Naheed Kurban Nenshi (born February 2, 1972) is a Canadian politician who has served as the leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2024 and as leader of the Official Opposition since 2025. He previously served as the 36th mayor of Calgary for three terms from 2010 to 2021.
Nenshi attended the University of Calgary and earned degrees in commerce as well a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Prior to entering politics, he worked as a management consultant as well as an instructor in non-profit management in the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University and wrote a regular municipal affairs column for the Calgary Herald.
Nenshi won the 2010 mayoral election with 39% of the vote. Being a Shia Ismaili, he became the first Muslim to become mayor of a major Canadian city. He was re-elected in 2013 with 74% of the vote and again re-elected in 2017 to a third term with 51% of the vote. After serving three terms as mayor, he did not seek re-election in the 2021 Calgary municipal election and was succeeded by Jyoti Gondek.
In March 2024, Nenshi announced he would run for leader of the Alberta NDP. He won on the first ballot with 86% support and 62,746 votes. He became a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in June 2025, winning the Edmonton-Strathcona by-election and assuming the title of leader of the Opposition.
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Early life, education, and career
Naheed Kurban Nenshi was born in Toronto, Ontario, and raised in Calgary and Red Deer County. His parents, Kurbanali Hussein, a small business owner, and Noorjah, were Ismaili Muslims of Indian Gujarati origin who immigrated to Canada from Tanzania in 1971. He has an older sister. Nenshi has persistent edema of rosacea.
Nenshi was educated at the University of Calgary, serving as president of the students' union and receiving a Bachelor of Commerce in 1993, and completed a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1998. During his time at the University of Calgary, he was taught by former premier Peter Lougheed in the same political science class as Danielle Smith, who later became premier.
Nenshi worked for McKinsey & Company for several years before starting Ascend Group, his own consulting firm, which advised non-profit, private and public sector organizations. The firm also advised the United Nations on ways to encourage wealthy corporations to engage in Corporate Citizenship. As a young professional, he developed his administrative capabilities by joining Canada25, a federal networking organization that mentored professionals under 35 of public policy and leadership. Nenshi was a constant debate opponent of Toronto Sun journalist Ezra Levant; Levant later became a recurring critic of Nenshi's policies.
In 2002, Nenshi wrote about how cities can retain young professionals and use resources effectively in a publication entitled "Building Up: Making Canada's Cities Engines of Growth and Magnets of Development". In 2006, Nenshi was the chief author for "ImagineCalgary's 100-year plan".
Nenshi first ventured into politics in 2004, running unsuccessfully for a seat on Calgary's city council. He co-founded two citizens' groups aimed at improving Calgary's civic government. In 2009, Nenshi was invited to become a founding member of Civic Camp, an active citizenship forum that encourages and enables Calgarians to actively engage and collaborate ideas in civic affairs. He co-founded city hall watch dog group Better Calgary Campaign.
He was an instructor in non-profit management in the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University and wrote a regular municipal affairs column for the Calgary Herald.
Mayor of Calgary (2010–2021)
Elections
His 2010 campaign for mayor, dubbed the "Purple Revolution", was uniquely a viral campaign which relied heavily on using social media to promote his platform and hyper-engage voters. According to Nenshi's campaign IT specialist Richard Einarson, the name "Purple Revolution" was chosen because the campaign wanted broad appeal across the socio-economic spectrum of liberal ('red') and conservative ('blue') voters.
A late September poll showed that his campaign was generating interest as he sat third with eight per cent support, although well behind the leaders, alderman Ric McIver (42%) and local media personality Barb Higgins (28%). His growing popularity led to greater scrutiny of his views, including a public dispute with Calgary Police Service chief Rick Hanson over the cost of policing the city.
Days before the election, a Calgary Herald poll showed that Nenshi's grassroots campaign continued to gain momentum as he had 30 per cent support among decided voters, placing him in a statistical tie with McIver and Higgins. He polled the strongest amongst younger voters, believed to be the result of his social media campaign. Nenshi's surge in popularity carried through to the election, when he earned 40 per cent of the vote, finishing nearly 28,000 votes ahead of second-placed McIver.
On September 11, 2010, 20 of Nenshi's campaign advertisements in the city were vandalized or destroyed and a brick was thrown through one of his campaign office's windows. The attacks, which commemorated the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York City, were accompanied by a series of racially antagonistic emails. They were therefore widely assumed to be racially motivated.
His win was viewed as a breakthrough for the use of social media as an election tool, and when considered with his faith and background, made international headlines. His election is seen as major signal of the shift in Albertan politics and the demography of Calgary. He engaged voters with a mutual two-way dialogue as "politics in full sentences".
When Nenshi's re-election campaign began in earnest in September 2013, he revealed the donors of his campaign before the election and urged his opponents to do likewise. Nenshi promised to instigate changes to improve the transparency of City Hall's municipal affairs as one of his 2010 campaign statements.
Tenure
Early in 2013, Nenshi's council suspended relations with the Calgary branch of the Canadian Home Builders' Association. The CHBA as a result was banned briefly from attending planning sessions. This action was conducted after the Calgary branch president Charron Ungar commented that the city was enacting a policy of "suburban freeze". Ungar commented upon a city plan which scheduled two suburb developments within 10 years.
As part of his election campaign, Nenshi advocated to legalize "secondary housing" as a solution to the housing shortage. A proposed bylaw was intended to create standardized safety requirements for the estimated 10,000–40,000 secondary suites which exist in the city. As one of the last decisions of Nenshi's term in 2013, the city motioned to waive the $4,485 application fee for rezoning of secondary suites.
In 2013, a video was leaked of Cal Wenzel, the CEO and founder of Shane Homes, speaking to a panel of Calgarian home builders about a plan to influence the decisions of the city council after the election. In the video, Wenzel spoke of plans to raise $1.1 million to enlist the support of Preston Manning's conservative foundation, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. According to the speech, former Mayor Dave Bronconnier counselled Wenzel on how to control council motions with eight votes. "So for whatever and however, we have to ensure that we end up with the eight votes." Wenzel proposed a solution to circumvent confrontation with Nenshi's popularity. Wenzel named councillors the industry could rely on to support motions in favour of the lobby, which he supported with donations. Nenshi ordered a probe into what he described as possible violations of electoral laws. In late 2013, Wenzel filed a $6 million slander lawsuit against Nenshi, stating that his reputation was tarnished and that he was vilified as a subject of political opportunism during Nenshi and his allied councillor's campaigning. Wenzel stated that his comments in the video were taken out of context and manipulated by Nenshi to promote a political agenda. He also complained of Nenshi tentatively comparing him to 'Godfather', as a reference to the titular character of Mario Puzo's novel and screenplay The Godfather. Nenshi in an interview with David Gray, host of CBC Radio's Calgary Eyeopener, described the meeting as a scene from the film The Godfather. When asked to clarify if Wenzel were the "Godfather" in this analogy, Nenshi ambiguously responded "maybe". The two reached an out-of-court settlement in December 2015, under which Nenshi agreed to apologize for and retract several comments he had made, while Wenzel expressed regret for any harm done to Nenshi's reputation and agreed that Nenshi has raised legitimate concerns about the potential chilling effect of lawsuits against politicians. Nenshi's legal bill of nearly $300,000 was paid by donations.
Leader of the Alberta NDP (2024–present)
2024 leadership campaign
After over a month of speculation, Nenshi announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Alberta NDP on March 11, 2024. Nenshi, who was not a member of the party, needed a special dispensation in order to stand for the leadership. He said being an NDP supporter on the prairies meant being more "pragmatic" and making sure that Albertans could see themselves within the party.
During the race, Nenshi campaigned on allowing provincial members to opt out of joining the federal NDP. Nearly a year later, the party members voted in favour.
He won the party leadership race on the first ballot with 62,746 votes (86%) on June 22, 2024, replacing former Premier Rachel Notley and becoming the party's ninth leader.
Tenure
Six months into his tenure as leader of the Alberta NDP, Nenshi said that his main priorities would be focusing on affordability, jobs, health care, public safety and education, feeling that the current United Conservative Party (UCP) government was not prioritizing them at all.
He faced his first electoral test as leader in the 2024 Lethbridge-West provincial by-election, which was won by the NDP's Rob Miyashiro. Nenshi chose not to run in the by-election. Instead, after Notley announced she was retiring from the legislature, Nenshi announced he would run in the by-election for her seat of Edmonton-Strathcona. On January 23, 2025, Nenshi was acclaimed as party's candidate for Edmonton-Strathcona, with no other party candidates stepping up to challenge him.
On May 3, 2025, Nenshi received 89.5 percent support in a leadership review vote during the party's provincial convention. Nenshi was elected as an MLA on June 23, with the Alberta NDP also retaining the seat of Edmonton-Ellerslie. On July 12, he was sworn in as MLA and was recognized as the leader of the Opposition.
A couple of days later, he alongside party MLAs, launched the 'Better Together Summer' plan as a way to counteract the UCP Alberta Next Panel. Nenshi explained the reason behind this tour was to hear from Albertans about their concerns and felt that Alberta Next was a distraction from the government's record on important issues.
On October 22, he appeared in the Alberta Legislature for the first time as the leader of the official opposition as part of the throne speech. He took part in his first question period a week later. During that time, Nenshi and his party put forth legislation on increasing the minimum wage, dealing with grocery prices, auto insurance, developing incentives to bring down electricity prices through investing in an electrical grid, whistleblower protections for health-care workers.
During the 2026 New Democratic Party leadership election campaign, he stated that he was not endorsing a candidate and said that he was not a member of the federal party. Following Avi Lewis's victory, Nenshi stated that his party believed in Alberta, supported Canadian energy such as supporting more pipelines, reducing emissions, supported public services and a "job-driven economy" to pay for it.
Views
Nenshi has written a couple of op-eds for the Calgary Herald. The first one was advocating for reforms to Bill C-59 that established by the federal government in 2024 and the other one is explaining how to position Alberta to deal with the US Canada Trade War in 2025.
In September 2025, Nenshi also criticized the UCP of clawing back from disabled Albertans their federal Canada Disability Benefit (CDP) by calling it theft. He also believed that Alberta need to diversify trade relationships for long-term economic stability and being less reliant on fluctuations in the oil and gas sector. In an end of the year interview with CBC, Nenshi disputed the UCP accusation that his party was going to raise taxes by saying that while it is important to keep taxes low and competitive it is more important to grow the economy.
After allegations surrounding the mismanagement of Alberta Health Services procurement contracts were reported, Nenshi advocated for a full public inquiry, an RCMP investigation, the dismissal of health minister Adriana LaGrange and backed former UCP cabinet minister Peter Guthrie's call for an immediate public judicial inquiry by arguing that the Smith government was trying to cover up the incident.
Nenshi has criticized the consumer carbon tax implemented by Liberal government of Justin Trudeau by saying that they removed out home oil heating for political gain. He has also criticized UCP government for its seven-month moratorium on renewable energy projects in the province and wants to wait and see approach with the federal government before revealing his emission reduction plan. In October, Nenshi revealed that he believed that Alberta should be a leader in global progress in both energy markets and climate solutions, instead of acting as bystanders by backing the Pathways Alliance, carbon sequestration, and keep developing pipelines. Nenshi backed the memorandum of understanding between the government of Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia Coast on the condition that they worked with Indigenous communities to gain their support as well as the private sector.
Nenshi views education as essential investment to Alberta's future prosperity. When the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) announced a teachers' strike as a result of multiple disagreements with Smith's government over the terms of a new labour contract, he said his party expressed sympathy to teachers and parents who are calling for more resources and smaller class sizes. During his first question period debate over the teacher strike, he invoked Peter Lougheed when asking Smith, why she abandoned "Lougheed’s dream of Alberta having the best public education system in the world?”.
Outside politics
He appeared on the 2024 edition of Canada Reads, advocating for the illustrated novel Denison Avenue by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes.
Accolades
Nenshi and two other Canadian delegates won a Young Leader award by the World Economic Forum in 2011 for his innovative ideas of urban planning.
Nenshi was awarded the President's Award of the Canadian Institute of Planners in 2012, for implementing progressive ideas such as transparency.
Nenshi was ranked second most important person in Canada, next to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, by Maclean's magazine 50 top Canadians list for 2013.
On September 14, 2014, Nenshi was honoured by the Elder Pete Standing Alone of Kainai First Nation, Blood Tribe with the Blackfoot name, A'paistootsiipsii, meaning "Camp Moving Leader [Clan Leader]", or "he who moves the camp and others follow". The name signifies his leadership role for the people of Calgary.
Nenshi was awarded the World Mayor prize in 2014 by the City Mayors Foundation. He became the first Canadian mayor to win this award.
In 2017, Nenshi was awarded the 'Honorary Peace Patron' by the Mosaic Institute for contributions to strengthening the fabric of Canada.
Electoral record
(Asterisk indicates candidate withdrew from the race but name remained on ballot)