Danielle Smith in UCP-land: between a rock and a moderate place

When Jason Kenney duct-taped two parties into Alberta's United Conservatives, blue truck mythology and all, many longtime Progressive Conservatives bemoaned what they felt was a Wildrose takeover. 

Five years later, the stalwarts were unequivocal: This past weekend at the UCP's annual meeting, they were attending what was, for all intents and purposes, a Wildrose convention. Even to some old Wildrose hands who'd been absorbed into the UCP government operations, this felt mighty familiar, like the pre-merger days.

The suits and dress shirts appeared well outnumbered by windbreakers over plaid. Most attendees weren't there for networking and the open bars at hospitality suites, but for internal party process matters. And the longest-serving former Wildrose leader, infamous for abandoning her flock, got celebrated anew on the throne: Premier Danielle Smith.

Her UCP leadership victory earlier in October was supposed to mark a turn for Smith, from her lengthy conversation deep inside Alberta's conservative community — much of it about those darn COVID vaccines and rules — to dealing with the broader wants and needs of a more variously-opinionated whole province.

In fact, Smith has spent nearly her entire first two weeks since being sworn in as premier hunkered down and tending to her internal UCP audience. She has made zero policy changes or other initiatives, which breaks with the more recent trend of new premiers making hit-the-ground-running initial moves, to show action and resolve.

Those may come, some perhaps this week. But in her premiership's early moments, she was quietly organizing, learning the ropes, and retreating with her caucus for three days of team-building — perhaps reasonable given the MLAs' fractious habits, but there's a whole populace also keen to meet-and-greet the premier.

Then, immediately after unveiling her cabinet, she sequestered into UCP-land once again for three days, for the party convention at Enoch Cree Nation's casino resort.

But there's a clear understanding from Smith's team that, more than before, the rest of Alberta is watching, too — even when she's in a conference hall surrounded by 2,000-ish friends and well-wishers. 

That would be why Smith, in her convention speech, emphasized affordability and inflation relief, such as coming announcements to curb electricity costs and perhaps axe fuel taxes. And not a word in the speech that recalled Kenney's COVID policies, even if her line about the vaccines drew her biggest applause on leadership victory night.

It's clearly an issue that still animates her base, as evidenced later that Saturday afternoon, when members debated a policy resolution to protect individuals' "health care choices" (read: right to refuse vaccines and not face consequences). When a woman stepped to the debate microphone and argued that "certain choices, such as vaccination, may affect broader society," UCPers roundly booed her — so much so that the moderator pleaded with the crowd to show civility.

Hard memories of COVID can stoke the leader's passion too, even if speechwriters kept her quiet on that front in the convention's main hall. At the news conference immediately afterwards, she gamely accepted a Rebel News reporter's question about apologizing for Alberta's enforcement of COVID rules, saying on the spot she's "deeply sorry."

She also expressed interest in getting public health advice from a "larger number of people," with specific concern for the "doctors who didn't follow the narrative," — and reaffirmed she wants to find a way, if it's legal, to pardon or provide amnesty for those who have been or are being prosecuted for violating the public health law.

Sometimes, this party/public balance will involve Smith saying different things to different crowds. In an interview to the decidedly conservative Western Standard, the premier flagged that Alberta Health Services has some partnership with the World Economic Forum (a nefarious group to right-leaning social media realms). "That's got to end," Smith stated.

Yet when reporters asked the following day, she attempted vagaries. When pressed, she accused journalists of being merely part of the "entertainment industry" like she formerly was, hungry for clicks and attention.