Alberta Premier Danielle Smith braces for crucial leadership vote as UCP members gather

Will Alberta’s premier resign this weekend? It’s not likely, but it is possible as thousands gather in Red Deer to, among other things, vote on the job Danielle Smith is doing.

More than 5,000 people are expected at Westerner Park for the UCP Annual General Meeting (AGM).

The two-day gathering is headlined by that leadership vote, Smith’s first since taking over the party about two years ago.

“Well, the number I’m most excited about is to see if we break 6,000 people coming to what will be I think the highest attended political event not only in Alberta, but in the entire country. I think our members are enthusiastic,” Smith said.

The last UCP leadership vote in May 2022 ended with Jason Kenney resigning as UCP leader and premier.

He received 51.4 per cent approval and could have stayed on, but decided not to.

So how much does Smith need to keep her job? This week she would only say her goal is more than last time, meaning the 54 per cent she received on the final ballot to win the UCP leadership.

“If she gets 80 per cent, everybody moves on, and nobody says anything. If she gets 70 per cent, okay, can you manage the 30 per cent that didn’t like you? If she gets below that, well now we’re really having a conversation about what level of support can she carry forward and try to keep the tent together,” said Tom Vernon of Crestview Strategy.

UCP members will also vote on 20 governance and 35 policy resolutions this weekend.

Those ideas include allowing teachers to opt out of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, spending more on wildfire prevention and firefighting, and banning unions from donating to political parties.

“I think she’ll win. I dunno about the number, but I think she’ll win,” said UCP member Sherry Butler.

“I think she’s doing a great job, and I’m really disappointed that they’re doing this because we got enough to worry about,” said member Sandy Shippelt.

There are also more controversial proposals, such as recognizing only two sexes, ruling transgender procedures “cosmetic” and unfunded by taxpayers, and declaring CO2 is a nutrient and not a pollutant.

“I’m on the board there for Calgary-Acadia, and I know we’re 100 per cent behind her,” said Garry Hennan, UCP member

Leadership voting is open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and results are expected around 5 p.m. Members have to be here to vote, tickets are still available but they’re $400 for adults.

Premier ‘behaving like somebody who is worried’

This week, Smith’s government introduced the bills aimed at putting in rules around youth using preferred pronouns at school, along with restrictions on transgender surgery and transgender players competing in female amateur sports.

She also announced a renewed legal fight against the federal carbon levy and introduced a bill to revamp Alberta’s Bill of Rights aimed at giving residents the right to refuse medical treatments, including vaccines.

Party members this weekend will also vote on non-binding policy resolutions such as abandoning net-zero greenhouse gas targets and banning transgender women from using women’s bathrooms and change rooms.

“Smith clearly is behaving like somebody who is worried about this,” political scientist Lisa Young, with the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

“What we’ve seen is the premier and the cabinet really focused for the past five or six months on pursuing a policy agenda that’s intended to ensure that the party membership is supportive of the premier.”

Lori Williams, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, agreed.

Williams also pointed to Smith’s recent promise to introduce legislation next year to restrict how professional regulatory bodies like the College of Physicians and Surgeons police their members — something the party’s base has been calling for since last year.

“It looks like she’s been working very hard, a concerted long-term effort, to shore up support from those who are likely to be attending the (annual general meeting),” Williams said.

Williams and Young said Smith will likely escape the leadership review unscathed, but it likely won’t be the only moment her leadership is under a microscope.

“I think she might have created a sense of expectation in the party grassroots that they get to drive party policy,” Young said.

“There may still be a moment of reckoning down the road.”