Danielle Smith is the worst thing to happen to Alberta since Jason Kenney.
It’s been slightly over two months since she assumed the leadership of the United Conservative Party.
In that time, Smith has rammed an unconstitutional Alberta Sovereignty Act through the provincial legislature. She’s called for the revenue generated at national parks in Alberta to stay in Alberta. And she’s pushed for vaccination status to become a protected ground under the Alberta Human Rights Act, a move that panders to members and supporters of the separatist trucker convoys.
In return, she’s earned the disapproval of a whopping 58% of Albertans. And for good reason.
Danielle Smith is wildly out of touch with the province she’s supposed to be leading.
Alberta separatism a fringe movement
Here’s what Smith doesn’t seem to understand: Alberta works best when Alberta works with the rest of Canada, including the federal government that Smith so despises.
But guess what? Most Albertans understand this, even if our premier doesn’t.
In a recent poll, only 32% of Albertans agreed that “The Alberta Sovereignty Act is necessary to stand-up for Alberta against the federal government.” That figure was even lower in the key cities of Edmonton and Calgary, where, respectively, 27% and 29% of residents agreed with that statement.
Those numbers are consistent with polling data for other anti-Confederation UCP policy proposals.
In a spring 2022 survey, 55% of Albertans opposed creating a provincial police force. While in an October 2022 survey, 60% of Albertans opposed creating a new provincial pension plan to replace CPP.
The numbers are even starker in polls about Albertans’ views on Confederation more generally.
A spring survey found that only 19% of Albertans wanted the province to leave Canada, down from 29% in February 2019. That same survey found that nearly two-thirds of Albertans qualify as “federalists”: they want the federal-provincial relationship to continue functioning as it does now, without major constitutional or legislative changes. And importantly, these federalists aren’t just the dominant group amongst Alberta New Democrats—they also constitute a near-majority of UCP supporters.
You see, here’s what Danielle Smith and the UCP don’t get: Alberta isn’t nearly as separatist or anti-Canadian as caricatures of the province make it out to be.
Sure, separatist sentiments spiked after the 2019 federal election—commanding the support of 29% of Albertans. And yes, Alberta has a fringe separatist party pushing for a “Wexit.” But “Alberta nationalism” is a fringe movement even when its popularity waxes. It just happens to be a particularly loud one and to fit with stereotypes about who Albertans are, so it gets a lot of airtime nationally and locally.
On the whole Albertans, even fairly conservative ones, don’t want Alberta to be its own country—either within or without Canadian Confederation.
An opportunity for progressives, provincially and federally
Albertans don’t want the crap Danielle Smith and the UCP are force-feeding us. That presents a fabulous opportunity for progressives: not just to defeat the UCP in Alberta’s upcoming provincial election, but more importantly to win over conservative-minded voters who recognize the value of Confederation.
Alberta’s progressives are a movement committed to national unity. We’re a movement committed to making Canada work as a country and an idea. We’re a movement committed to our province’s place within both.
And that makes us extremely competitive in “conservative” Alberta.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that left-leaning Albertans compromise on our progressive politics in a bid to “reach across the aisle.” There’s no point electing the NDP or any other leftist government if we have to sacrifice our key values in order to do so.
What I am suggesting is that progressives don’t have to.
By branding ourselves as the most Canadian and the most Albertan option on the political market, progressives can win in Alberta as progressives. And in the process build common ground with Albertans who identify with the centre and centre-right of the political spectrum—no small number of voters.
How to win in Alberta
Albertans want to be a part of Confederation.
What we find frustrating, however, is being written off as, well, political hicks by the rest of Canadians.
We have a voice, and we want it to be heard. So of course, when we feel ignored, some of us turn to fringe political forces like the trucker convoys or Danielle Smith to make our views known. Which, of course, only further alienates our province from the rest of the country.
Most Albertans, however, lead lives of quiet political desperation.
Nearly three-quarters of us believe the federal government doesn’t care about issues important to Albertans. While a majority of us think our provincial government has been doing a poor job in areas like the economy, the environment, and health care.
We’re hungry for political representation that works for us and our needs. Yet Canada’s progressive party, the NDP, has historically written us off in federal elections, even refusing to campaign here. Is it any wonder, then, that we turn out for the only parties—conservative ones—that have even pretended to take us seriously?
If progressives want to win in Alberta, they need to start offering Albertans what we want: representation at the provincial and federal levels.
Listen to what we have to say. Bring our issues to the political table. Give us a place on the national agenda. Tell us you’ll speak for real Albertans, not some caricature of who we are or what we believe. And we’ll reward you with our votes.
What Albertans across the political divide are saying right now is that provincial sovereignty is bad for our province. Our real priorities are healthcare, education, and combating inflation.
We support leftist policy proposals like instituting a universal basic income, in overwhelming numbers. We oppose the privatization of our healthcare system. And, most significantly, we want to keep working with the rest of the country.
These are progressive priorities. Progressives just need to recognize they’re Albertan priorities, too, and they’ll start winning here.
The time is right now for left-leaning politicians to triumph in the Conservative heartland. Precisely because, like Albertans of all political stripes, we’re Canadians first and foremost. Let’s embrace that fact, make it the centre of our political messaging, and invest in the sort of activism and campaigning that will allow us to seize this moment in Alberta’s political history.
Let’s win.
It’s time the real Albertans governed
Maybe I’m wrong about Premier Danielle Smith. Given her history of crossing the floor when it suits her, maybe we should be counting down the days until she becomes an NDP.
Maybe that’s why she’s introduced policies so deeply at odds with what Albertans really want: because she’s a deep-cover NDP operative working to alienate people from the UCP from within.
Alas, probably not.
She seems to have bought hook, line, and sinker into the caricature of Albertans as far-right separatists. But that’s a political fantasy, not the reality on the ground.
And if the polls are right, and the UCP keeps lagging behind the NDP in the key battleground city of Calgary, then Smith is going to be punished for believing it come the spring.
Too bad we’ll have to wait that long. It’s high time that real Albertans were allowed to govern.
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