Nenshi draws fire for not taking questions at his small town hall

Nenshi is under fire for not permitting questions from the audience at his town halls, which are significantly smaller than Premier Danielle Smith’s ongoing provincewide tour.

Source: Facebook

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi is under fire for not permitting questions from the audience at his town halls, which are significantly smaller than Premier Danielle Smith’s ongoing provincewide tour.

In a post to X on Thursday by NDP Lie Detector, Nenshi called the practice of not taking questions an “opportunity” to mingle with other residents.

“Rather than give people the opportunity to hold the mic and give us a monologue, we’re giving you the opportunity to talk to your friends and neighbours, and the friends you haven’t met yet in the room,” said Nenshi, alluding to the fact that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s town halls operated in a lesser fashion.

The Alberta Next Panel held two town halls in July, three in August, and will have another five in September, hosted by Smith and various other panelists.

Nenshi was getting blasted in the comments.

“You know that saying, ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat?’ Not going to be used in this instance,” said one user, mocking Nenshi’s small crowd size.

Another user said: “Most Calgarians were so ecstatic to finally rid themselves of this bloated blowhard, but here we are again…having to listen to this condescending, arrogant, lefty, woke, wing-nut! He’s like a bad fungus that just won’t go away!”

Founder and President of the Alberta Institute—a public policy think tank—Peter McCaffrey also ridiculed Nenshi on X, making way for a series of new negative replies.

One user noted that it was a big attendance for Nenshi, noting the 25 attendees.

Another called Nenshi an “NDP coward just like his boss Jagmeet Singh.”

While Smith’s town halls have had close to 1,000 attendees live at each, with thousands more online, even the Alberta Prosperity Project town halls have outperformed Nenshi’s — with Edmonton’s town hall from the sovereignty group seeing around 300 attendees and over 600 viewing the event live.