary’s full support to win a provincial election.
Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi may also enter the leadership race.
“I have nothing but respect for Naheed,” Ganley said. “The point has to be to grow the party, to bring in as many folks as possible. I think the fact that such strong people are putting their names forward is fantastic for the party.”
Environmental views
Both Pancholi and Hoffman have been critical of the federal carbon tax – although Hoffman is making Alberta’s climate change strategy a pillar of her campaign.
Ganley did not share her opinions on the tax with the Gazette, but she did discuss Ottawa’s carbon reduction plans.
“Should we set an ambitious target of 2035 [for net zero carbon emissions]?” she said. “Yes, I think we should. Will we necessarily hit exactly 2035? Maybe not … But we need to send the signals to the market now.”
Choosing only renewables, or only oil and gas, is “never going to work,” she said.
She believes Alberta must move fast on carbon capture and storage technologies and that the province could be better supported by the federal government on this mission.
The federal government announced last year that it would introduce a tax credit of up to 37.5 to 60 per cent for investment carbon capture, usage and storage technology.
In 2022, over 400 researchers from universities across Canada wrote to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, calling the credit “a fossil fuel subsidy” and warning that carbon capture technologies “divert resources” from “proven” and “more cost-effective solutions.”
2023 research from University of Calgary professors Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter suggests that indirect taxes, including carbon pricing, raised overall consumer prices by only 0.6 per cent between January 2015 and October 2023.
The NDP leadership race ends June 22.
