UCP leader Danielle Smith clarifies comments comparing vaccinated to Nazi followers

United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith is clarifying remarks she made in November 2021 when she compared people vaccinated against COVID-19 to Nazi sympathizers.

“COVID was a really difficult and frustrating time for everyone, including me, and I don’t think that there is a single one of us that wasn’t deeply impacted in some way,” Smith told reporters Tuesday.

“Sometimes I let my frustrations get to me during that time. I clearly shouldn’t have.”

She declined to discuss the comments further, saying it’s time to move from the “dark days” of the pandemic.

“That’s why I vowed when I was elected that we were going to put this in the past, that we were going to look forward, that we were going to make sure this was a place that everybody from every walk of life felt valued and respected and optimistic for the future,” Smith said.

She also declined to answer why she was allowed to stay on as a UCP candidate while the party barred Nadine Wellwood, a candidate running in Livingstone-Macleod late last year, for making similar comments.

Watch: Alberta UCP leader Danielle Smith’s resurfaced video sparks new controversy

The comments she made are from a podcast episode in 2021 when she was a journalist, where she was asked about restrictions on freedoms due to the pandemic.

Smith, at the time, added she wasn’t wearing a poppy ahead of remembrance day that year as governments were acting against the freedoms that veterans had fought for.

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to watch the Netflix series ‘How to Become a Tyrant,’ but it starts with Hitler in the first episode, and it’s absolutely appalling and shocking how — and it’s one academic says — I know so many people would say they must have filmed this before COVID,” Smith said.

“So many people say that they would not have succumbed to the charms of a tyrant, somebody telling them that they have all the answers. And he said, ‘I guarantee you would.’

“And that’s the test here, is we’ve seen it. We have 75 per cent of the public who say, ‘Not only hit me, but hit me harder, and keep me away from those dirty unvaxxed.’

“We’re already hearing about people being denied treatment for not being vaccinated, being taken off the organ donor list. What are we becoming?

“It is diabolical.”

Read More: UCP leader Danielle Smith’s resurfaced video links COVID vaccinated to Nazi followers

Smith was criticized by the Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith, saying there’s no justification for politicians to make contemporaneous comparisons to the Nazi regime.

The Royal Canadian Legion also condemned Smith’s comments.

“The poppy is a symbol of remembrance of those who have served Canada and made the supreme sacrifice in the name of democracy and adding that it has no role in politics,” a statement from them reads.

The Calgary Jewish Federation has said it won’t weigh in during the election but pointed to a March 2021 newspaper column that criticized Smith for raising concerns COVID mandates could eventually mirror medical experiments the Nazis did on humans.

Meanwhile, the Alberta NDP criticized the UCP in a statement for disqualifying Wellwood while letting Smith stay on.

“It’s clear that the UCP has abandoned its principles if it’s willing to be led by someone who casually compares Albertans to Nazis and refuses to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day,” said Gwendoline Dirk, the candidate running against Smith in Brooks-Medicine Hat.

Smith said her goal has been to move on from COVID since she won the party leadership last October to replace Jason Kenney as UCP leader and premier.

“I vowed when I got elected that we were going to put it in the past, that we were going to look forward, that we were going to make sure that this was a place where everybody from every walk of life felt valued and respected and optimistic about the future,” she said.

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Smith ran and won the UCP leadership in part by capitalizing on anger and concerns from party members over COVID restrictions in 2022.

On her first day as premier, Smith called the COVID unvaccinated the “most discriminated-against group” she had seen in her lifetime.

During her time, she has made a few decisions to strike at COVID-19 restrictions, including firing chief medical officer Deena Henshaw and the board of Alberta Health Services.

In addition, Smith promised to seek pardons for those charged with non-violent COVID offences but later backed off, saying she didn’t realize premiers don’t possess such powers.

She is under investigation by Alberta’s ethics commissioner after a leaked recording of a phone call surfaced in late March in which she is heard offering to help COVID protester Artur Pawlowski with his criminal case.