Danielle Smith’s talent is being able to manage the multiway tug-of-war between competing wings of the Alberta conservative movement in Alberta. Those talents are clearly appreciated by the party membership: at Saturday’s United Conservative Party annual general meeting, 91.5 per cent approved of the premier in her leadership review.
As for those who would rather derail Smith in what should still be the early phase of her premiership, they’re on the margins. The minority faction of Take Back Alberta, which decried Smith’s “handling of COVID-related policies,” amounted to more of a pebble in the road than a speed bump. The same can be said for the 1905 Committee, another minority faction, named for the year Alberta joined Confederation, which has been complaining that the premier’s proposed amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights don’t go far enough.
I understand the desire to quibble. We all have our list of policies we want to see happen, and the ones we vehemently disagree with. Still, it’s no reason to throw a generally successful premier overboard just as her longer-term plans are starting to come to life.
Take the drugs-homelessness-crime trifecta, for example. Smith started strong on the file by prohibiting pharmacists from prescribing “safe supply” opioids for addicts. She introduced one-stop-shop homelessness service centres in Edmonton and Calgary. The centres diverted homeless people into services when urban encampments were being cleared — those who were open to getting help, anyway.
The harm recovery-oriented strategy is offering glimmers of hope: Smith entered office with Alberta’s opioid death rate sitting at 33.6 per 100,000 people (in 2018, it was just 18.6). Though it climbed to 39.5 in 2023, that can be attributed to lag; by the first quarter of 2024, the rate sunk to 30.9. Another sign of promise came in May, when provincial data showed that, year-over-year, only 72 people died overdosing on opioids — a 55 per cent drop from the year before.
Now, could justice and addiction be handled with more haste? Yes. The government is still way too slow to appoint judges as judicial vacancies persist, which means that violent tweakers and drug-trafficking gangsters awaiting trial risk walking free due to court delays. But overall progress on tackling addictions has still been positive, and a shakeup at the top would only delay and confuse getting existing projects done. And the existing projects are worthwhile: the government is angling to open more treatment slots in the longer term, which will be the responsibility of a Crown corporation that starts getting to work next summer.
On energy, Smith has unwaveringly stood up for Alberta, pushing back on the feds with not just rhetoric, but legitimate legal tools. She continued former premier Jason Kenney’s challenge of the federal Impact Assessment Act, which he launched in 2022, and emerged victorious when the case finally went to the Supreme Court. She’s now challenging the federal Liberal government’s carbon tax exemption for home heating oil, which, for practical purposes, is a carve-out for Atlantic Canada. Even if she doesn’t succeed, it’s worthwhile for her to make the argument.
Now, did she need to waste time crafting a largely cosmetic Sovereignty Act to take Ottawa to court? Not really. But the base wanted its (pointless) red meat, and she delivered.
As for red meat with more heft, Smith is bravely using the legislature to push back on touchy cultural issues. This session, she’s advancing three bills that strike a fair compromise between biological realists and gender ideologues: one that protects female sports from male participation (while permitting mixed-gender divisions), another that limits cross-sex cosmetic interventions by banning surgery and limiting hormone interventions to 16-year-olds and up, and one that requires parents to consent to have their children socially transitioned at school if age 15 or under.
She could have gone further, by say, banning these procedures for all youth, or retracting government support for all cross-sex cosmetic procedures, but it’s understandable why she didn’t: Smith is wisely going for rules that will satisfy parents today and hold up against efforts to repeal them tomorrow.
But most admirable of all is Smith’s more subtle work. Her Provincial Priorities Act, passed in May, made the province the final authority on all contracting between the feds and provincial entities — a necessary move because the federal Liberals have politicized funding in many sectors, from academic research to municipal parks.
Going forward, her government is conducting a review into professional regulation in the province, with the intent of determining which regulators have been delving inappropriately into activism and opinion regulation. This may — well, this should — end in legislative changes that protect the free thought of professionals.
And in this legislative cycle, it appears that the Smith government is clamping down on black-market meat. It’s another necessary move due to the growing problem of illegal halal in the province, which has seen at least one residential garage turned into an illicit slaughterhouse.
All of this has been met with waves of media backlash, in which left-leaning reporters consult “advocates” to explain why each particular policy is a death knell to Alberta: on gender, on drugs, on everything else. Only, that never ends up being the case. Smith’s approval rating is at 46 per cent in the province, per Angus Reid, which has been about steady since March 2023. Recent election winners David Eby in B.C. and Scott Moe in Saskatchewan have about the same level of support in their provinces.
It’s not all perfect. Smith’s education reforms to the social studies curriculum could have been more fact-focused. Her willingness to speak directly with supporters and entertain far-fetched concerns about “chemtrails,” has landed her with bad press. Some of her base-rallying moves — the Canada Pension Plan secession that some wings of the party keep asking for, for example — would likely end up putting more power into the hands of a largely NDP-aligned civil service. (Why, by the way, is a woman with a PhD from a school that specializes in “social transformation” and teaches its students how to be “effective change agents” running the Public Service Commission?)
Still, progress is progress. What has been accomplished has been accomplished in two years, and there’s more to come. This government is going to get a lot more done under one steady hand than it ever will playing musical chairs in the premier’s office. What a relief the party membership knows what’s good for it.
National Post