Danielle Smith pulled out all the stops ahead of leadership review; and it worked

Danielle Smith promised to govern from a rural perspective. Whether because she believes in it, or because it keeps her in power, is another question.

Photo credit: Danielle Smith on X (Twitter)

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wasn’t that popular during the 2023 election. In an attempt to get their supporters to the polls in 2023, conservatives on the doors in Calgary were rumoured to have told voters she “won’t be around long” after the election.

It’s possible they honestly believed she might not pass her review, which must be held every three years. It’s equally possible they simply lied in hopes that people who weren’t keen to support Smith would vote for her anyway, and the UCP could squeak by with a leader whose bags were already packed for Panama before she made the leap back into Alberta politics.

This weekend, Danielle Smith faced a small portion of her party’s membership (approximately 6,000 of the 120,000 they purported to have ahead of the leadership race in 2022 that she won with 42,000 votes) and came away with a very safe 91 per cent approval.

The usual suspects are hoping a lot of people will have “crow on the menu”. “Where was all the dissent?” They asked.

For comparison, over 15,000 members paid the registration fee to vote in the leadership review of former premier Jason Kenney. That number forced the party to move the review to remote, rather than in-person, voting. He received a bare 51.4 per cent support for his leadership, leading to his cowardly decision to resign.

The party brass learned from that experience, assuredly. Paying $10 for a membership to share one’s dissatisfaction with the leader by mail is far more convenient than paying a few hundred, and giving up a precious Saturday, to actually show up.

I’m certain Smith would have accepted the bare minimum, looking properly solemn and thoughtful, saying she will seek council from those who didn’t support her, while promising to do better for all members etc., etc.

Unlike Kenney, Smith still feels beholden to old guard conservative forces who wanted unpopular — and expensive — policies that just didn’t make sense in a province that already can’t afford services it is required to provide. Namely, following the Quebec model of a provincial pension plan, tax collection, and a provincial police force.

While those have received less public attention lately, they are big line items that her mentors were highly focused on in the name of provincial autonomy. Unlike Quebec — whose residents have the highest provincial tax rates in the country to support its social safety net and autonomy-focused policies — these additional operational costs will be absorbed entirely by the government and Albertans won’t have to actually pay for them.

Don’t laugh — Alberta has used oil revenues to pay for general operating expenses for decades. We’re used to “free stuff” from our government and apparently we’ve decided that we don’t need to worry about a time when that might not happen.

Thank goodness oil didn’t just drop $8.50/barrel below the province’s fantasy budget target.

I’m kidding, of course.

Relying on a volatile commodity to pay for things Albertans rely on is part of the reason Smith promotes “choice”. If Albertans can be inconvenienced enough to move away from publicly-funded education and health services, choosing private fee-for-service options instead, it will be used to justify the government refusing to provide them.

There’s more than one way to get “smaller” government.

Fighting with Ottawa

“I don’t believe Justin Trudeau has a mandate with what he’s trying to impose.” ~ Premier of Alberta, who simultaneously believes less than one per cent of a population does provide a mandate.

The Premier’s comment was in reference to the emissions cap that the Liberals campaigned on in 2021.

Quick note: minority governments have a mandate if they have support of the House. CPC leader Stephen Harper had a mandate with his minority government, and so has every other minority government in Canada that can pass legislation with a majority of votes.

Oddly enough, the fact that a confidence and supply agreement was ever in place between the Liberals and NDP is the less common way to achieve this, but it doesn’t change anything for the Liberals without it, until they can’t secure a majority of votes.

The second battle with Ottawa is one that I don’t entirely disagree with, but the UCP seems determined to lose it before they even start, despite the fact that they now seem willing to admit that there is a reasonable goal to having a carbon tax — changing behaviour.

Justice Minister Mickey Amery said during a press conference this week that the federal government’s pause on applying the carbon tax to home heating oil disregards the main point of having a carbon tax at all because heating oil is the most emissions-intensive way to heat a structure. This is absolutely correct and a good foundation for an argument against the carbon tax generally; if you’re not going to use it to change behaviour, then it’s a tax grab/wealth redistribution, or whatever else you want to call it.

They should have stopped there. Naturally, they didn’t.

Amery added that the government’s lawyers will argue that providing an exemption for some forms of home heating but not other, less emissions-intensive forms of heating such as natural gas, is unconstitutional. I cannot think the Alberta government lawyers have any intention of actually arguing this, but I’m not a lawyer.

Exemptions are often used to balance potentially disproportionate impacts of government policy. The carbon tax rebate, for example, is much higher in Alberta; not that you’ll ever hear a conservative even mention its existence.

The first exemption was not offered to heating oil, though Albertans could be forgiven for not knowing since the UCP seems to have a general rule of remaining silent when a federal policy provides a benefit to any of us. In August of 2023, the House passed a private member’s bill exempting farmers from paying carbon taxes on certain actions such as grain drying, barn heating, feed preparation, and irrigation.

The UCP did not raise any concerns with the constitutionality of such an exemption, only offered to some Canadians within a specific industry, which probably won’t help their case. Don’t forget, I’m not a lawyer.

That the impact of a heating oil exemption is negligible in Alberta — since most of us are captive consumers to royalty-generating natural gas — doesn’t change the fact that the less than one per cent of the population who use heating oil in Alberta will also see that exemption because it is applied equally across the country.

I am fully in agreement with the fact that the temporary heating oil exemption was a bad policy decision by the Liberal government for exactly the reason Amery mentioned: carbon pricing is meant to encourage us to make different choices and reduce emissions.

If you want people to make different choices, short of outlawing those choices, the simplest way to do so is by increasing the price on the thing you want people to stop using.

No one is being forced to buy heat pumps, or switch to electric or hot water heating, but if it’s cheaper than using heating oil, maybe they will be so inclined. No one is being forced to take public transit, or ride share, or consider an electric vehicle, but if it’s cheaper than driving around alone in a combustion engine vehicle, maybe they will be so inclined. It’s a disincentive that still allows people to make their own choices.

With that being said, I don’t think you can make a strong legal case against half-baked policy. Harmful policy that actually infringes on the rights of a protected class of citizen, sure, but short-sighted policy that undermines every reason for the policy to exist yet is applied equally to all users? I have my doubts.

Again, I’m neither a lawyer nor someone who has to take their marching orders from people who care less about the outcome than they care about looking like they do.

‘Berta-based

In Alberta, we greatly value our American heritage. We love the free speech-iness, rabid, if careless, gun culture, and defending land that was stolen or undervalued for our ancestor’s benefit from would-be outlaws without consequence. We want to be known as “Texas of the north” or “Canada’s Florida” for reasons that escape me completely.

Well, at least those of us who have decided to rally around Danielle Smith do, anyway.

Some Albertans want to ensure they will always be able to access guns. So, in the spirit of pretending to do something, the UCP proposed legislation that would protect the right of Albertans to legally own firearms. Basically, the party upholds the right of Albertans to follow federal laws.

The UCP proposed to protect Albertans from censure of their political and religious beliefs by professional organizations of which they are members, so long as their speech is not in contravention of federal laws. Big of them, I know.

They also promised to protect property rights with far more enthusiasm than one should be able to muster for yet another law that already exists. So much winning.

In accordance with the conspiracy theory crowd, the UCP tabled their legislation to protect children from having their own thoughts and feelings until they are old enough to matter to elected officials; unless they want to become members of the UCP and support Danielle Smith. They are totally mature enough to have a say in the democratic process before they can be counted on to know how they feel about their own bodies.

In fairness, more progressive parties in Alberta also allow members as young as 14, they just also believe kids have other thoughts and opinions that should be respected, too.

No matter how you look at it, Smith’s leadership is secure

There’s no guarantee that Smith couldn’t have passed her leadership review without reiterating rights that already exist for every Albertan while determined to take rights away from other Albertans.

The question I’m seeing is: does it give her the cushion she needs to now govern for the rest of Alberta, too, or does it give her the mandate to keep governing the province based on debunked conspiracy theories and personal anecdotes of exceptional, even completely made up, experiences?

Despite the fact that I’m sure these questions were in good faith, I think we all know the answer. Smith is not invested in the future of this province or its citizens and she will govern without any consideration of the impact of her decisions or policy. If she is successful, she will be off to Panama enjoy her retirement. If she is unsuccessful, she will be off to Panama to enjoy her retirement.

Nothing she does here will affect her future in any way and that gives her complete confidence to do all the things that cooler heads couldn’t justify saddling themselves, their legacy, or their children, with.

Her bags were packed long before we got here.

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