Days after the premier's Alberta Next Panel was in town, provincial opposition leader Naheed Nenshi brought his – dubbed “Better Together” – to the city.

About 200 people attended the Sept. 23.event, where participants were asked to vote on the top three topics they wanted to discuss. 

“The most interesting thing has been that when we started these, they were a response to separatism … but over the course of the summer and fall, what we've really learned is that Albertans have a much deeper issue that they want to talk about, and it really is about how politics today is so divisive and angry, pitting neighbour against neighbour,” Nenshi told the News in a one-on-one interview.

Health care, education, and the economy were Grande Prairie’s top three topics, with some time allocated to discuss separatism.

“I was never a partisan politician before. I joined a political party 18 months ago, and in my 15 years in public life, I have always said to my civil servants and fellow councillors, 'there's just one rule: put the citizen at the centre’,” said Nenshi.

“Always think about the impact that you're having on a human being and on their ability to lead a good life, and it seems that is a rule that this government has never known.”

The NDP leader mentioned previous Conservative leaders, noting Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed were aware of the impacts of their decisions. 

“Lougheed in 1971 set audacious goals,” said Nenshi, noting it was a time when Alberta was aiming at having the best health care researchers and education system in the world.

“I think we can set audacious goals that put people at the centre and try and help people live better lives, simple as that.” 

After voting for the discussion topics, town hall attendees were encouraged to create small groups to discuss. 

NDP MLAs and Nenshi walked around the room, entering some of the conversations; after a few minutes, some people were selected to share their stories. Nenshi took notes as he listened, and then addressed the comments before moving on to the next topic.

Health care

Lack of family doctors, access to vaccines, and the restructuring of the health care system under the current government were concerns expressed by attendees. 

Nenshi said the province has transitioned from having one health care agency to nine, and believes there will be more in the future under the current government. 

“The system is costing far more than it ever did before,” he said, “I’m yet to find an Albertan, who said the system is better now than it was six years ago.”

Nenshi said he asked Calgary–Varsity MLA Luanne Metz to step back from the role of health critic to develop a model of what health care should look like in the province. 

“She's out there talking to frontline workers, physicians, nurses, experts, academics to really talk about how we can improve.” 

Education

Criticism of the current education landscape included per student capita funding, classroom sizes and teachers' conditions. 

A local French immersion teacher said she has seen an increasing number of teachers quit the profession due to burnout. 

“The reason people are leaving is because the work conditions are so awful,” said Nenshi.

“It's time to put some real money into building classrooms, into teachers, into education assistants, and go back to Peter Lougheed’s vision. 

“We can have the best public education program in the world; we can give that opportunity to every kid.”

Nenshi said the current provincial government does not care about education, making offers to provide teacher raises or hiring more teachers, but not both. 

“These are choices this government made; they chose to give themselves a raise instead of funding classrooms, they chose to spend $100 million on Turkish Tylenol instead of funding classrooms; these are their choices.”

Nenshi said having the lowest education funding in the country is just another example of how the province is “no good with money.”

Economy

Nenshi said people believe the NDP is better on healthcare, education, and social services, but there is a pervading concern about how the party would handle the economy. 

The participants at the town hall raised the same criticism. 

“This particular brand of Conservatives are also lousy with money,” said Nenshi, noting current unemployment levels, higher government spending and less services. 

He said that during his time as Calgary mayor, the city had the lowest property taxes of any city in the country. He said he is working with some of the same people to achieve similar results in the province. 

Nenshi says unemployment rates are high due to political instability in the province: No one is investing in the province while there is a threat of separatism, due to a fear of not knowing what country they are investing in.

“For a long time, the Conservative movement in Alberta was self-correcting; they swing too far right and they swing back, they'd become fiscally wasteful and they'd swing back, this version of the Conservative movement, the UCP, does not have the ability to do that.”

Separatism

Participants at the town hall were largely supporters of Alberta remaining in Canada.

“I was born a Canadian, I’ve lived my entire life as a Canadian, and I intend to die a Canadian,” said a member of the audience. 

Nenshi said the Alberta Next Panel assumes that Alberta is not getting its value back in what it pays as a member of Confederation, but be says the panel does not address crucial points including indigenous land rights, and who will pay for the armed forces. 

He believes that the premier is only entertaining the idea of separatism to further her political future. 

“What's really frustrating about these Alberta Next separatist panels is that she pretends to not have an opinion, and she smiles and nods, even when people say the most shocking anti-immigrant things … she's trying to play all ends here,” said Nenshi.

“A few weeks from now, she will say, ‘there's a lot of separatists here in Alberta, and I'm the only one who can save Canada,

and the only way to save Canada is to give me everything I want.’

“The script is obvious and has never worked anywhere, so like always, the premier is more interested in scoring ideological points than in making a good deal.”