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Rob Breakenridge: Alberta NDP needs to distance itself from strident new federal party leader

If the NDP were smart, they could kill two birds with one stone — a rebranding effort coupled with a unite-the-left push

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It was interesting timing for the Alberta NDP to unveil a new pragmatic energy plan just as their federal cousins decided to take a major leap in a very different direction.

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On Friday, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi posted a video outlining what they’re calling “Building Alberta’s Energy Future.” This includes support for a new West Coast pipeline and support for increased natural gas export capacity.

The very next day, the federal NDP crowned Avi Lewis, one of the architects of the Leap Manifesto — which, among other things, stringently opposes any new fossil fuel infrastructure — as its new leader.

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It was enough of a headache for the Alberta NDP a decade ago when their federal counterparts flirted with the Leap Manifesto. Now, there is no daylight — the federal NDP and the Leap Manifesto are one.

This should be a wake-up call for the Alberta New Democrats — it’s time for a serious and permanent break.

In fairness, it was Rachel Notley leading the charge against Avi Lewis and Leap Manifesto radicalism, but her pleas largely fell on deaf ears.

In fact, Lewis appears to still view Alberta’s NDP with a fair amount of disdain, as evidenced by the recently emerged video of Lewis and his wife Naomi Klein laughing at the fact that former NDP MLA Shannon Phillips was no longer a cabinet minister. Pragmatic and electable centre-left politics have no place in this ideologically rigid cult.

Notley’s position has carried over to her successor. Nenshi recently made it clear that his party “will have nothing to do with the Leap Manifesto cliff jumpers.”

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The long-standing problem for the Alberta NDP is that Canada’s New Democratic Party is unique in treating the federal party and all provincial parties as a single entity. That albatross has long been there, but is now even heavier.

Under Nenshi, the Alberta NDP has taken some steps to create distance from its federal counterparts. Last year, the party passed a resolution allowing members to opt out of joining the federal party — an opportunity Nenshi says he has taken advantage of.

Still, deep ties remain — including a shared brand. That brand is about to undergo an extremely rough ride, especially out west. The NDP in B.C. are on shaky political ground, and the NDP in both Alberta and Saskatchewan seem stuck in a perpetual polling deficit against their respective ruling conservative opponents. And that was before Lewis’ ascent.

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A major difference between Nenshi and his predecessor is the attachment to the NDP name and brand. Notley obviously had deep roots within the party and remained stubbornly attached to both. That’s not the case with Nenshi, and yet he still easily won the NDP leadership race.

Even as a candidate in that race, Nenshi suggested “the membership has to have a very serious conversation about its links with the federal NDP.”

While a rebrand might seem politically convenient the year before a provincial election, the sharp lurch to the left by the federal party — and, from Alberta’s perspective, the embrace of a hostile ideology — is a fair excuse to begin and expedite that process.

While there have been some more recent rumblings of discontent within the Alberta NDP when it comes to Nenshi’s leadership, the current direction of the federal NDP may be too much for any provincial leader to overcome.

Given the polling bump Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals have enjoyed recently in Alberta, this could even be an opportunity for the Alberta Liberals to pull themselves off political life support and find some relevance at the NDP’s expense.

If the NDP were smart, they could kill two birds with one stone — a rebranding effort coupled with a unite-the-left push.

Alberta Liberal Democrats, anyone? Surely that’s preferable to being dragged into a vortex of far-left irrelevance.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com.

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