Naheed Nenshi is all smiles. He should be smiling.

Winners smile. The Alberta NDP Nenshi leads won on Monday night.

Bell: Smith UCP — it's wakey-wakey time from those Calgary byelection blues Back to video

You can call Nenshi all the names you can dream up and slam the NDP as a horror show as often as you like but no-one can erase the numbers on the scoreboard.

“This is an earthquake,” says Nenshi, of his party’s victory in the riding known as Calgary-Shaw and seen as conservative country.

And it is Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP who are under the rubble.

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UCP supporters will find a hundred and one reasons to try to explain why the UCP didn’t really lose.

The turnout was low. People stayed at home. It’s only a byelection.

Of course, if they’d won there would be a press release crowing about the victory. “Another vote of confidence from Albertans,” it would read.

It wouldn’t read: “We won but it’s only a byelection.”

We are told if the voters of a small party led by a former UCP politician, now a vocal critic of Smith, had voted for the UCP candidate, then the UCP would have won.

On social media, there are some stupid voices sliming new Canadians. What the hell.

How hard it is to........

© Calgary Herald