Danielle Smith may be down in the polls, but here's why you can't count her out
CBC
This column is an opinion piece written by James Johnson, a policy consultant and former aide to then-Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.
Danielle Smith's start as premier has not been smooth. Recent polls confirm it.
It's been far from a Hawaiian honeymoon, but not nearly as rocky a trip as former premier Jason Kenney's "Aloha-gate" turbulence over Christmas of 2020.
Everyone needs to take a breath.
It's six months until the election. Five months ago, Smith wasn't even the front-runner for the UCP leadership, and she's been premier for six weeks. For four of those, her hands were tied by rules which limited government activity during her byelection.
She's just getting started.
Smith is whip-smart, hard-working — and on her best day, the most effective communicator in Alberta politics. You cannot count her out.
She's stumbled because it seems like she never stopped campaigning for UCP leader. Continued emphasis on Ottawa and COVID have left people wondering if she knows she's won. Her victory speech did her no favours here.
To me, it's clear what she's doing. She knows she won and how she did it. She's got some political bills to pay and she's going to honour them.
As she did in her Wildrose days, she leveraged a group of outsiders and their grievances to quickly gain political power.
She'll serve up much red meat in her legislative agenda next week, to get her base salivating and her opponents seething.
A populist Sovereignty Act and human rights protection for people who refuse COVID vaccines have haters convinced Smith will march her UCP caucus into the legislature as if they're re-enacting the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, complete with Viking hats and war paint, waiving a cocktail napkin scrawled with the word "sovereignty."
I'm betting on the opposite. Her Sovereignty Act will more likely be a mundane piece of legislation in line with Canada's Constitution, precisely what she's indicated for months for those who've listened.
Smith has already smoothed some of the act's rougher separatist edges. She has a new name for her keystone legislation: the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.