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Whereas talking at an NDP city corridor on Saturday morning, Alberta NDP chief Naheed Nenshi didn’t draw back from criticizing the provincial authorities over its resolution to drag funding from the Metropolis’s Inexperienced Line mission final month.
Round 1,000 individuals gathered contained in the College of Calgary’s MacEwan Pupil Centre for the city corridor, with extra tuning in on-line to listen to the provincial opposition chief talk about points affecting Albertans.
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A significant focus of the occasion chief’s speech was the province’s dealing with of the Inexperienced Line, dubbed the “Nenshi Nightmare” by UCP management.
Nenshi was a significant proponent of the Inexperienced Line LRT mission throughout his 11-year tenure as mayor of Calgary from 2010 to 2021, and lately raised suspicions that the provincial authorities pulled out of the mission simply to make him look dangerous, successfully losing billions of {dollars}, he mentioned.
“They lit 2.1-billion {dollars} on hearth.”
Nenshi appears to be leaning into the nickname, making a number of plugs all through his tackle for members to purchase mugs and T-Shirts brandished with the “Nenshi Nightmare” slogan — a cheeky fundraising tactic for the occasion.
Nenshi mentioned the province’s resolution to drag funding for the mission was “essentially the most shameless act” he had ever seen from a authorities, and made it clear he nonetheless believes within the mission.
“That’s one thing that we have to construct,” he mentioned.
All through his speech and a follow-up Q-and-A, the provincial opposition chief continued to take photographs at Smith’s UCP authorities whereas outlining his stance on points resembling affordability, schooling and well being care.
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Talking in regards to the province’s dedication to schooling spending, Nenshi known as Smith a “pinball Premier,” who “goes from disaster to disaster, careening wildly, patching up holes within the wall after the water has already are available in.”
The provincial opposition chief gave credit score to Smith for the current announcement that the province would make investments $8.6 billion in schooling over the following three years, however raised issues about whether or not the Premier is aware of how the cash will probably be spent. He additionally criticized Smith for creating large inflation within the development business with the announcement.
Different points addressed throughout the city corridor have been hospital wait instances, overcrowded lecture rooms and proposed laws affecting transgender youth within the province, which lately got here again into the highlight after first being introduced in January.
The proposed laws touches on a number of issues affecting transgender youth within the province, resembling outlining the usage of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the aim of gender reassignment, and notifying dad and mom about modifications to their youngster’s most popular private pronouns.
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Nenshi mentioned the laws will doubtless result in extra hurt amongst weak youth, citing a current research that confirmed the danger of self-harm and suicide amongst transgender youth elevated by greater than 70 per cent in jurisdictions the place legal guidelines much like Smith’s proposed laws got here into impact.
“Danielle Smith, beneath the guise of fogeys’ rights, is taking away the rights of fogeys and medical doctors to decide on the very best medical care for his or her youngsters,” Nenshi mentioned.
“There are very actual penalties to Danielle Smith’s political video games.”
Nenshi received the provincial NDP management election June 22 with an awesome majority of assist from occasion members. The Alberta NDP mentioned on the time this was essentially the most particular person votes solid for a management candidate in any provincial occasion management race in Canadian historical past.
The Alberta NDP at the moment has greater than 85,000 registered members, Nenshi mentioned, including he believed the quantity to be highest for any provincial political occasion in Canada.
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