Smith’s antics play mainly to fringe supporters By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 10, 2023

Danielle Smith became premier of Alberta last October by winning the leadership of the ruling United Conservative Party following the resignation of Jason Kenney. She must hold an election, her first as UCP leader, before the end of May. She is going about it in a very odd way.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/04/2023 (880 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Her trajectory resembles that of Liz Truss, the British Conservative member of Parliament who served as U.K. prime minister for six weeks last fall. Both women appealed to grassroots party members who ignored the warnings of party bigwigs.

Ms. Truss quickly quit the premiership after her tax-cutting budget triggered chaos in U.K. financial markets. The party promptly chose her leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, as their new leader and premier.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has earned a reputation for political volatility. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press files)

Ms. Smith, premier for six months already, has outlasted Ms. Truss by watering down her talk of Alberta sovereignty enough to keep support of the UCP legislature caucus. She won the leadership by recruiting new party members among rural anti-vaccine Albertans who formerly felt Mr. Kenney was neither anti-Ottawa enough nor anti-vaccine enough for their tastes.

Ms. Smith has earned a reputation for political volatility. As leader of the opposition Wildrose Party in 2014, she denounced party members who defected to the ruling Conservatives. She then defected to the Conservatives a month later, taking eight other Wildrose legislators with her.

When her plan to defy Supreme Court of Canada decisions about the powers of the Alberta legislature provoked mockery, she admitted to using imprecise language and eventually dropped that idea. More recently, her advocacy of amnesty for people accused of crimes in the Coutts border blockade by anti-vaccine truckers in the early weeks of 2021 showed a weak grasp of the limits of a premier’s power.

She announced last week an intention to sue the CBC for its reporting about her contacts with Crown prosecutors over the Coutts blockade prosecutions, adding that her lawyer had advised her to stop commenting on the matter because of her possible eventual lawsuit. She then resumed commenting on the matter in a later news conference and on her regular Saturday radio broadcast.

On its face, her lawyer’s advice to hold her tongue seemed wise. The New Democratic opposition party has published the recording of her telephone conversation with anti-vaccine campaigner Artur Pawlowski, who still awaits a verdict on his criminal mischief charges in the Coutts blockade. (She has now fallen silent after Alberta’s ethics commissioner began investigating whether she had interfered with the administration of justice.)

Her explanations for offering to speak to Justice officials on his behalf were unpersuasive. Her general rule is that elected officials should not intervene with prosecutors on behalf of accused people but she contends that her interventions on behalf of Mr. Pawlowski were part of her ordinary conversations with citizens and government officials.

Her insistence on her freedom, as premier, to discuss prosecutions with justice officials has shocked Albertans who want prosecutors to lay charges on a professional basis, without politicians intervening to get their friends off lightly.

Her insistence on her freedom, as premier, to discuss prosecutions with justice officials has shocked Albertans who want prosecutors to lay charges on a professional basis, without politicians intervening to get their friends off lightly. Her conduct may, however, have pleased the anti-vaccine Albertans who brought her to power in the first place.

If the number of anti-vaccine Albertans delighted by her loyalty to their movement exceeds the number of electors who want justice meted out impartially between friends and foes of the government, then she may gain an electoral advantage by sticking to her guns. Her history of rapidly shifting principles, however, warns that she may cut Mr. Pawlowski loose as soon as she finds the electoral wind blowing against her.