Alberta Insider: Smith’s plan to amend province’s Bill of Rights

This week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to social media and explained her plan to make “key amendments” to the province’s Bill of Rights.

While there are still details to be revealed, including the exact wording of how the amendments would read, the Premier announced she would reinforce the right of Albertans to decide whether to receive a vaccination or other medical procedure and would also strengthen rights around property and gun ownership.

“These amendments to the Bill of Rights are not just legal changes. They are a reaffirmation of the values that make Alberta one of the freest jurisdictions on Earth,” she said in her 3½-minute video address.

With less than six weeks before Smith faces a review of her leadership of the United Conservative Party, the Premier has been busy shoring up her support, hoping to fend off any challenge to her place at the head of the province’s conservative movement.

Changes to the Bill of Rights appear to be part of that plan, according to Lori Williams, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“This is a really strong initiative to try to ensure that she not only survives the review, but does very well,” Williams told The Globe’s Alanna Smith.

While the UCP seems to have a lock on power in the near term, as The Globe’s Kelly Cryderman wrote a few weeks ago, “Even the popular, anti-establishment Ms. Smith is not immune from the ravages of a movement that has adopted a culture of (often) tearing it all down from the inside.”

A fate that befell her predecessor Jason Kenney, and several conservative leaders before that.

Smith, of course, has argued that none of the amendments come out of the blue; they are what she campaigned on when she became leader in the fall of 2022 and promises that she made during last year’s election.

“This is me keeping my commitment that I made when I got elected,” she told media Wednesday at the International Pipeline Conference and Expo in Calgary.

Smith, after Kenney was ousted, won leadership of the UCP by rallying against COVID-19 restrictions implemented to protect public health, including vaccine passports and gathering limits.

“It is my firm conviction that no Albertan should ever be subjected or pressured into accepting a medical treatment without their full consent,” she said in this week’s address.

While Smith’s position may come as a shock to observers outside Alberta, her government has not made it a secret how it felt about the way the pandemic was handled.

The Globe revealed last December that the UCP directed the provincial health authority to pare back its immunization campaign for COVID-19 and influenza despite rising cases of respiratory illnesses. And the Premier also commissioned two reviews into the COVID-19 response, “both of which were led by people who expressed skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions,” Alanna wrote this week.

Smith said the changes will also enshrine Albertans’ right to legally acquire, keep and “safely use” firearms. She said the federal government has unfairly targeted law-abiding gun owners.

The amendments would also ensure that “no Albertan can be deprived of their property without due process of law and just compensation.”

Williams noted that the federal government has jurisdiction over firearms and that property protections are restricted under criminal law, meaning the province could face legal challenges.

The Alberta Bill of Rights was introduced in 1972 by then-premier Peter Lougheed and it has been amended since. But as Smith said in her video, “The Bill of Rights has served its purpose well over the years. But, as our society evolves, so too must our laws to ensure our rights and freedoms remain properly protected in an ever-changing world.”

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.