The cheers and jeers of Danielle Smith's private party summer

A couple of Tuesdays ago, Premier Danielle Smith's evening began with her facing heat for not rushing to ban COVID vaccines for children.

Then it moved on to Smith having to answer about why she wasn't pushing harder to remove Alberta from the Canada Pension Plan.

Before the night's end, she also fielded questions on whether she'd legalize property owners holding up intruders at gunpoint, and if the Alberta government would act on the "chemtrails" theory that aircraft are emitting chemical clouds for "geo-engineering" in the skies above us.

That evening might not have been an entirely irregular summer night for the premier — not with her current schedule.

Smith's interrogation last week came at a UCP members-only gathering at a Calgary church, following similar ones earlier in July in Bonnyville and Coaldale.

The United Conservative leader has since attended town halls for her fellow partisans in High River, Peace River and Grande Prairie. She does Olds this weekend and has a schedule dotted with several more evenings of UCP Q&As throughout Alberta the rest of the month.

She's conducting this party town-hall tour ahead of her party's annual convention in November, where members will vote on whether to keep Smith — or not — in a leadership review.

She's certainly aware of how UCP members drummed her predecessor, Jason Kenney, out of office, and how other past conservative premiers have withered under internal party pressure.

So to limit risk of another revolt, she's spending heavy time listening to (and answering to) crowds composed solely of her UCP grassroots. Smith will surely have appreciated the standing ovation party members gave her at that more than two-hour town hall grilling, but likely less appreciated were moments when the audience occasionally heckled her when her responses weren't what they wanted.

The UCP base is likely dwelling longer on the COVID restrictions and vaccine issues than the general public that's largely moved beyond the pandemic, and members are also in the clear minority of Albertans who want a province-only pension plan.

But she won't have to directly deal with what the broad range of Alberta voters want until the 2027 election. More immediate for her is that date with the narrow band of voters at the UCP meeting, less than three months away.

It's unclear whether she's gotten the same reception and sorts of questions at all her town halls; the UCP is not permitting media into these members-only events; it does not even post the town halls' dates and places on the party's main events page; CBC got to this image through a direct link from the members' newsletter.

However, we know what happened at the Calgary church event because independent journalist Katie Teeling got in, and wrote an extensive play-by-play on social media. (CBC News corroborated details through additional sources.)

She didn't appear to delight the crowd by insisting that rather than suspending innoculations for children, she wanted to preserve Alberta parents' choice.