Friday, May 20, 2022

ALBERTA DEJA VU

Ex-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith reannounces UCP leadership bid as next step in Alberta politics

Paula Tran - Yesterday 
The Canadian Press

Former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith reannounced that she will run in the upcoming United Conservative Party leadership race on Thursday.

She thanked Kenney for the work he has done for Alberta's energy industry and added she wouldn't mind seeing Kenney stay on as premier until a new leader has been elected.

Read more:

UCP begins search for new leader with Jason Kenney stepping down

"I want to start off by thanking Premier Jason Kenney for all the work that he's done over the last number of years.

"I've decided to jump back into politics, seeking the leadership of the UCP. That is just a continuation of my last political life," Smith said.

Video: Jason Kenney announces intention to step down as UCP leader

Smith spared no time getting into her platform, saying she will fix and restore faith in Alberta politics. She also said she will attempt to unite the UCP and pointed to the large number of people who registered to vote in Kenney's leadership review.

"If you look at what happened during the UCP leadership contest, there were a lot of people who got brought into the UCP who had never been in politics before and I think that's what has occurred," Smith said.

"I think there has been a lot of division that has happened between friends and family, and we need to stop dividing people along identity lines... We are stronger united and that holds for our conservative movement as well."

Kenney’s plan to step down as UCP leader shows how hard merging 2 parties is: political commentator

Smith also said she wants to see more people run in the leadership race and noted she respects the role of individual MLAs in Alberta politics.

"I would love to see Todd Lowen and Drew Barnes throw their name in the race for UCP leadership. We need to start unifying the movement again and that's going to require all hands on deck over the next couple of years," Smith said.

Video: UCP caucus meeting to discuss future after Jason Kenney announces plan to step down

But Smith also spent time talking about her own credentials, saying she has a lot of experience as the former party leader for the Wildrose Party, which merged with the UCP in 2017.

She also talked about her time as a former radio host on 770 CHQR as proof she can "take the heat" in Alberta politics.



ON HER FIRST CAMPAIGN THE WHEELS LITERALLY CAME OFF HER BUS

Read more:

Ex-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith returns to Alberta politics, will vote against Kenney leadership

"I'm not going to enter a contest thinking I'm going to come in second place... This is a real opportunity for the UCP to make sure that we're selling memberships, that we're getting people excited again.

"I can handle the heat. I have handled it for a lot of years, and that's the way I conducted myself on the radio," Smith said.

Hopefuls for UCP leadership jockey for position, disagree over interim head

Bill Kaufmann - Yesterday 9:15 p.m.
Calgary Herald


© Gavin Young
Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche MLA Brian Jean speaks with media at McDougall Centre in Calgary before a UCP caucus meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The UCP were meeting following Premier Jason Kenney's announcement Wednesday night that he will be resigning as leader.

Less than a day after Premier Jason Kenney announced he would step down, two candidates intending to replace him are already disagreeing on how the governing UCP should move forward.

Former Wildrose party leaders Brian Jean and Danielle Smith are the only ones to state their intentions to seek the UCP’s top job so far, after Kenney told supporters Wednesday he’ll resign after capturing just 51.4 per cent of the vote in a leadership review.

On Thursday, Jean was adamant the only way for the party to move forward is to immediately jettison Kenney from the top spot and elect an interim leader.

“The leadership process can’t start until Kenney leaves — he knows that, we know that,” said Jean as headed into a UCP caucus meeting at Calgary’s McDougall Centre.

“We need to renew it and excite Albertans about the future of the party.”

In an online news conference, Smith said she wouldn’t object to Kenney staying on as premier until September — when she expects a leadership vote to be held — partly so he can host the Alberta visit of Pope Francis in July.

“The premier did a lot of work in getting reconciliation and an apology from the Vatican and the Pope . . . if he wants to stay as premier and stay for the honour he deserves, I wouldn’t object to that,” he said.

“I would defer to caucus in making that judgment.”

Later on Thursday, party officials announced Kenney would remain at the helm until a replacement was elected on a yet-to-be-determined date.

Smith said she’s learned from the past, which included what she called the “mistake” of crossing the floor as leader of the Wildrose to join with then-premier Jim Prentice’s ruling Progressive Conservatives in late 2014.

“It’s not what Albertans wanted me to do, they wanted me to continue holding (Prentice) to account. I didn’t, it was a big mistake on my part and we were both judged very harshly for that,” she said, adding she’s committed to party unity.

“Albertans recognize that with the NDP polling at 44 per cent, that if we split this movement we won’t be successful at forming the next government.”


Danielle Smith, former leader of the Wildrose Party and talk show host, is running for the United Conservative Party of Alberta in the 2023 General Election.

Part of the healing and uniting process, said Smith, would be officially apologizing to all those charged or arrested for violating COVID-19 public health restrictions in the past two years and exploring how such enforcement could be avoided in the future.

Jean has said he opposes COVID-19 vaccine mandates and expanding an immunization passport program imposed last fall.

On April 1, Smith, 51, announced she’d seek the UCP nomination in the Livingstone-Macleod riding currently held by MLA Roger Reid but also made it clear she was ready to run for the party’s leadership .

She led Wildrose beginning in October 2009 and positioned the party to defeat Allison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives in the 2012 provincial election.

But issues over perceived extremism in the Wildrose ranks and her refusal to exert discipline torpedoed those electoral hopes.

In a surprise move, she crossed the floor to join Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives in December 2014.

That was seen by many on the political right as a betrayal and she failed to win the PC nomination in the Highwood riding the following year.

Smith worked as a radio host for six years until stepping down in January 2021, citing an increasing hostility toward free speech .

She insisted that doesn’t mean she’s too thin-skinned for a return to politics.

“I can handle the heat, I’ve handled heat for a lot of years — what I can’t handle is cancel culture and that’s what we’ve really got to push back against,” said Smith.

Jean, 59, easily won the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche byelection in March on a platform of ousting Kenney as party leader.

Prior to that, he’d been an MP in the Stephen Harper federal Conservative government and led the Wildrose party after Smith’s departure from 2015 to 2017, until its merger with the PCs.

He was MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin from 2015 to 2018, leaving after he lost the party leadership to Kenney in a race tarnished by the so-called “kamikaze campaign” that remains under RCMP investigation.

Calgary-Klein MLA Jeremy told reporters Thursday he’s not ruling out a run for his party’s leadership.

“I haven’t made that decision at this time – I have a lot to add to the conversation whether thats’s running myself or getting behind somebody,” said Nixon.

“I wouldn’t rule myself out of anything at this time.”

Jean and Smith represent the right wing of the UCP, but current cabinet ministers further to the centre, including Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer and Finance Minister Travis Toews, would be credible candidates, said Mount Royal University political science professor Lori Williams.

But Williams said that leadership choice might not come down to a left-right split given what ousted Kenney.

“It had a lot more to do with his leadership choices, his flip-flopping and inability to operate to what Albertans wanted,” she said.

“He didn’t seem to hear or understand that.”


FILE PHOTO: Doug Schweitzer and Travis Toews attend the rural crime town hall at the Hampton Inn in Grande Prairie, Alta. on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019.

But because of his divisive influence, the sooner Kenney leaves the party’s top position the better, with a change in leadership automatically making an NDP election win next year harder to achieve, said Williams.

“There’s no question (the NDP) would prefer Jason Kenney staying on and the party remaining split,” she said.

Another name that’s arisen as a UCP leadership possibility is Calgary Nose Hill Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner.

She didn’t answer when asked Thursday if she’s considering entering the race, but in a statement called for unity and for her provincial cousins to strive for equality of opportunity as she does in Parliament.

“I know my conservative colleagues in the Alberta legislature will continue to do the same,” said Rempel Garner.

Former federal cabinet minister Rona Ambrose, who’s seen by some as a natural successor to Kenney, has said she doesn’t want the job.

Cypress Hills-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes, who was booted from the UCP over his opposition to Kenney’s leadership, also gave no intention of challenging for the leadership but said he was ready to return to the party.

Meanwhile, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley said uncertainty in the UCP’s leadership will continue to ensure the government’s dysfunction.

“The drama and infighting plaguing the UCP is not over,” she said, while surrounded by NDP candidates and MLAs.


And she said no matter who the UCP chooses as the next leader, they’re still headed for a tough reckoning with voters a year from now.

“What we’re hearing on the doorsteps is people don’t trust the UCP and it doesn’t matter who ultimately leads the UCP,” said Notley.

— With files from Dylan Short

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

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