FLASHBACK — Naheed Nenshi, leader of Alberta’s NDP, once declared anti-mask protesters “not people who need to eat” — language critics equate to condemning fellow citizens to starvation for daring to disagree.
In a May 9, 2021, interview on Global News’ The West Block, Nenshi stated:
“By the way, those people at those anti-mask protests, let’s not kid ourselves. They’re not people who need to eat. They are people who are marching in thinly veiled white nationalist supremacist anti-government protests and they don’t deserve that kind of sympathy.”
The contempt was aimed squarely at ordinary Albertans — parents, small-business owners, workers, and families of every background, including visible minorities ravaged by lockdowns — who challenged government overreach. Suggesting people “don’t need to eat” is not political debate. It is the dehumanizing rhetoric of tyrants who decide which citizens deserve to live and which should be left to starve.
NDP’s Champion-of-the-Vulnerable Mask Slips
The NDP presents itself as the fierce guardian of minority rights and the vulnerable. Yet Nenshi’s words reveal the fraud at its core. When real Albertans — many from the very communities the party claims to protect — stood against what they viewed as failed and destructive policies, Nenshi offered not empathy but visceral disdain. This was never about safeguarding minorities. It was about punishing anyone who rejected his brand of politics. By dehumanizing dissenters to the point of wishing them dead by starvation, Nenshi has destroyed his moral authority to lead any party that claims the mantle of compassion and inclusion.
An increasing chorus of voices is now openly questioning whether a leader capable of such rhetoric can effectively unite or lead the NDP — let alone offer a credible alternative for Alberta.
Science Vindicated the “Deplorables”
Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes in March 2020 there was “no reason to be walking around with a mask.” The authoritative 2023 Cochrane Review later confirmed that community masking made little or no difference to respiratory illness transmission.
Nenshi’s rant remains a damning flashback: a moment of raw elitism from the man now heading Alberta’s official opposition. Albertans are right to ask whether someone who once spoke like this possesses the judgment, empathy, or moral foundation to lead any provincial political party except the most extreme. The video endures. The damage is self-inflicted.
