Danielle Smith, Rachel Notley and everything they wish Alberta voters wouldn't look at
CBC
The party leaders stood a few feet away from each other, but Danielle Smith may as well have been in a radio booth in another building, or hours from where Rachel Notley was.
The UCP leader refrained from casting her eyes in her NDP rival's direction throughout the debate. No looking at Notley while Smith was debating; no pivoting her neck to the side while she listened.
The incumbent premier's face and gaze were consistently focused on the camera in front of her, TV-anchor-style. While political strategists perennially insist that a leader should speak directly to voters rather than to their opponent, Smith's performance took that conventional wisdom to an extreme of sorts.
Sure, when you're spending an hour on live TV, one may never be sure what to do with their eyes — or their hands, as Notley showed when she referred to 35,000 new students without teachers and held up four fingers.
Notley has logged fewer live-media hours in her life than ex-broadcaster Smith, but this is her third election leaders' debate (after 2015 and 2019) to her opponent's second (2012). The NDP leader's gaze shifted, sometimes haltingly, between the person to her side and the mass of Albertans staring at her.
Smith knew what she had to do.
As the incumbent and apparent front-runner, she had to spend 60 minutes not getting rattled, and come across as consistent. She accomplished that.
Notley may have hoped to rattle, but UCP insiders had hoped Smith would keep the unflappable cool she had conveyed in months of Question Period jousting between the two leaders. They'd be proud of Thursday night's poise.
The NDP leader may have had more zingers, but was anybody on stage zinged or zung?
As much as politicos hype up leaders' debates as major turning points in a campaign, they so rarely are.
There's a reason we still reminisce about Tory leader Brian Mulroney's 1984 "you had an option" moment against the Liberals' John Turner — it's because we've gone the four decades since without any lines remotely as memorable or powerful.
And yes, Notley was the benefactor in 2015 of a dismal performance by incumbent Jim Prentice and his "math is difficult" quip. In 2054, Alberta political junkies will still wax fondly about that, in elusive search of the next debate's knockout punch.
But with the lone Alberta leaders' debate of 2023, there seemed greater potential for an indelible moment that voters might carry with them into the ballot box.
The one-on-one leaders' showdown is profoundly rare in Canadian history, and without precedent in Alberta.