Danielle Smith is “far-right,” a “separatist” and “destabilizing,” according to her long list of haters.
Since becoming the 19th premier of Alberta in 2022, a thesaurus could be filled with the litany of labels thrown at Smith. The United Nurses of Alberta warned that her planned medical reforms, which the federal government is also scaremongering about, might destabilize the rotten Canadian health-care system. By any honest measure, such a poorly functioning health-care system deserves to be destabilized.
Alberta’s Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi vilified her decision to call a referendum on whether Alberta should pursue independence as a way to “save her political skin” (Nenshi’s approval rating sat at 35 per cent when he made the statement), and accused her of coddling separatism.
The University of Waterloo’s Emmett Macfarlane, who made a name for himself on Twitter (now X) as a rational, regulated user, called her program “evil” and declared that Smith was Canada’s most dangerous politician. For all such apocalyptic rhetoric, Smith’s record as premier has been largely competent and pro-Canada.
Alberta is not the ideologically pure conservative utopia that its proponents and critics make it out to be. It never has been. Nevertheless, Smith has governed reliably from the right and held together the coalition that is Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP).
Regicide is always a threat to the UCP leader, and Smith came into the role following a tight leadership election in which a substantial faction backed her rival. However, she rode out institutional hostility and distrust among parts of the UCP’s rank-and-file to receive 91.5 per cent support in the party’s 2024 review. That sort of stability can be considered an achievement in itself in Alberta.
On taxes, Smith has not wavered. Last year, her government introduced an income-tax bracket of just eight per cent for the first $60,000 earned in the province, which was indexed to $61,200 this year, all while holding the line on the general corporate tax rate.
Smith has been a steady supporter of the energy sector, pursuing new export capacity and making a new million-barrel-per-day pipeline to the West Coast central to both her policy agenda and her bargaining position with the federal Liberal government.
If there is any failure, it is the $9.4 billion budget deficit slated for 2026–27, which should not become habitual. However, it should be noted that this makes Alberta’s provincial budgeting part of the norm in Canada rather than the exception, though that is not an excuse.
On social policy, Smith has set her government apart from its counterparts on the nominal right-of-centre. Alberta is one of the few provinces that require parental involvement if a child seeks to change his or her name or pronoun, and it permits parents to remove their children from certain parts of the school curriculum that they deem inappropriate. Furthermore, medical gender transitions have been restricted for minors, and female sporting divisions have been restricted to biological girls and women. This goes much further than other so-called conservative premiers across this country.
Under Smith, the provincial government has strengthened the Alberta Bill of Rights, specifically around medical consent, vaccination, firearms and private property. Many of these items are dismissed by progressives on both the left and right as “culture war” politics, as though the culture war were not of the utmost importance, the best evidence being the vigour with which progressives themselves prosecute it.
On health care, Smith has been leading the way in Western Canada on reforms aimed at expanding the much-needed role of the private sector. If the United Nurses of Alberta calls Smith’s agenda “destabilizing,” it is hard to read that as anything but a good thing. To be clear, the Canadian single-payer system is so dysfunctional that people are dying because of it.
When it comes to federal relations and the place of Alberta within Confederation, Smith has navigated a minefield with impressive dexterity thus far. Smith confronted Justin Trudeau’s government without hesitation when necessary and has since pivoted to negotiations with the more publicly conciliatory government of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The accords struck between Alberta and Ottawa in May saw Ottawa shelve the oil-and-gas emissions cap in exchange for reinvigorating carbon-capture initiatives. Additionally, Alberta secured a streamlined assessment deal and the categorization of another pipeline as a project in the national interest.
Dealmaking is not surrender, and parts of the agreements between Ottawa and Alberta clearly recognize Alberta’s jurisdiction over resources, Crown land and electricity.
Of course, the biggest threat to Smith is not the federal government, the NDP or budget deficits, but the upcoming referendum over Alberta’s constitutional future.
The October 19 vote will include a non-binding choice between remaining a province and beginning the constitutional process toward a later, binding separation referendum. Smith has stated plainly that she will vote to remain. She is not telling alienated Albertans that their grievances are imaginary or immoral, but is instead giving them a vote while making it clear that she is committed to the federalist camp.
Canada has no greater, more powerful champion in Alberta than the premier, and this is what her critics cannot admit. Whether it is Alberta’s First Nations chiefs, Naheed Nenshi or others, they have been repeating for months the claim that Smith is treasonous or secretly a separatist. If she is, Smith has a funny way of showing it.
Along with her question on separation, Smith has included other constitutional questions on the October 19 ballot, including provincial judicial appointments, Senate abolition and priority for provincial laws. These are ambitious but perfectly legal constitutional proposals, certainly not an insurrection. All of them build on the longstanding Albertan conservative ideal of a stronger Alberta within a united Canada, and in this regard, Smith has the opportunity to become a generational figure.
National Post
