The new premier of Alberta, Canada’s oil producing province, is a right-wing populist and former online radio talk show host.
Danielle Smith, fifty-one, was chosen Thursday as leader of the United Conservative Party in a vote of party members.
The UCP holds a majority of seats in the Alberta Legislature, so its leader becomes premier. Under a parliamentary system, as seen recently with ouster of Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a head of government can be forced to resign and replaced without a vote of the people.
“Peace, order and good government” has been Canada’s informal motto of settlement and development from the time of Confederation.
Smith is likely to soon disrupt all three pillars by asking the Alberta Legislature to adopt something called the Alberta Sovereignty Act. The act would allow the provincial legislature to veto any actions by Canada’s federal government or regulatory agencies “that violate the jurisdictional rights of Alberta.
The United Conservative Party cannot be described as united.
Outgoing Premier Jason Kenney, who resigned in May after coming up short in a UCP leadership vote, has described the Alberta Sovereignty Act as “cockamamie” and “catastrophically stupid.”
Similar opinions came from Smith’s opponents in the UCP leadership contest. A former federal cabinet minister, Kenney represents a more staid, business-oriented conservatism, in the manner of the Bush family in the United States.
Under Kenney, Alberta imposed fewer restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic than any other Canadian province.
Yet, protests erupted in rural parts of the province along with a late winter “Freedom Convoy” blockade at a border crossing into Montana.
The RCMP uncovered a large arms cache at a nearby home.
An activist on the right from University of Calgary days, and alumnus of The Fraser Institute think tank, Danielle Smith is known for controversial views.
On the topic of health, she has suggested that there can be health benefits from a modest consumption of tobacco, and that growth of cancer is influenced by a patient’s behavior. She espoused the discredited view that that hydroxychloroquine could prevent a SARS-Cov‑2 infection.
“We are not going to be enforcing federal lockdown measures or federal restrictions,” Smith declared after winning the UCP leadership.
Smith was a climate skeptic a decade ago in the Albert Legislature.
She claimed during the leadership campaign, however, to have “come around full circle” on the need to curb carbon emissions.
Not quite. She opposes a federal carbon tax and has backed Big Oil’s response to controlling emissions from its vast tar sands project in northern Alberta.
“I’m not a scientist,” she has said, words heard from Republican politicians in the U.S. “I defer that the industry has agreed: This industry accepts the consensus (on climate change) and they’re working on protection solutions and it’s my job to support them.”
Huh? In plain English – one of Canada’s two official languages – that means resisting control measures proposed by Canada’s federal government, as well as efforts by Ottawa to regulate or limit new energy projects.
Alberta has always been a conservative province, except for the period of 2015 to 2019 when it had a reformist government from the center-left New Democratic Party. Its conservatism is centered in rural areas, and has a libertarian bent.
In federal elections, ridings (the Canadian equivalent of congressional districts) give massive majorities to the Conservative Party. The country’s governing Liberal Party holds only two of the province’s forty-two seats in the House of Commons.
A right-wing provincial movement, the Wildrose Party, grew up early in the twenty-first, opposing Alberta’s center-right government. Danielle Smith was its leader in the Alberta Legislature. In 2015, however, she abandoned the party with four fellow legislators and crossed the floor to sit with the Conservatives.
She was showered with unfavorable publicity and could not even win a provincial riding nomination in 2015. The road back was a talk show on Calgary radio CHQR. And, to Smith’s advantage, the fratricide of the United Conservative Party.
Conservatives rule Alberta, but internal battles and party divisions have forced out a succession of premiers. The usual sin, not fighting hard enough against Ottawa. The casualty list includes Kenney, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice, Ralph Klein (drinking was a factor) and Ed Stelmach.
Kenney has not gone quietly, however. In a recent magazine interview, he said: “Conservatism, therefore, means protecting what’s best about what we’ve inherited, not being opposed to thoughtful reform, but being opposed to radical overnight change and the destruction of institutions. And some of what I see now, what I call ‘populism with a snarl,’ is not conservatism. It’s tearing things down and blowing things up, and that concerns me.”
The bottom line, Kenney added: “I think a conservative party or government focusing on recriminations over COVID, politicizing science, entitling conspiracy theories, campaigning with QAnon is a party that can’t form government and shouldn’t.”
Polls show the Alberta Sovereignty Act to be unpopular even among voters of a province that dislikes Canada’s federal government.
Its dangers are obvious, one province setting itself apart from the other nine. Court battles are certain. Business investment would be shrouded in uncertainty. The chaos might build support for what has been a small but noisy movement favoring separation from Canada.
The UCP government must call a provincial election by next spring. The New Democrats under former Premier Rachel Notley are poised for a comeback and cannot be displeased that the most controversial UCP candidate prevailed.
As well, Alberta is changing. Its principal cities, Edmonton and Calgary, are becoming more progressive and diverse, not just in population but in an economy no longer driven entirely by oil. Environmental resistance blocked an Australian magnate’s plan for coal mining in the front range of the Canadian Rockies. “We will never mine our mountains for coal,” Notley said in a recent tweet.
The New Democrats held onto Edmonton and Calgary ridings even while being voted out of office in 2019. Long labeled leftist, they may appear to represent peace, order and good government… given United Conservative Party turmoil and the incoming premier’s radical views.
One Comment
You lost me at “tarsands”