United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith addresses party members at their annual meeting in Red Deer, Alta., on Nov. 2.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Do 6,000 Alberta conservatives go to a November meeting in Red Deer because they are totally happy with their leader?
That was the question posed to me by a long-time insider just before Premier Danielle Smith faced a United Conservative Party leadership vote this weekend. No one was sure whether she would sail through, or suffer the fate of other Alberta premiers who’ve been taken down by internal party machinations.
But it turns out those members of the UCP who were unsatisfied with her progress up to now had their feelings assuaged. The results of the leadership vote Saturday by members Ms. Smith described as a “large, raucous and opinionated family” means party members are happy. At least, happy for now.
Under UCP rules, leaders face an extraordinary amount of scrutiny from party members. Unlike, say, the federal Liberal Party, it’s easy for party members to voice displeasure over a leader. Ms. Smith won a majority government in May, 2023, but is still subject to a mandatory leadership review – one that must be held between elections – at a UCP annual general meeting. By the rules, she needs simple majority support to stave off a leadership contest.
She did much better than that, with a thumping 91.5-per-cent vote of approval.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith receives 91% support in UCP leadership vote
Of course, this contrasts with the last UCP leadership review held in May, 2022, when then-premier Jason Kenney received 51.4 per cent of the vote and decided that was his cue to leave. Many of the same people who voted against Mr. Kenney supported Ms. Smith in the UCP leadership race that began just a few weeks later.
There is no doubt the Premier’s office was fretting over the leadership vote. The same people who elected her party leader two years ago wanted her to prove her mettle, yet again.
Leading up to this vote, there has been a flurry of activity aimed at making sure she did. She held meetings with party members all summer, unveiled a Jordan Peterson Law – which she said would protect free speech by restraining professional colleges and regulating bodies – and last week introduced a sweeping series of prescriptive bills on pronouns, transgender youth and sex ed.
Still, when thousands of people were arriving in Red Deer for one of the country’s largest-ever political gatherings, there was a sense that anything could happen. The Premier emphasized the importance of party unity during her keynote address on Saturday morning, even as some party members sat with their arms crossed instead of applauding – some clutching pamphlets questioning her commitment to tax cuts and fighting vaccine mandates.
But all and all, the mood was more festive than fraught. Pointedly, the most conservative and active members of the party feel their voice was heard – including a member vote that endorsed a version of the Alberta Bill of Rights that goes much further than the amendments Ms. Smith introduced last Monday.
Under the version that passed at the AGM was “freedom from excessive taxation.” A lawyer at the AGM who spoke against the document pointed out that it is a deeply subjective question. Another section of the beefed-up bill spoke in strange tones about protecting the freedom of mobility, including to enter, leave, return, and to move about Alberta.
It’s easy to be snarky about these ideas. But the people putting them forward have sway with Ms. Smith. Gone are the days when conservative premiers in Alberta brushed off the most extreme policy resolutions.
Now, thousands sit through policy debates, mostly agreeing with one another on the importance of parental rights. But UCP members believe they’re winning. Ms. Smith said there’s a broad sense that Canada has gone too far down the road of what she referred to as socialism and eco-extremism, and those ideas from the left now losing in the court of public opinion.
At the same time, there is implicit acknowledgment from Ms. Smith that, as much as she is part of the grassroots, there are limits to actually implementing what they want. When she spoke to members in a keynote speech, she talked about doubling down on acting and governing as conservatives: “We must be unapologetic and bold.”
When she spoke to reporters just a few minutes later, the tone was different. Ms. Smith noted her government needs to see if things are legally and constitutionally feasible. It needs to be put through the lens of whether it will have support with the majority of Albertans: “We have to govern for all Albertans.”
Why did thousands of people go to Red Deer on the weekend? To see if Ms. Smith is still the same conservative firebrand, willing to always push back against the establishment, that she was in 2022. They have forced the Premier to respond to their concerns about her Alberta Bill of Rights, with her telling reporters that “maybe we have to change a bit of the language” in legislation she introduced just last week.
Already, their political activism – the fact they actually show up – has yielded results.