Why Pierre Poilievre's convention in Alberta won't be like Danielle Smith's

Albertans could be forgiven for expecting certain things from the big political convention coming to Calgary this week, after so much turbulent experience watching them locally in recent years.

Fresh in the mind might be the Alberta separatists who came out in force to the United Conservative meeting last fall and booed Premier Danielle Smith at the first mention of her belief that Canada can work.

Or the heavily freighted policy debates and elections of party directors. Or the surge of new activist members who make those the centre-stage events, persuaded by organizers who say members can “control the party” and keep their leader on a tight leash.

It’s probably best to shed those assumptions.

The federal Conservative convention may be set in Alberta starting on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean it will unfold anything like how the UCP gatherings do.

Sure, there are some structural similarities — a few thousand partisans in attendance, hospitality suites spilling boozily into the night, a much-anticipated leader’s speech (and even one from Smith scheduled for Saturday). 

But a key difference that can make the Conservative Party of Canada’s gathering a more managed affair is structural. It’s a delegated federal convention, which means that each of the 343 ridings choose members to be voting representatives — a formal, organized way of deciding who’s on the convention floor, and one that can make it more of an insider-led event.

Contrast that with the UCP one-member/one-vote model, where any active member could plunk down a couple hundred dollars (or less for early birds) to become a full-fledged convention-goer. If an overwhelming number of party activists from northeast rural Alberta came out en masse, they’d become a dominant force.

But the grassroots-powered movement ethos that has defined recent UCP conventions doesn’t appear to have taken hold with its federal counterpart.

For years, the Take Back Alberta movement encouraged ordinary Albertans to get involved in the UCP and sway government policy and direction, using annual general meetings as the main vehicle.

To leader David Parker and its other organizers, the convention’s selection of a party president and other board directors became such a key way of wielding influence that Take Back would hold public forums with the board candidates.

"After this AGM, the grassroots of the UCP will be in charge," Parker wrote on the eve of the UCP’s 2023 meeting. "Those who do not listen to the grassroots or attempt to thwart their involvement in the decision-making process, will be removed from power."

That’s a veiled reference to Jason Kenney, the former UCP leader who was pushed out by members after a tepid 52 per cent vote in a special leadership review.

Kenney himself had spurred a belief that UCP rank-and-file would take a lead role in writing party policy, when he publicly made a "grassroots guarantee” when he was first running for the UCP leadership.