Post-election Q&A with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi

The Liberals won enough seats Monday to form another government, but this time without any Calgary representation in their caucus.

So what does the election result mean for the city and the oilpatch? Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi sat down with Calgary Eyeopener guest host Rob Brown for that conversation. 

The transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What do you think of this result?

A: The No. 1 issue I think on everyone's mind is, does a Liberal minority mean the end of the Trans Mountain pipeline? I don't think so, because of course the Conservatives are there, and the Liberals and the Conservatives are both in favour of that expansion. I think as long as it makes it through the courts, we should be all right.

Q: With the exception of that one seat, Edmonton Strathcona in Alberta, this province is now blue. We have an openly anti-Trudeau premier who's been campaigning for the Conservatives. A lot of Albertans already felt alienated from the federation. How do you think the prime minister can prevent the hardening of that sentiment?

A: Well, I think it is on him. I think that's true. But it also is a question of whether others will want to play along, whether western leaders are willing to say, "OK, these are the election results. This is the prime minister. Let's figure out what we can do together, despite the fact that we disagree on a lot of things" — or if we want to be in a state of permanent war. I prefer the former to the latter, but it's a question of where we go from here.

I certainly would say that the prime minister's speech last night didn't inspire me with a lot of confidence — two sentences on Alberta and Saskatchewan that seemed to have been inserted.

The question is, now where's the prime minister going to find advice from Alberta and Saskatchewan? Where's he going to find a cabinet minister to look after the needs of those provinces? These are not easy questions, and I would have liked to have heard him address them, not in that much detail but at least a little bit more, in his speech yesterday.

Q: Where do you think he can find that advice?

A: That's one thing that this prime minister has been good about, is whether they do anything with what they hear, they are willing to listen. And I think that's a role I'm going to have to play, that other mayors are going to have to play. 

It's really important that those Alberta voices get heard in the centre. And maybe there'll be a grand alliance between Premier [Jason] Kenney and the prime minister to get stuff done. But in these political times, I'm not sure that that will happen.

Q: The premier was out there campaigning for the Conservatives. He's been probably the biggest critic of [Justin] Trudeau within the federation in terms of premiers. Did he make a mistake in taking sides that blatantly?

A: The premier is a brilliant political strategist. He has his own views. Look, [Peter] Lougheed, as much as he fought with prime minister [Pierre Elliot] Trudeau, also helped get the Constitution in place. So there are always opportunities to build bridges.

Q: A lot of Canadians were turned off by the nasty tone of this campaign. You've touched on that. Do you think this is the new normal in our politics?

A: Look, I have to be endlessly optimistic, otherwise I couldn't go to work every day. The other thing is, politically, what we're seeing is not working.

There's been this strategy over the last 15 or 20 years to atomize the election, to cut it up into little pieces and to elevate your base. The Conservatives, for example, they did that. They won the popular vote, but they couldn't get from 33 per cent to the 40 per cent or so they needed in order to win a majority government. Liberals actually did pretty much the same thing.

So I'm hoping that the parties will see these results as a signal that this atomization and divisive policy actually is not only bad for the country; it's actually not good for your political fortunes, either.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.