Can Danielle Smith survive the UCP political circus in Red Deer?

Alberta politics is unpredictable and sometimes it’s best to expect the unexpected

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (photo: Danielle Smith/Facebook)

The main event of Alberta’s political season is nearly upon us. No, I’m not talking about the return of the Legislature or the impending by-election in Lethbridge-West. I’m talking about the United Conservative Party’s Annual General Meeting and leadership review that is happening this weekend in Red Deer.

With more than 6,000 people expected to attend, it will likely be the biggest single political convention in Alberta’s history. And it is going to be a circus.

For the past 10 months, this event has been top of mind for every conservative politician in Alberta and, most especially, Premier Danielle Smith. 

Aware of the perils of ignoring or annoying her party’s raucous membership, Smith has spent months campaigning, holding UCP member-only town halls, and making big government announcements aimed at appeasing the more than 6,000 UCP members who are expected to converge in Red Deer this weekend to cast a yea or nay vote on her leadership.

The last conservative premier of Alberta to finish a full-term in government was Ralph Klein, 20 years ago in 2004. Since then, no conservative premier in Alberta has finished a full term in government. Klein was felled by a leadership review in 2006, and his predecessors found themselves politically damaged by what were later interpreted as tepid endorsements in their own leadership reviews.

Most recently, the slimmest of wins in the UCP’s 2022 leadership review forced Premier Jason Kenney to step down just three years after he led the UCP to a solid majority election victory. While Smith is very much a product of the radical politics of the UCP base that ended Kenney’s political career and then rocketed her into the party’s leadership in 2022, her focus on that party base is a response to their volatility.

When I describe the UCP AGM as a political circus, I don’t mean that UCP supporters are clowns, though the performative politics of some of Alberta’s right-wing fringe groups can sometimes be spectacle to behold. The UCP has an active membership like no other party in Alberta but, unlike traditional political structures, the UCP decided to throw itself open to be governed by a totally chaotic and uncontrollable group of members who’s main priorities are far from the average Albertan.

And although Smith has the party’s raucous membership to thank for her winning the UCP leadership, she is keenly aware of how quickly they could turn on her.

It was 10 years ago that Smith, then attempting to moderate her right-wing Wildrose Party, was embarrassingly rebuked by her party’s own membership (just over a month later she and eight of her party’s MLAs crossed the floor to join Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives).

Smith’s focus on those 6,000 people in Red Deer next weekend means that Albertans have had a government that acts like it’s more responsive to comments in certain UCP member Facebook groups than the challenges that most normal Albertans are facing every day.