For the average Edmontonian, the Fringe is a great summer theatre festival.
But for Alberta’s political watchers, the fringe is something else entirely. It’s the folks out there on the outer edge of the right wing of conservative politics.
It’s a constituency that Premier Danielle Smith feels the need to pay attention to, particularly if she wants to sweep her party’s leadership review in November.
This summer Smith is keeping some of those edgy right-wing issues on the agenda, popping up at town halls and never shying away from the final out-there question or two at the end of otherwise dull media conferences.
Social media and the regular media may be full of hand-wringing about bread and butter health care, daycare and economic concerns. But Smith is finding time to promise action on the use of personal pronouns in school and keeping “biologically male” athletes out of women’s sport.
She is promising a beefed-up Alberta Bill of Rights will be introduced in the fall. She says she can’t reveal all the changes, but the right to refuse medical treatment (which obviously is aimed at the Covid vaccine conspiracy cadre) will be included.
The premier has been patient at town halls throughout the province which are often hijacked by those with more extreme views on the whole vaccine issue.
She has pushed back on those who propose that the vaccines be altogether banned, however. But the fringe is broadening out its interests well beyond the Covid health measures that spawned convoys and blockades.
For instance, a little lobbying group from southern Alberta is anxious that the right to keep and bear arms be included in that revamped Bill of Rights. And how about the right to protect one’s property, which smacks of U.S.-style Stand Your Ground provisions?
Smith certainly fought federal gun law provisions in the past, but hasn’t committed yet to enshrining guns in the Bill of Rights. But who knows what might be in the legislation coming out in the fall?
While finding ways to satisfy the right has been Smith’s great strength so far, it’s not always easy.
Take immigration as a broad topic. The premier wants to double the province’s population and she says immigration from around the globe will be needed to achieve that target.
But there’s a good portion of the fringe building up a head of steam to oppose that influx.
Take the manifesto of another right-wing group, the 1905 Committee. That group is fairly focused on a few major issues, and one of those is immigration.
“Alberta should amend the Canada-Alberta Cooperation on Immigration to create a unique immigration policy focusing on attracting skilled, young immigrants aligned with Western values, while limiting overall immigration to safeguard economic interests and cultural heritage, following the model of the Canada-Quebec Accord,” the committee says on its website.
So basically they want not so many immigrants, and they should be as much like us as possible.
The fringe social media folk have been even more adamant than that about rejecting the need for more immigration. Smith felt the need to blink.
Her office tried to download the anger on the federal government with a press release saying Ottawa’s “open-border policies are resulting in unsustainable levels of population increase that make it very difficult for any province…to keep up, leading to shortages in housing, public infrastructure and needed health and education professionals.”
How the premier walks that particular line in the next few months should be pretty interesting. The fringe base might be pushing that anti-immigration agenda, but the province, and Smith’s own party, is becoming more and more culturally diverse.
That push-pull of the fringe and the majority of Albertans is more and more evident. Pressure groups like Take Back Alberta have been able to mobilize at the constituency level and seize seats on the United Conservative Party’s board, but Smith’s job is to serve all Albertans, and, of course, get elected again.
Leger 360 did a survey in early August on the government’s performance. The UCP is still comfortably out in front in voting intentions, but the trend line shows Smith’s popularity slumping somewhat and approval of government action on the basics, such as health care, the economy and jobs, also softening.
It will be interesting to see if adding more edgy issues and surprise legislation like a revised Bill of Rights is the sort of thing that will bolster or hurt Smith’s overall popularity.
