Alberta NDP votes to allow opting out of federal party membership

EDMONTON — Alberta’s New Democratic Party has voted overwhelmingly to cut traditional membership ties with its federal counterpart.

Delegates in Edmonton voted Saturday to allow provincial members to opt out of joining the federal NDP, a move Leader Naheed Nenshi campaigned on last year.

In adopting the measure, the party is shedding what many considered a political albatross.

Nenshi told reporters the party’s longtime practice of automatically signing up members to the federal party was a sticking point that scared some potential voters and members away.

The change, he said, will allow his NDP to build a bigger tent.

“It’s a great movement for the very, very many thousands and thousands of Albertans who really like what the Alberta NDP have to say, but don’t necessarily agree with the federal party — and this now gives them that choice,” he said.

“We will welcome those people into our movement. While you’ll still have the option of joining the federal New Democrats, if you join the provincial New Democrats, you don’t have to,” he said.

Nenshi said his NDP is financially independent and dictates its own policy, but party candidates spoke out, saying they needed a better answer when voters at the door tied them to the federal party’s positions during the 2023 provincial election.

The membership practice has long been a target for the governing United Conservatives, who say Nenshi’s party answers to political masters in Ottawa that don’t support Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

Premier Danielle Smith, speaking in the legislature Thursday, said the weekend vote suggested Nenshi’s party wants to distance itself from a “damaged brand” after the federal NDP lost 17 seats and its official party status in Monday’s election.

Nenshi, like some members who spoke up Saturday, remains skeptical the policy change will shield the Alberta NDP from what they called disingenuous attacks.

“The premier treats Albertans with contempt. She takes us all for fools. She thinks that we’ll fall for the most obvious lies, and I believe that Albertans are so much smarter than that,” he said.

Saturday’s vote required more than two-thirds approval from delegates, and in a show of hands, some two or three dozen delegates in a crowd of more than 1,000 stood firmly against the move.

Some warned that allowing those who don’t share New Democrat values into the fold spells trouble, and that it could divide the political movement across the country.

Nenshi disagreed, saying the decision is ultimately unifying.

“It’s saying to everyone, ‘look, you’re welcome here’.”

In his first leadership review, Nenshi received 89.5 per cent support, a bump up from the 86 per cent he secured in the first ballot of the party’s leadership contest to replace Rachel Notley last June.

Saturday’s policy shift also represents a rejection of Notley’s allegiance to the federal brand. Last year, Notley called dissociating short-sighted and superficial.

But some of the loudest applause Saturday came when Nenshi got patriotic.

In a speech ahead of the vote, he asked the crowd of supporters whether Smith is a separatist, and the answer was a resounding yes.

Meanwhile on Saturday, hundreds of supporters who want the province to secede from Canada gathered at the Alberta legislature grounds, with some saying the fire was lit when the Liberals won a fourth consecutive federal term earlier this week.

It comes after Smith’s government introduced legislation early this week that would lower the threshold for citizens to call for a referendum on Alberta’s place in Canada, sparking a vocal tide of organizers pushing for a petition.

Premier Smith has said she supports a sovereign Alberta within a United Canada, and Albertans can petition for any ballot question they please.

A growing group of Indigenous leaders have warned talk of separatism risks violating treaties, and some have accused Smith of attempting to manufacture a national unity crisis by enabling a referendum, and fanatics.

Nenshi said Smith is dragging Alberta away from the rest of the country to feed their “extremist fringe agenda,” and addressed her directly.

“Stop pretending that it’s just a citizen-initiated process and you’re just standing around watching,” he said in a mocking tone during his convention speech.

“I will be damned if I, if we, ever let Danielle Smith tear (this) country down,” he said to a wave of cheers.

— With files from Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton.

This story from The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2025.

Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press