Danielle Smith gave UCP policies they wanted. Members gave support she craved. Now what?
CBC
Cheers emanated from the counting room as UCP officials tallied the votes for Danielle Smith's leadership review.
The most optimistic in Smith's camp had expected the proportion of her support would be somewhere in the 80s.
Getting 91.5 per cent meant that, of the 4,633 party members voting at the weekend's UCP convention in Red Deer, Alta., fewer than 400 said no — despite a seemingly well-resourced campaign of messages and flyers demanding United Conservatives send a stern message to their leader.
A jubilant Smith declared the United Conservative Party "is more united than it has ever been." History shows the truth in that, given how much better Smith fared than the 54 per cent support that gave her the party crown in 2022, or what her predecessor Jason Kenney got (51 per cent) in a review, or what the last three Tory premiers to face leadership reviews received: Alison Redford (77), Ed Stelmach (77) and Ralph Klein (55).
This is her party's tacit green light for Smith to become the first Alberta leader to carry the blue banner into two straight elections in more than two decades.
This was a hard-won victory for the premier, with much heavy campaigning in recent months — first a province-wide summer tour of members-only town halls to show she listens, and then a series of government bills last week to show she acts on those members' wishes.
The Bill of Rights changes and new transgender health and sex-ed policies were inspired by UCPers at past party conventions.
On Saturday at the convention, while members voted in her leadership review, Smith held a first-ever "accountability session" to prove just how many of the dozens of past years' UCP policy resolutions she'd turned into action. Answer: nearly all.
Require parental consent for students changing pronouns at school? "Done!" Smith declared to her party faithful. Crackdowns on vote-counting machines, professional regulators, and solar panels on farmland? Check, check, check.
One of the Smith government's Bill of Rights reforms would add "freedom of expression" to the existing and similar-sounding freedoms of speech and press. Well, that was Policy Resolution 2 at last year's UCP annual meeting, the premier reminded this year's crowd.
All that adherence to the base's desires will only raise supporters' expectations that Smith and her cabinet keep up the trend with this year's party policy declarations. The UCP endorsed 35 more policy resolutions in Red Deer, most of them with the same overwhelmingly large "Yes" vote as Smith herself enjoyed.
"These are the new mandate letters," remarked one government official who's not authorized to speak on party matters. (A premier gives mandate letters to new cabinet ministers, with the expectation they'll carry out all requests.)
The reforms the UCP base demanded in their resolutions include going further on transgender policies: to end public funding of transitioning health services and non-binary options on ID cards, as well as a ban on trans women in women's bathrooms or shelters.
"Your [sic] damn right we did!" said Bruce McAllister, a senior aide to the premier, on social media. The premier has previously conveyed resistance to regulating who uses which change rooms.
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