The Danielle Smith era of Alberta politics has begun
NDP need to avoid falling into the trap of searching for Smith’s next Lake of Fire moment
I’m Dave Cournoyer and this is the Daveberta Substack.
A big thank you to everyone who subscribed and sent feedback about my last column. If you like what you read today, please share it with a friend. And please reach out if you have feedback or thoughts on today’s article.
TL;DR
If you don’t have time to read today’s column right away, here are some of my main points:
The next election officially starts six and a half months from now but the unofficial campaign has begun.
Premier Danielle Smith doesn’t have a lot of time before the election so expect her to move fast to implement her agenda.
The UCP is deeply divided but expect most MLAs to fall in line behind the new leader.
Rachel Notley’s NDP need to avoid falling into the trap of searching for Smith’s next Lake of Fire moment. She isn’t going to run from controversy. She’s mostly embraces it.
Re-litigating COVID-19 vaccine mandates and grievances with Ottawa are not Albertans priorities. The economy, health care and education are what the general public is concerned about.
Today’s column
The Danielle Smith era of Alberta politics has begun
Alberta’s next election officially starts six and half months from now but the unofficial campaign has begun.
Get ready for politics in our province to move pretty fast.
Danielle Smith won the leadership of the United Conservative Party on October 6 and she hasn’t slowed down since. She met with UCP MLAs the morning after her win, was sworn-in as Premier of Alberta a few days later and plans to name her new cabinet on October 21, the first day of the party’s annual general meeting.
Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey announced her resignation, creating an opening for Premier Smith to run in a November 8 by-election. The new Premier could be in the Legislature by late-November to introduce her flagship Alberta Sovereignty Act.
Does it feel like we’re moving a mile a minute?
The next provincial election is on May 28, 2023 and the election period officially starts 28 days before that.
That’s May 1.
That’s not a lot of time for Smith to get established in government and prepare her party for the next election.
Smith met with UCP MLAs in Calgary the morning after her leadership win and emphasized the “united” part of the UCP. It was a good show for the cameras but she has inherited a divided party and caucus.
A big challenge is that most UCP MLAs supported other candidates in the leadership race and many of them publicly spoke out against Smith and her Sovereignty Act. While most MLAs will probably fall in line behind their new leader, the public criticism leveled at her flagship policy will be hard to forget.
“[t]he sovereignty act might be just as harmful to Alberta’s future as the Trudeau Liberals have been to our past,” wrote Energy Minister Sonya Savage, who co-chaired Travis Toews’ leadership campaign.
"I would caution anybody who wants to lead our party about overpromising things that we know that cannot be delivered," said Finance Minister Jason Nixon, who endorsed Toews.
"It's created lots of uncertainty, particularly when the province is poised to have an economic boom,” said Community and Social Services Minister Jason Luan, who also supported Toews.
But she does have her allies.
Smith welcomed MLA Todd Loewen back into the UCP Caucus. The northern Alberta MLA was kicked out last year after publicly calling on Premier Jason Kenney to resign.
Finishing fourth in the leadership vote and seeing many of his supporters second place votes go to Smith, Loewen is expected to end up in cabinet with most of the other leadership contenders, including runner-up Travis Toews.
The three current cabinet ministers who endorsed her, Mike Ellis, Nate Glubish, and Kaycee Madu are all expected to be appointed to important roles, as could former cabinet minister Devin Dreeshen and MLAs Angela Pitt and Nathan Neudorf.
Anyone who has met Smith will attest that she is very personable but managing a cabinet and caucus, and this raucous caucus in particular, will be challenging.
The cabinet will be announced on the first day of the UCP AGM at the River Cree Resort and Casino on the Enoch First Nation just west of Edmonton. It will be Smith’s first big party gathering since being sworn-in as Premier so her speech and the mood of party members at the AGM could be a good indicator of the tone the UCP wants to set for the next six months.
The stage is being set for the next election and Smith’s UCP is way behind Rachel Notley’s NDP in nominating candidates and building a campaign war-chest.
Smith’s leadership win is the biggest political comeback story of the year, one that might only be surpassed by Rachel Notley if she is able to lead the NDP back into power in next year’s election.
Who will strike the right chord with Albertans ahead of the next election?
During the leadership campaign Smith masterfully tapped into two key issues that spoke to a relatively small but highly-motivated group of conservative Albertans: anger at Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and anger at the Trudeau government.
Constantly hitting these issues drove Smith to victory in the leadership race, even if she frequently embraced conspiracy theories about Trudeau’s secret climate change police and the World Economic Forum.
But the same message might be harder to sell to a broader group of Albertans.
Smith was forced to issue a clarification on her second day as Premier after describing unvaccinated Albertans as the most persecuted group in her lifetime.
It was a reminder of how deeply divided many conservatives still are about vaccine mandates, especially along rural-urban lines. It also gave Albertans a clearer glimpse into what she thinks about the pandemic and public health rules. But it’s nowhere near where most Albertans are and it would be very risky for the UCP to campaign against last year’s COVID-19 restrictions in next year’s election.
“Right now, the average Albertan is scratching their head because the race has been focused on things that aren’t all that important to your average voter,” respected pollster Janet Brown told the West Block on October 2. Brown said her polling showed inflation, health care and education were the leading issues.
The NDP have been talking a lot about the economy, health care and education, but they shouldn’t underestimate Smith. She is smart and, ironically, her time outside of politics as a talk radio host has probably given her a better understanding of political communications than most Conservative politicians in Alberta.
Smith proved during the leadership race that she is very adept at driving the agenda. The NDP needs to avoid the mistake her leadership opponents made by spending an entire campaign chasing her tweets.
The NDP also needs to avoid falling into the trap of searching for Smith’s next Lake of Fire moment, because she has made so many controversial statements. And unlike ten years ago, Smith isn’t going to run from controversy. She’s mostly embraces it.
It’s going to move fast and it’s going to be a wild ride.
Welcome to the Danielle Smith era of Alberta politics.
One more thing
Notley’s path to the Premier’s Office goes straight through Calgary
While Danielle Smith’s UCP is meeting at the River Cree, Rachel Notley’s NDP will be holding their own convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Calgary.
Smith has tried to draw a connection between Notley and federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, but Singh will be nowhere near Calgary that weekend.
Instead of touting federal ties, the Alberta NDP are reaching across the prairies and are holding a convention fundraising dinner with Manitoba NDP leader Wab Kinew as the guest of honour.
It would be quite the turn of events if two out of three prairie provinces turned NDP orange next year.
Notley’s NDP know their road to victory goes straight through Calgary, something that became even more apparent this week when Postmedia columnist Rick Bell reminded readers that Smith is prepared to lose seats in Calgary to consolidate support in rural areas. The electoral math isn’t wrong but that’s probably not very reassuring for the UCP MLAs in Calgary planning to run for re-election next year.
While the UCP was focused on their leadership race, Notley was busy assembling her team. The NDP has nominated candidates in 56 of 87 ridings and have more nomination meetings scheduled. They have a big campaign war-chest and have pledged not to be caught off guard if Smith decides to go to the polls earlier than the May 2023 fixed election date.
Notley’s party was also ready for the by-election in Brooks-Medicine Hat. Probably suspecting Frey could resign, Notley spoke at a 200-person fundraiser with local candidate Gwendoline Dirk. That’s a big crowd for the NDP in southeast Alberta.
The NDP are not expected to win the by-election. Defeating Smith on such firm UCP turf would be a remarkable feat. But placing a respectable second, and maybe even neutralizing Alberta Party leader and former Brooks mayor Barry Morishita’s chances of playing spoiler in 2023, would be a win for the NDP.
The NDP are keen to point out that Smith refuses to hold a concurrent by-election in the already vacant Calgary-Elbow riding. The NDP have nominated energy analyst Samir Kayande in the affluent southwest Calgary riding. He’s a star in the party’s “Progressive Conservative-lite” slate of business-friendly candidates.
Notley’s NDP have been very successful in presenting themselves as an alternative to the unpopular Jason Kenney. In some ways, Kenney’s dismal record and plummeting popularity allowed Notley’s NDP to coast a bit. They will need to toughen up and get disciplined because Danielle Smith is no Jason Kenney.
And, as I wrote in today’s column, they don’t have a lot of time to do that.
I just read your post about fixating on "Lake of Fire" comments; I wish those involved in the recent NDP campaign had. I started warning about this prior to the 2019 election. But there's a faction within the New Democrats who think you win by adopting their opponent's tactics, not realizing that given the choice between real rightwing smear/fear tactics and limp left wing ones, Alberta voters will go for the real thing. Twice in a row, now.
Sitting at my keyboard on a slow news Saturday morning, I allowed myself to imagine (OK, fantasize) an NDP victory in the upcoming by-election.
Although unlikely, I think it is safe to suggest the results will be closer than the 13,600 UCP vs 4000 NDP tally that occurred in 2019. I can't see many of the NDP voters switching, but the UCP flop, and Danielle Smith's extremism may make some UCP voters switch; no doubt it will make many of them just stay home. As well, a main industry in the City of Brooks is the beef processing plant, that certainly suffered from Covid, and I can't see many plant workers supporting Smith.
If Danielle Smith should lose, what would the UCP do next? Try another riding (Einstein's definition of insanity comes to mind here), have Ms. Smith act as premier from the sideline, or fire her? If the latter, I assume this close to an election they would just appoint the second place finisher, Travis Toews, as leader, which is what many in the UCP would like to see anyway.
Does anyone out there know if a new leader has ever lost their subsequent byelection before?