Alberta Premier Danielle Smith waits for a meeting on health care with the prime minister to begin on Feb. 7 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is asking rural constituents to rally support for her party in Calgary, which she says is no longer the conservative stronghold it once was, ahead of the provincial election in May.
Ms. Smith addressed hundreds of rural United Conservative members at the party’s Innisfail-Sylvan Lake constituency association (CA) annual meeting on Feb. 18, where the UCP’s right flank took over the local board. She said the UCP and its New Democratic Party rivals are “neck-and-neck” in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city, as a provincial budget looms on Tuesday. She encouraged UCP constituents to door-knock in the city and in suburban ridings around Edmonton, while outlining a plan for the wealthy Innisfail-Sylvan Lake CA to transfer cash to its struggling counterparts.
“It is a tough race in Calgary,” she said. “They used to think of themselves as being pretty conservative in Calgary, but they are pretty progressive down there.”
Some moderate and progressive conservatives are skeptical of Ms. Smith, who shifted the UCP further to the right after taking over from former leader Jason Kenney. The ideological chasm within the conservative family is most dangerous for the Premier in Calgary, where many voters – and successful politicians – have a progressive tint. Calgary conservatives are also accustomed to controlling power, but Ms. Smith has tilted the balance toward rural voters and MLAs.
The UCP won 23 of Calgary’s 26 ridings in the last election. Because the UCP has a lock on most rural ridings, and the NDP dominates in the capital city, the outcome of the election will be determined in Calgary. Ms. Smith previously indicated she was comfortable shedding support in urban areas, but is now trying to convince rural voters to defend the party’s seats in Calgary against the NDP.
“A few of them are pretty solid. I think they’d have a hard time taking them away from us. But we’ve got to fight for every single vote in every one of those other ridings,” she said at the meeting. “What you can do to help is going to make all the difference.”
Mr. Kenney and Doug Schweitzer, a former cabinet member, resigned from their Calgary seats last year.
Ms. Smith attended the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake meeting alongside Devin Dreeshen, the riding’s MLA. The CA had $250,000 in its bank account, the Premier said, making it the most successful fundraising operations in the conservative apparatus. Ms. Smith noted individual constituencies only need $50,000 to run an election campaign, owing to provincial financing rules.
“This constituency, and Devin, are very generously giving $150,000 to 15 constituencies,” Ms. Smith said. The wealthier riding will distribute $10,000 to each of the designated constituencies, she said, without identifying the recipient ridings. The transfers, she said, “will be able to bring them over the finish line.”
Pam Davidson, who was elected president of the CA at the meeting, said the new board supports the wealth redistribution in the name of campaign readiness.
”We are very comfortable with the direction the previous board took in transferring money to help other CAs in this next election,” she said in an interview on Friday.
Ms. Smith and Travis Toews, the Finance Minister and former UCP leadership contestant, will present Alberta’s budget for 2023-2024 on Tuesday. Trevor Tombe, an economics professor at the University of Calgary, expects Alberta to collect roughly $70-billion in revenue in the upcoming fiscal year, down from the expected $77-billion windfall for 2022-2023. The drop reflects the slide in oil and gas prices.
If Ms. Smith, who took over from Mr. Kenney in October, maintains the government’s previous strategy, the surplus will ring in around $6-billion, Mr. Tombe said. However, the Premier last year broke from her predecessor’s path on a number of fronts: She nixed the plan to put $3-billion in the Heritage Savings Trust Fund; championed a program to send $600 to seniors and children under 18 living in households making less than $180,000 annually, in order to ease strain caused by inflation; and adjusted the fuel-tax relief plan to better favour consumers.
“The government is making a lot of policy choices that will probably lead to spending higher than whatever I would project” based on current policy, Mr. Tombe said. He noted Ms. Smith’s mandate letters to cabinet targeted operating spending growth at no more than inflation plus population of the previous year – adding that this translates into an 8.6-per-cent increase, which would allow the government to increase spending by over $3.5-billion without hitting the target ceiling.
The budget will direct more money toward primary care, the government said Feb. 21. Ms. Smith has also hinted at a willingness to send more money to individuals in the name of inflation relief.
At the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake meeting, the Premier highlighted that Mr. Dreeshen, the Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors, reviewed 161 project proposals from his colleagues and fought for “every single one” as the government prepared the budget.
“There’s going to be some good news announced,” Ms. Smith said. “If you see your favourite project is in there, then Devin Dreeshen is the one to give credit to.”