Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi calls for investigation into alleged plot to oust him from office

Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is calling for an investigation into an alleged plot against him by conservatives to get him kicked out of office.

Nenshi says he was disappointed to read about the alleged plot, adding “it appears that there are people that seem to think that their money and their connections make them more important or powerful than everyday citizens.”

“As a community, we should never stand for the kind of assault on our democracy and on our society that is alleged in this article,” Nenshi said in a statement.

“I have faith that the appropriate authorities (including the Calgary Police Service and the RCMP) will investigate this story deeply and if any laws have been broken, appropriate action will taken. I also call upon municipal, federal, and provincial leaders, to unequivocally disavow this type of conduct and condemn those who are found to perpetuate it.”

An investigative report from Canadaland suggests “several Calgary conservative players” paid political fixer David Wallace to entrap Nenshi in a scheme that would have tricked him into taking money from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

The alleged plan failed, and the political fixer told Canadaland Nenshi “wouldn’t bite.”

‘Rumours’ had been circulating, poli sci professor says

Duane Bratt, political science professor at Mount Royal University, tells CityNews it wasn’t necessarily startling to hear that there were people who wanted to take Nenshi down.

“I’ve been hearing rumors of this story for a while,” Bratt said. “David Wallace had been talking about this … He’s a self-acknowledged fixer and a great story-teller, and so trying to determine what’s true and what’s false can be very difficult.”

Bratt says there was evidence of an attempt to blackmail Nenshi, adding there are possible legal repercussions that can come from it. He also brought up past attempts at undercutting the former mayor.

“We do know that these groups of people tried to mitigate Nenshi’s power back in 2013 by electing other councillors to defeat him on city council. There was a meeting at the Manning Centre to go over this and they talked about funding council candidates,” Bratt said. “Then in 2017, they bankrolled Bill Smith to defeat Nenshi and they lost that election.”

He says there has been hostility between Nenshi and some conservatives and private developers mentioned in the Canadaland report for a very long time.

“It’s a really bizarre story. They’re talking about faking multi-billion dollar investors who are going to launder money through the City of Calgary, and that somehow Nenshi might get a kickback on that — it’s almost an cartoonish-like plot,” Bratt said. “But what it shows is the extent people will try to target political officials that they do not like.

“I think calling for a police investigation — yeah — if this is not a crime, it should be.”

Lori Williams, political science professor at Mount Royal University, says it’s disturbing to consider a plot involving wealthy individuals trying to oust a democratically elected leader.

“Rather than putting forth a better alternative in a future election, they opted instead to try to entrap an elected official into this scheme,” Williams said. “It’s problematic both because it is dishonest, unethical, possibly even illegal, but it’s also problematic in the sense that it seems to reflect a failure or an unwillingness to accept the results of elections. There is a sense of entitlement here that somehow or another their influence is something they are entitled to and the influence of ordinary voters doesn’t have as much merit.”

Williams adds there has to be an independent investigation into the allegations of a plot to entrap Nenshi. She says it would probably appropriate to have multiple investigations from different law enforcement agencies as well as the province.

She says allegations like this have the potential to undermine the entire democratic process.