Smith says she asked Trump officials to do the opposite of interfere in Canada's election

As one does.

Photo credit: Edmonton Journal Axe the Tax in Edmonton Rally

Canadians aren’t reacting to Donald Trump’s attacks on our economy and sovereignty right, according to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

A Premier who thinks nothing of threatening a constitutional crisis over energy policy, and resisting almost any attempt at national unity, together with a Conservative Party of Canada leader who has only recently shelved his incessant “Canada is broken” narrative, thought they were setting themselves up to be the ones Canadians turned to… in an actual crisis?

Only five years ago, Canada and the rest of the world were dealt the blow of a public health crisis. As the vacuum of no information began to be filled by misinformation, and provincial leaders started to waffle on public health policy when faced with angry citizens who bonded over sharing conspiracy theories, the chief charlatans seized the moment.

Just like Pierre Poilievre stepped in as the leader the convoy cartel needed, Danielle Smith was the one to coddle the vaccine hesitant, and both rose to the leadership of their respective parties on a wave of malcontent.

Back in 2022, the worst of the pandemic seemed to be over and the biggest concern on people’s minds was when we could possibly get back to “normal”.

Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith were both influenced heavily by 1990’s Reform-era politics in Alberta. They, along with others like former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and his former Cabinet Minister and then Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, strongly believed that Canadians didn’t really want a middle-of-the-road or “mainstream” conservative option like the Progressive Conservatives, despite their ability to draw support from a majority of Canadians and form government.

To them, the willingness to compromise and do what was best for more, rather than fewer, Canadians was seen as weakness, an abandonment of their principles instead of leadership for a diverse population.

That sentiment, in pockets of Canada and the Canadian political class — probably most starkly in Alberta and Saskatchewan — grew. It fostered the mergers of Progressive Conservative parties with the Liberals in Saskatchewan to form the Saskatchewan Party, the Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Reform-Alliance Party federally, followed by the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose Party in Alberta.

Well, at least they looked like mergers. Each of the new variations, however, swung further to the right, hidden under a cloak that was still somewhat reminiscent of what each used to be.

For the most committed ideologue, it worked exactly as they imagined it could; in swallowing up the option that was attractive to swing and moderate voters, and becoming the only option for self-identifying conservatives, they were able to finally garner enough support to be trusted with power.

Yet, in the cases of Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, that merger also came with more pressure to set the policies that were in line with the rigid and unyielding groups within; the policies that repel mainstream Canadians, and Albertans, and had kept each of their respective conservative options out of government.

They would say things like “conservatives win when we don’t compromise on conservative values”.

Unfortunately, they weren’t very open about identifying which, between more than a few different versions of conservatism, they claimed to represent.

While I wasn’t on the inside, the Conservative Party of Canada has seen three leaders since Stephen Harper, all of whom could reasonably be said to represent a different version of conservatism.

I was offered an opportunity to see both the pressures, and resistance, within Jason Kenney’s brief tenure as UCP leader, and since (but without the resistance) in Danielle Smith’s.

Ms. Smith, for her part, tamped down her worst instincts — or at least claimed to — and ran a campaign appealing to more mainstream conservatives in the 2023 election.

Down south, Mr. Trump had lost his bid for re-election to the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, and there was a sense that a blip had taken place with Mr. Trump’s first win and the U.S. was going to right the ship. It was, in retrospect, a calm before the storm.

With Mr. Trump’s re-election and the chaos that has ensued in the bare 64 days since, Canadians are no longer facing a regular election.

I’m not sure when Canadian conservatives realized it would be a problem. Did they know as soon as Donald Trump was elected, or did it take him applying the tariffs?

They had mostly tried to resist talking about what Mr. Trump was saying at all, or to consider the 51st state rhetoric a “joke”, as Danielle Smith did. It is, perhaps, because of the threat they knew it might pose to a Pierre Poilievre win if they were to acknowledge it at all.

I’ve wondered if everything that did happen since the year began had to happen for Mr. Poilievre’s lead to vanish.

If Mr. Trump had lost the election, Mr. Poilievre could have kept up his Trump-like rhetoric, and there would likely have been no threat to Canada’s economy or sovereignty.

If Justin Trudeau hadn’t resigned, Mr. Poilievre’s messaging wouldn’t have had to change. It would have been a regular “change election” where it was simply time for a new face.

Each of those things did happen, though, and Mr. Poilievre seemed, at one point, willing to pivot. Once Justin Trudeau resigned, and the general population could no longer ignore the threat that Donald Trump was posing, sentiment changed.

Immediately after Mr. Trudeau’s resignation, the liberal party registered a significant increase in support.

Canadians were relieved after that, and the party saw a bump. Launching right into a leadership race, the party saw another slight bump that held until the new leader was chosen. In the meantime, tariffs were applied, and removed, twice, signaling that Donald Trump was more than willing to damage his own country’s economy to pursue his ill-inspired goal of attacking Canada.

While I’m sure there was a hope, if not an attempt, over the last two years was to frame Mr. Poilievre’s “Canada is broken” as “under the Liberals” they didn’t manage it. If it was that “Canada is broken under Justin Trudeau”, well that’s already taken care of. However, if they had hoped Canadians filled in the blanks (a good political strategy in most cases), I don’t think they reached the appropriate conclusion.

If the next place that “Canada is broken” narrative was supposed to take us is that it would be rainbows and butterflies if the CPC formed government… that is no longer a promise the conservatives can sell to a nation worried about the next attack from Mr. Trump.

If only the problem ended there, I’d say there’s still a chance they might be able to start digging up instead of down; but it doesn’t.

Everyone who has paid even the slightest attention to Alberta in the past two years knows Danielle Smith wants the Liberals, and Justin Trudeau, out of Ottawa. She has also been a grossly blatant supporter of Mr. Trump, as well as Mr. Poilievre’s.

She has also tried to style herself as the Canadian Republican who can reach into the circles of Mr. Trump’s supporters and mingle with the worst of them. She’s tried to spin it as a badge of honour but when you look closely, the paint is chipped, and the exposed tin is rusted.

During an interview with Trump-approved media outlet Breitbart earlier this month, the Premier bemoaned the fact that Donald Trump’s “unjust and unfair tariffs” had galvanized support behind the Liberal party rather than the conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre.

She went to say that she had spoken to administration officials and asked for a “pause on tariffs” until after the next election so that Pierre Poilievre, who she believes would be “more in sync with the new direction of America”, would have a better shot at winning.

That “new direction of America”, according to Mr. Trump, is to impose economic pressure on Canada to force us to give up our sovereignty.

Which, isn’t a great endorsement — of either Mr. Poilievre, or her own leadership —to be honest.

Remember, she said this after the Trump administration had applied tariffs to Canadian exports twice.

As if she’s got no problem with the tariffs unless they’re hurting her preferred candidate’s electoral chances.

The audio has earned her numerous headlines in response, with even her former Postmedia cheering section backing away from the stench and averting their eyes.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that they just want her to stop talking because she’s hurting Pierre Poilievre’s campaign, but there definitely seems like a little chagrin present as well. Her actions now make that two weeks period they spent singing her praises seem like they weren’t necessarily seeing the forest for the trees.

In case anyone missed it; Danielle Smith was excited to go to the inauguration as soon as Mr. Trump was elected. She spent about a month tagging him in her attempt to get some attention from him on the site formerly known as Twitter. She went to Mar-a-Lago on the arm of “Canada should have an economic union with the U.S.” Mr. Not Wonderful, aka Kevin O’Leary in January.

She went not just to see the inauguration, but to mingle with Republican Senators and members of Congress on the balls and parties circuit as they celebrated the new President, who was threatening tariffs, and our sovereignty.

Ms. Smith claimed it was to “make connections” and “tell Alberta’s story”, but her part in Alberta’s story includes that time she got a better offer and stabbed almost half a million voters in the back.

That’s her part in the “Alberta story”.

Albertans trusted her, and she didn’t give a damn because Danielle Smith is on Team Danielle Smith, and that’s that.

So, when Danielle Smith claims she was asking “administration officials” to “pause tariffs until after the election”, that’s just what she’s willing to say on a podcast; only gods know what’s she’s saying to them behind closed doors.

Could she tank Pierre Poilievre’s chances at winning the election? Sure, but for Danielle Smith, that just gives her an opportunity to burn the whole thing down before she hops onto a flight for Panama and never looks back.

No one likes to clean up the mess after the party, anyway.

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