Alberta premier set to make keynote address over weekend

All eyes are on Premier Danielle Smith who’s set to make a keynote address at the UCP Annual General Meeting taking place this weekend – what will she have to do to win over her party as well as voters before the spring election?

Banning Critical Race Theory in schools, getting rid of upper management in AHS, making a transportation corridor – these are some of the policies that the UCP will debate and vote on in the annual general meeting this weekend – what should you as a voter look out for?

“She disappointed her base the last time she was the leader of the Wild Rose, and I think she’s trying to assure them that she’s not going to do that this time around. But in preparing for the next election she needs to reach out to more voters,” explained Chaldeans Mensah, a political scientist at MacEwan University.

In the meeting the party will be debating several policies and resolutions – everything from targeting Trudeau’s carbon tax, developing a transportation corridor with Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the motion to eliminate teaching Critical Race Theory in schools – which the political scientist says will showcase the party’s ideologies.

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“This Critical Race Theory is not going to fly. There’s going to be heavy criticism of it, I think that it’s going to be endorsed heavily to reject that kind of approach. So this will show really the divide between the NDP and the UCP,” added Mensah.

Another policy they’ll be debating is reducing management in AHS and hiring more primary health care providers.

“I think that is likely to be very popular with the grassroots of the party. They are in favour of modernizing the AHS to make it more responsive to achieving outcomes for the public and therefore eliminating layers of administrative and bureaucratic control over the healthcare system.”

At the same time the UCP AGM is happening here in Edmonton, the NDP are holding their AGM in Conservative battle zone Calgary – who will win over their most reluctant voters?