3/17/2023 0 Comments Rachel stuck in the middle![]() ![]() That’s precious little time for a fledgling premier to turn her low personal and party fortunes around, particularly when the UCP is heading for a wipeout in Edmonton and will likely struggle with difficulty to hold its seats in Calgary.Ĭommon sense suggests Smith should replicate the soft pivot Poilievre is doing now which, in the federal Conservative leader’s case, simply means no longer mentioning his most controversial positions.īut having covered or worked with Smith since her days as a combative public school trustee and Calgary Herald editorial writer, I believe hard-right beliefs are cemented into her DNA with pile drivers and not easily dislodged just because political opportunity knocks. Voter concerns are orbiting around inflation, health care, affordable housing and grocery bills, not Smith’s priority of delivering an Ottawa smackdown by introducing the controversial Alberta Sovereignty Act on her first day as leader in the legislature.Īnd lest we forget, the next election is only eight months away. They consistently show Smith’s abrasive positions are more of a general voter concern than real or imagined snubs from Ottawa. Capital Dispatch: Sign up for in-depth political coverage of Parliament Hill.In other words, she likely has deep support in a very shallow base of true-blue believers.Īnd those believers seem out of synch with severely normal Albertans, according to the polls. Now before Trudeau gets all wobbly-kneed at the thought of Smith roaring to the attack against his government, the new premier will have a daunting challenge to win over her fellow Albertans first.Īfter all, her probable victory will come from within a pool of 123,000 UCP memberships, this in a provincial population of 4.3 million. Sorry, the Stealers Wheel classic is on a playback loop in my head. Given up for politically dead just seven short years ago, she’s being resurrected as rebel leader of the provincial resistance, a premier vowing to build jurisdictional firewalls around her province against any federal institutions, decisions, laws or insulting policies that offend Alberta-First sensibilities.Ĭouple her probable victory with Poilievre’s current honeymoon and Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s triumphant re-election Monday and Trudeau’s got to be questioning why he’d want to be stuck in the middle with all these clowns to the left and jokers to the right. ![]() Matters worsened when she led a disastrous Wildrose defection to the Progressive Conservatives before suffering the indignity of being denied a PC nomination to seek re-election. It’s another miracle on the Prairies of sorts, given how Smith’s tolerance for extreme views from a pair of her MLAs cost her a 2012 election she could’ve won. Meet Danielle Smith, the disgraced former Wild Rose party leader now poised to become Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fiercest provincial antagonist as leader of the United Conservative Party.Īfter a campaign born out of vaccine mandate opposition amid festering Alberta alienation on multiple fronts, Smith’s considered a shoo-in for the UPC leadership on Thursday, which comes with the Alberta premier title. The next premier of Alberta could well make Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre look like a right-wing lightweight. ![]()
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