United UCP will turn to governing for ‘majority of Albertans’

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RED DEER, ALTA. – Alberta’s United Conservative Party emerged from its annual general meeting seeming as united as ever.

There seemed to be consensus among members not just with regards to Premier Danielle Smith’s leadership, although she did win a leadership review with a thumping 91.5-per-cent support, but also in several policy areas, from gender issues and diversity mandates to reverting to a flat income tax.

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In the days before the convention kicked off, there were murmurs that dissenters were organizing behind the scenes, working hard to end Smith’s leadership, just as had been done two years earlier to former premier Jason Kenney through a leadership review vote, with many of those who would become Smith’s supporters behind it.

This time, the dissidents proved to be a small minority.

One member said the efforts to oust Smith all amounted to “a fart in a windstorm.”

“It’s time for us to go back to being a united party, focus on what unites us without focusing on what divides us and clearly that’s where the majority of our membership is at,” Social Services Minister Jason Nixon told reporters in a post-convention scrum.

Edmontonian Stan Drake, who’s been a member for two years, signed up for the party because he believes in what Smith’s doing.

“Absolutely, I feel she’s on the right path,” Drake said.

With the meeting over, the premier, and her caucus and cabinet, now have their party’s marching orders. It will be up to them to navigate which of the policy proposals passed by members will become government policy, which can sold to Alberta voters, and how to do so.

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Somewhat unusually, the spectre of the Naheed Nenshi-led Alberta NDP seemed to barely register at this weekend’s gathering, although the next election isn’t for another two-and-a-half years. In her speech Saturday morning, Smith mentioned the NDP just once.

“Alberta’s economy is booming, and we aren’t slowing down for any Liberals or New Democrats in Ottawa or New Democrats here in Alberta for that matter,” she said.

It wasn’t until her closing remarks to the convention that she directly referenced her opposition rival, the former Calgary mayor recently elected NDP leader, saying “Together we will soundly defeat Naheed Nenshi and his NDP.”

The convention is the result of a long and tortured path for Alberta’s conservative movement. Kenney pulled together the United Conservatives in 2017 by merging the long-governing Progressive Conservatives and the libertarian-leaning Wildrose. The blend has led to discomfort at times but has held together with the mission of keeping the Alberta New Democrats out of power.

“In this room is the very heartbeat of the strong, free and independent West … the bedrock on which the conservative movement in Canada is built,” Smith said in her speech to members Saturday.

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The elements of the party that had risen up to drive out Kenney, largely over his government’s COVID mandates, still exist, including Take Back Alberta (TBA) and the 1905 Committee.

“Infiltration — 1905, TBA — (they) are not for (Smith) and they’re creating distractions,” said Brenda Ans, a member from Red Deer. “She’s making a difference in Alberta.”

Nevertheless, there seemed to be broad agreement among members interviewed that there’s some instability in the party, simply because so many new members have joined since the COVID pandemic. Long-time members complain that the newcomers are mostly driven by narrow passions, which turn up in the policy resolutions. “We’re the party of ‘no,’” pointed out one.

It’s not clear how long the new members will stick around, or if they’ll do the hard work to win elections, or just show up to push their preferred priorities at conventions.

David Parker, head of Take Back Alberta, says he sees things differently.

“I’m not a big believer in leaders,” Parker said in Red Deer, as the convention wrapped up. “I think when you bring a lot of new people, bring a lot of new people into politics, they fall in love with a leader, and they’ve obviously fallen in love with Danielle Smith.”

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TBA activists distributed a “report card” to party members, before party staffers grabbed away as many as they could. It specifically asked questions about COVID. “Smith’s handling of COVID-related policies has been a disappointment to me and the rest of us who supported her,” it said.

A different report card passed around by the 1905 Committee, headed by Nadine Wellwood who was disqualified as a UCP candidate for comparing COVID policies to Nazi Germany, asked attendees to grade Smith on a variety of policies, from taxation to immigration and vaccines. “Consider these policies carefully as you head to the leadership review,” the 1905 document said.

Rosie, a member who declined to give her name or hometown, said she supported Smith “so far,” but wanted to see much more done.

“She’s got to get rid of vaccines altogether,” said Rosie, who was wearing a flag saying “F—k Trudeau” as a cape. “Alberta’s a vermin-free province, it’s got to be a vaccine-free province.”

There was also an anonymous email campaign suggesting that a vote for Smith was a vote for Islamic Sharia law. Smith, speaking to reporters immediately after her Saturday morning speech, denounced the effort as “dirty tactics.”

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“It’s disappointing to see it from some members within our own party,” Smith said. “I have always said that we have so much in common with our various faith communities on the issue of individual freedom, faith and family.”

Over the summer, Smith canvassed constituency associations around the province, fielding occasionally peculiar questions (one, notably, involved chem trails) and working to bolster her popularity with the party’s membership.

Over the past week, the United Conservatives introduced a handful of bills in the provincial legislature that spoke directly to policies that certain groups had clamoured for. They included an updated Alberta Bill of Rights, restrictions on medical transitioning for some transgender minors, and enforcing competitive sports segregated by biological sex.

The sentiment among many convention attendees was that Smith “played her cards right” with those moves.

“Last three weeks, there’s been something for everybody,” one man said in a hospitality suite Friday night.

Yet, the Bill of Rights specifically engendered a backlash, on full display Saturday afternoon as members hotly debated adopting a version proposed by a group of members calling themselves the Black Hat Gang that called for the right to bear arms and the right to use lethal force to stop crime.

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Attendees overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Black Hat Gang’s version.

Last three weeks, there’s been something for everybody

Gord Tulk, a Red Deer delegate, spoke against it, arguing that an Alberta Bill of Rights deserved a serious and extensive consultation with Albertans, not a simple statute that could just as easily be changed should the NDP form government again.

“If I’m Naheed Nenshi, tomorrow morning I say ‘Danielle Smith represents a party that’s in favour of concealed carry,’” said Tuck in an interview. “Frankly I think we may have passed ourselves the next election because the NDP has all kinds of ammunition in this bill of rights.”

Nixon told reporters that Albertans should be “to be able to protect yourself in accordance with the law.”

“If membership would like to have a conversation about whether or not concealed carry is appropriate in that context or not, of course we’re open to that,” Nixon said, adding that it would require discussions with the federal government, too.

Despite that anger simmering under the surface, this convention somehow seemed less charged than in recent years.

Matt Solberg, who worked on Smith’s transition team when she became premier and is a partner at New West Public Affairs, predicted there would always be some discord within the party, but said he sees no major groundswell of discontent now.

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Smith urged solidarity in her Saturday morning speech to members.

“But let us not sink to the level of our opponents by attacking or vilifying one another, or breaking into factions and working with leftists to bring down our movement,” Smith said to the crowd.

Travis Olson, a long-time UCP member, formerly of the Wildrose, said prior to the votes being counted that he was surprised by the degree of support for Smith that he saw.

“Everybody that I recognize … they’re all ‘yes’,” Olson said. “TBA had a ton of influence when it came to Kenney. I don’t feel that today.”

Many of the policy ideas that animated these factions beyond removing Kenney — COVID and vaccines, for example — have since been adopted wholesale by party’s membership.

Even Parker conceded that the motives behind the backlash against Kenney had largely been satisfied. “The vision of TBA has been fulfilled, at least on the provincial level,” he said.

The party’s membership also endorsed a number of significant social and cultural policies, among them a policy to ensure minors cannot view sexually explicit performances, banning transgender people from washrooms of their choice and ending public funding for “sex alternation practices.”

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Minutes into a policy debate over diversity, equity and inclusion policies, a speaker argued for the importance of revealing unconscious bias, but was booed down by the crowd, prompting a rebuke from the moderators.

Another speaker, arguing against a policy declaring carbon dioxide as a foundational nutrient for life, was also booed.

The next election is in 2027. While the party’s current legislative agenda is front-loaded with challenging social policy, it’s expected Smith will soon need to pivot to issues that Albertans regularly tell pollsters are their priorities. Namely, health care, education and affordability.

“There will be a shift,” predicted Solberg. “And, and I think that, you know, for a lot of folks, it’ll be a refreshing shift.”

Smith seems to already be thinking the same thing.

“We govern for all Albertans,” Smith told reporters Saturday. “This is part of the policy-generating shop, but we have to make sure that we put it through the lens of whether or not it will have the support of the majority of Albertans.”

National Post

tdawson@postmedia.com

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