Let’s cut to the chase: Who won last night’s United Conservative Party leadership debate in Medicine Hat?

Former NDP leader Brian Mason debating UCP frontrunner Danielle Smith, then Wildrose Party leader, back in 2013 (Photo: Daveberta.ca).

Answer: Rajan Sawhney.

Leastways, Ms. Sawhney did the best job of dismantling frontrunner Danielle Smith’s fatuous constitutional proposal and beating her up for her cruel and ludicrous suggestion cancer sufferers could have avoided their illness if only they’d invested more effort in self-care.

For all their talk about the need to be forceful with Ottawa, the others – including supposedly serious candidates Travis Toews, Brian Jean, and Rebecca Schulz – lacked focus and aggression when it came to countering the glibly confident Ms. Smith as she dodged, weaved, and distracted.

They permitted the now-acknowledged frontrunner to get away with blithely passing off her offensive cancer remark as a misunderstanding, and mostly didn’t press her very hard for refusing to acknowledge that her Alberta Sovereignty Act is a meaningless fantasy and an abandonment of the rule of law.

Ms. Smith’s facile promise that technology could help Alberta quickly achieve carbon neutrality without inconvenience or sacrifice passed unchallenged – unless something was said during one of the frequent interruptions in the UCP’s streaming service. 

Candidate Rajan Sawhney during last night’s debate (Photo: Screenshot of UCP livestream).

Unfortunately, Ms. Sawhney’s debating skill last night is unlikely to count for much when it comes to her chances of actually emerging in October as the winner of this wearisome and seemingly endless contest to replace Jason Kenney as leader of the UCP and, at least temporarily, premier of Alberta.

You could sense the Southern Alberta crowd in the helicopter hangar at Medicine Hat Regional Airport grumbling when Ms. Sawhney effectively skewered Ms. Smith. 

You could hear them give Ms. Smith the loudest cheer of the evening when she complained about “lockdowns” by the Kenney Government. (Throughout the pandemic there were some restrictions but no lockdowns in Alberta.)

Such party members are sure to ignore the best and bluntest line of the evening, Ms. Sawhney’s warning to her fellow Conservatives that “a Danielle Smith victory today means a Rachel Notley victory tomorrow!”

After the debate, I spoke with former Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason, who debated Ms. Smith eight times in 2013 when she was Wildrose Party leader at a series of public events throughout Alberta on the differences between their two opposition parties. 

Candidate Brian Jean during last night’s debate (Photo: Screenshot of UCP livestream).

Ms. Smith was polished compared to the others last night, Mr. Mason observed from his retirement home in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. “The only person who grasped what was needed was Sawhney.”

“Schulz tried a bit, but she seemed to stay above the fray,” he added. “Jean and Toews and Schulz, who should be serious contenders, really didn’t do it, to their detriment.”

A sharp challenge like Ms. Sawhney’s “should have been coming from four or five of them,” he added, reminding me that the crowds who watched the 2013 debates gave him the win “six times, she won one, and there was one draw.” 

Ms. Smith’s performance last night, he said, was stronger than in his debates with her, which mostly took place on college and university campuses. 

But Ms. Smith, he said of last night’s debate, “dodged the cancer stuff,” constantly pivoting to attack the others instead of answering.

Candidate Travis Toews during last night’s debate (Photo: Screenshot of UCP livestream).

Mr. Mason said he agreed with Ms. Sawhney’s conclusion that a Danielle Smith victory now will likely mean a Rachel Notley win in the general election expected in 2023. 

“I don’t think Rachel would let her get away with that,” he said, describing the former NDP premier as a much stronger, more skilled debater. “I think Rachel will be able to pin her down much more effectively than any of the ones tonight.”

As for the UCP candidates’ attempts to overcome Ms. Smith, “they went after her with varying degrees of effectiveness, but only Sawhney brought it to a concluding point,” Mr. Mason said. 

They need to do better at the next debate on Aug. 30, he added. If anyone else is to win the UCP leadership, “they need to hit that part and hit it hard.” 

One final observation: The candidates spent a lot of time at the start of the meeting complaining that everything about Alberta is broken – health care, education, you name it.

Just remember one thing, Conservatives have run this place for roughly 47 of the past 51 years. 

Cast of Characters

It seems we’ve reached the point in this race where introducing every candidate in every column is more distracting than helpful. For those still confused about who is who, here is a brief cast of characters:

Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta, defeated in a leadership review vote in May
Danielle Smith, former Wildrose leader, 2012 election loser, crossed floor to PCs in 2014
Brian Jean, Kenney rival, former Wildrose leader, and Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche MLA
Rajan Sawhney, former minister of transportation
Travis Toews, former minister of finance and choice of the UCP party establishment
Rebecca Schulz, former minister of children’s services
Leela Aheer, former minister of status of women, fired from cabinet by Mr. Kenney
Brian Mason, former NDP leader and minister in Rachel Notley’s cabinet
Jeff Davison, debate moderator and former Calgary city councillor
Raj Sherman, former Liberal leader and wannabe candidate, conspicuous by his absence

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39 Comments

  1. The debate itself wasn’t much more than an appetizer for the hell storm to come — or not.

    At this point, Smith is presenting herself as the candidate for the crazy wing of the UCP, strangely scoring a considerable number of points by (1) pushing her conspiratorial nonsense and (2) blaming her enemies (Rachel Notley) for her own gaffes and backlashes to her conspiratorial nonsense. Now that these days it’s de rigueur to blame PMJT for the weather, the behavior of other people’s pets, spelling mistakes, solar flare activity, or general mood swings, it should come as no surprise that Smith will use the Blame Trudeau distraction for the neverending attacks on FreeDUMB, much to the delight of the UCP horde.

    While it’s heartening that Rajan Sawhney did make a genuine effort to be the adult in the room and call out Smith for her demented antics, it appears that this is a strangely brave move, to act like an adult in the UCP. Ginger Kenney and Mr. Toes, front runners to be sure and hopeful to present themselves as credible leaders, stood silent while Smith chewed up the scenery and spewed the lunacy. Surprisingly, the designated adult in the room, Rebecca Schultz, also stood silent. Sawhney made it clear that Smith’s behavior will score more points for Notley and the NDP, and with the next election, they are the ones who will reap an electoral victory.

    Subsequent debates may reveal that there is maturity in the UCP. Otherwise, I’m hoping for a fantastic amount of stupid and a neverending supply of popcorn.

    1. Perhaps another way to look at Sawhney’s ‘courage’ is to say she does not know the deep well of crazy Dani is tapping into. It appears Sawhney still assumes there are some rational people to appeal to in the UCP. The rest may know better.

  2. Nothing like seeing a bunch of pretend conservatives and Reformers duke it out in a verbal battle, in a race to see who can destroy Alberta the fastest, with their shortsighted policies. These UCP leadership candidates are a big difference from what we had under the leadership of Peter Lougheed. Albertans certainly would be foolish to get behind any of them. The UCP has proven how bad they really are, and they do not deserve another chance.

  3. Its a bit surprising to me that Ms Smith has resurfaced so prominently. First of all, she failed so thoroughly once and was so discredited. Maybe there is something about the remaining UCP member that this appeals to somehow. They seem to be seriously considering replacing one failed and discredited leader, Kenney, with another. It would be like, if someone with health issues of as a result of too much booze, cigarettes and bad eating habits was seriously considering more of the same as a solution to the problem. I do think more than a few of them have lost touch with reality and Ms Smith is happy to play pied piper to them on her potential comeback tour.

    Ms Smith is a polished communicator, so I am not surprised she was able to deflect from her controversial and questionable cancer heath care ideas. However, it inconveniently leads to questions yet again about her judgement.

    I recall when I first began to seriously wonder about her judgement a few years before her previous downfall. It was at a time the PCs were starting to grapple with the issue of climate change. Ms Smith said on a CBC program when asked she wasn’t sure climate change was real, or something to that effect. Until then, I had thought she was a bit smarter than that. Of course, she didn’t win that election and that wasn’t her only serious lapse of judgement.

    So Ms Smith continues to serve up the political comfort food of telling some what they want to hear or believe. It may work in the short term, but ignoring or dismissing reality is not a good long term one. Kenney’s strategy of stirring up grievances backfired and came back to bite him. The best solution for the UCP and Alberta at this point is not more of the same.

    Maybe Kenney was right about one thing, when a few months ago he made a colorful comment about those wanting to take over the UCP party and Ms Sawhney is right to warn where that will lead them.

    1. I believe it was something to the effect of “the science isn’t settled” wasn’t it? She’s just a craven opportunist, maybe she believes it maybe she doesn’t; but this has been her MO since she was crossing picket lines at the Calgary Herald to write bylines that ended up in the trash.

    2. … “Ms Smith is happy to play pied piper” …

      Or snake charmer, perhaps. I was doing a bit of research on serpents a couple of days ago and an amazing fact was revealed to me – that successful “charming” with cobras, swaying and all, relies not upon the tune but the motion of the flute.

      1. Snakes don’t have external ears, although they’re sensitive to vibrations in the ground. However, they are very good at tracking movement.

  4. I missed last night’s debate as I was polishing up my space laser and George Soros Memorial Cup. As I said before (Ed:you did?) the electoral math in AB is such that a Smith leadership may reduce the plurality in some ridings from, say, 70 to 50% but will not flip enough seats to ensure a Notley majority. And here’s a question for all forecasters: if Notley achieved a minority who could she work with to stay in power?

    1. No more butter:

      The electoral math is definitely an issue. I saw one post that said the NDP had about 32 ridings they should win if they do things right. (All of Edmonton, a bunch in Calgary, and two in Lethbridge, plus Banff/Kananaskis, if I remember right). There were an additional 15 considered “in play” with current polling, and the NDP would need 12 of those. That would be hard work, without vote splitting on the right.

      As for a minority government, that seems very unlikely with the current configuration of parties (a split in the UCP would be great, though, or a significant defection to the Alberta Party, though that might pull votes from the NDP as well). The NDP should make a concerted effort to go after the Green, Liberal, and Alberta Party vote (might be a total of as much as 8 % there), and doing something on electoral reform might be a little bit of help there (eg. a promise to set up a citizens’ assembly, with any recommendations subject to referendum at the next provincial election ?).

      My fear is that if oil prices stay high, and the economy looks good on paper, the NDP won’t manage more than a dozen seats in Calgary, and only a handful elsewhere. Some UCP voter complacency (or lack of enthusiasm of former PC voters for the UCP) and a reduced voter turnout might help, I guess. I will continue to knock on doors with my local candidate (a very good one).

  5. It turns out that the debate was much more comical when reading live reports on Twitter. I would have preferred to see the hand puppet interpretation, but maybe we’ll get that next time.

  6. Is that chopper actually a STARS helicopter? If so, did the UCP pay for the use of the hanger and aircraft? How many emergency calls was the helicopter NOT available to answer?

    1. It is a HALO helicopter, serving SE Alberta. Which until just this year has received no provincial funding, unlike STARS.

    2. Thanks friends, I never heard of HALO before. But I still wonder if anybody called for an emergency air lift while the Con slanging match was going on….

  7. Sadly Albertans have a horrible reputation for picking the dumbest one in the bunch, since Peter Lougheed and Don Getty retired. After I watched the nurses bawling their eyes out in my office when Klein destroyed their careers , some were single moms with teenage kids and could no longer afford their mortgage payment and helped nine doctors and at least two dozen nurses relocate out of this province I had stupid seniors telling me that it wasn’t Klein’s fault it was the fault of the damn doctors and nurses. They wanted a lot more money and when Klein wouldn’t give it to them they left and created the huge increase in wait times in our emergency rooms. They were just too stupid to learn the truth.They weren’t going to listen to me. I still remember the day Brian Mason, Laurie Blakeman and I met with students at the U. of A. to point out what Ralph Klein was doing to us knowing how badly it was going to effect their future. I got the feeling that none of them really cared except one , a Chinese student who had no intention of staying in Alberta. He certainly agreed that Klein was destroying us.

  8. Not exactly sure what Danielle Smith said about cancer victims being able to prevent their disease but I’m sure she was referring to risk reducing measures which have been highlighted in official cancer literature for years.
    https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/reduce-your-risk

    More evidence the issue of medical science has become highly politicized, a powder keg waiting to be ignited. Ms. Smith also said in future pandemics we should be prepared to look at a variety of medical opinions and not rely on the recommendations of one doctor who happens to be a chief medical officer of some bureaucratic body which seems to me makes a good deal of sense. To which some will scream “What! You’re not trusting the science!” They’re forgetting that within the medical establishment itself there is often a rigorous debate and that opinion is rarely unanimous.

    1. Yeah you’re not walking that back as long as I’m here to read it.

      What she said was “everything that built up before that you got to stage 4 and that diagnosis, that’s completely within your control” which is lunacy, as well as completely disregards that environmental contamination is one, if not the leading cause of cancers in our society. Like how there is oil and gas wells and asbestos everywhere in this damn province, for example. You might be simple enough to swallow what she’s saying, but the rest of us are not. Especially being her intention is to dismantle our health care system entirely, for a voucher system, an ALEC wet dream if there ever was one, meanwhile, the ten doctors left in the province after the UCP shit show all head for Bc or Ontario.

      Your second point ? Yeah that never happened either. Just like how DJC Points out we never had lockdowns either.

      The rest of us that live in this province are sick of the hi jinks of the convoy people, mark my damn words. Regular, non political folks tell me, all the time. We truly hate them.

      1. +1 on that, buddy.

        Speaking of, they let Tamara Lich out again because apparently “absolutely no contact of any kind without attorneys present” was pretty confusing the second time as well? I think it fair to wonder whether we have too many white Conservative judges and Police officers. It would certainly explain the gap between how laws are enforced upon the white and Conservative, and how they are enforced upon everyone else.

    2. We have her own words. Smith suggesting that everyone misunderstood her words is pure gaslighting 101, and should have been called out as such.

      Here’s a gaslighting primer:

      “I didn’t say that.”
      A: “You said XYZ.”
      “You misunderstood.”
      A: “XYZ means XYZ.”
      “That’s not what I meant.”
      A: “You said XYZ. XYZ means XYZ.”
      “I forget.”

      Maddening as it is to deal with this personality type, it is a huge mistake not to confront it. Things will only get worse if people with this personality type are allowed to get away with this behavior.

    3. Well, populists like Smith do tie themselves in knots of illogic when they rush to appeal to the baser instincts in their electoral base, and to absurd “Alberta patriotism” issues like fossil fuels, the beef industry, driving trucks and so on. Her comments on cancer prevention reminded me of her reaction to someone from Shannon Phillips’s office posting a tweet (or some such social medium) suggesting people eat less meat. One example is here: https://globalnews.ca/news/3961519/danielle-smith-if-you-want-to-improve-your-health-eat-more-meat/

      Now I am a scientist (microbiology), though not an epidemiologist or cancer expert (nor am I am vegetarian, though I feel slightly guilty about that), but I am pretty sure there is a large body of literature showing a link between consumption of red meat and certain types of cancer.

    4. “I don’t know what she said and I can’t take five seconds to Google it but I can take five minutes giving you some disingenuous bad faith BS complete with a link to make me look like a serious adult.”

  9. Well, we knew Alberta is in trouble. Now we know how MUCH trouble.

    (Disclaimer: I never watch political speeches or debates live. They turn my stomach. I prefer to read the analyses the following day.)

    According to Jason Markusoff of the CBC, Danielle Smith “lost” the debate to Rahan Sawhney, with Schulz, Toews and Jean as more-or-less ineffective bystanders. Unfortunately, audience reaction showed Smith “won” the popular reaction based on what they cheered.

    Remember, friends, a UCP staffer named James Johnson warned us that Queen Danielle is saying exactly what rural rubes WANT to hear—and she says it very well. He says, from having worked for her, that Smith is very smart. He credits her with inventing the Tory Rage Machine, and yeah, she can surely play to the audience. Rage sells.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/opinion-danielle-smith-resurrected-1.6510295

    But—repeat, emphasis, BUT—Jason Kenney used the Rage Machine (and dirty tricks) to become both Lord of the UCP and King of Oilberduh.

    Kenney kicked the sleeping Separatist bear in the butt, and rode it to political victory. Then it turned on him and started biting off chunks of his political hide. Danielle Smith is trying the same tactic. Maybe she thinks she can muzzle the bear before it bites her. Maybe she thinks she can declaw it before it mauls her the way it mauled Kenney.

    Maybe she’s right. Kenney isn’t as smart as he believes. Maybe Smith is; maybe she can fast-talk her way out of the mess Kenney created for himself.

    What worries me is that it won’t end there. Look at what’s happening around the world. Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith are local examples of global problem. Donald Trump; Boris Johnson; Kim Jong Un; Jair Bolsonaro; Rodrigo Duterte; and the biggest threat of all, Vladimir Putin. When the crazies start telling each other they’re the REAL victims, the rest of us are in deep trouble.

    Pray, friends, to whatever gods you believe in, that Rachel Notley will counterattack with 1) ridicule of Smith’s stupid-talk and 2) FAR more important, a positive message of better times for all Albertans. Otherwise, the Rage Machine ™ just might roll over us all—again.

    1. Don’t know if I am watching a comedy,aquarium or peoples Court ,regardless it’s captivating to say the least

      1. Tara, some folks believe history repeats itself. A cynic added, “The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” We’re witnessing the beginning of United Conservatives part Two: the Farce.

  10. During my 32 years as a Royal Bank employee , working in 16 different branches, through out Alberta I saw my fair share of situations where con artists had screwed seniors out of their money. Sometimes I felt that the police officers involved had a hard time keeping a straight face over how stupid these seniors really were. I know I did. They fell for some of the dumbest schemes you can imagine.
    After retiring I began having coffee with four retired RCMP friends and we have had a good laugh, over the years, at some of the situations they encountered. Their conclusions were that Alberta seniors have a horrible reputation for being easy to fool by con artists and politicians and they have been doing it for years. These officers had all worked in other provinces and weren’t seeing it nearly as much there. Seeing the crowds at these gatherings and reading the blogs on our newspapers it proves that the officers are right. I saw it with my own eyes when , as a card carrying conservative, I was invited to various gatherings. The audiences were always about 80 to 85 % seniors and believing every lie they were fed. Nothing has changed Danielle Smith is still proving how stupid they are. Where else would people be so stupid that they would listen to anything she has to say. Apparently they don’t care about her track record of being the biggest fake conservative loser Albertans have ever seen.

    1. Alan K. Spiller: The sad thing is that these seniors brainwash the younger generations, including their own relatives, to vote for these pretend conservatives and Reformers. Some things just never change. These pretend conservatives and Reformers in this UCP leadership campaign are still trying to blame Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, and even Rachel Notley and the NDP for the problems that were done by their own bad policies, from over the years, which cost Alberta billions of dollars, and has also damaged our public healthcare, our public education, our infrastructure upgrading in Alberta, and increased municipal property taxes, utility and insurance costs. This was never seen under premier Peter Lougheed. I don’t think Peter Lougheed would be impressed with the UCP.

  11. Albertans are in general too polite to say in simple terms how they feel about this small number of far right folks that believe they are ascendant, but I believe most of the folks living in this province are not only embarrassed by the convoy people, but enraged by them as well. Pride goeth before the fall as the scripture says.

  12. There may well be a silver lining in this disaster of a debate.

    It may well serve to increase donations to the Rachael Notley NDP team.

    Keep it up Danielle….please.

  13. Terry Fox meet Keith Richards meet Danielle Smith meet a bunch of insulted people. Woh Canada?!

  14. The latest from Danielle Smith…

    Fact: In regards to the existence of gravity, the science isn’t settled yet.

    Fact: The notion that the sky is blue is no doubt a function of the presence of the alternative-fact that the sky may not be blue or is a shade of off-blue.

    Fact: the evidence that Justin Trudeau is operating the most oppressive authoritarian regime in human history is displayed in my Twitter feed. The experts, such as “Chewbacca69″and “Freedom Cowboy with a Truck”, have provided ample evidence to prove that this is the case.

  15. “Politics” is primarily about getting policy done, but it has broader meaning, too, like how policies are arrived at in presentable and workable form before being formally proposed in the forum also broadly called “political.” It can also mean how a citizen persuades a political party—a group of like-minded citizens who develop policy proposals—to accept chim as a candidate for party or public office, or the process of convincing electors that their choice was a good one and should be re-elected.

    It is “the art of the possible” —that is, of persuading citizens that a policy or platform of policies is worth voting for. Since election to the legislative assembly affords every Member opportunity to speak in parliament, but not necessarily to have every MLA’s policy proposal approved by a majority vote, the element of power, power to do more than propose and debate policies, becomes part of what citizens would call “politics.” These days, the politics of getting power as if it alone is the most worthy policy, strongly biases popular conception— to the point of misconception— of how politics is defined.

    Danielle Smith knows this and cleverly wins applause for the audacity of proving —or, rather, thumbing her nose—that she knows all about politics in the most pejorative sense: the narrowing of policy development down to simply getting power and the presumed right, thereafter, to do whatever one wants with it arbitrarily, with no regard to existing law (upon which The Common Law is founded), natural law (a major component of Common Law) and, in her case, to terms of confederation and Aboriginal treaties which found our Constitution. Even to the other UCP leadership contestants it sounds dangerous.

    UCP leadership rival Rajan Sawhney said out loud about Smith’s bid what the other candidates expressed in paucity: let Danielle effusicate and if party members don’t see enough potential Lake-of-Fire in her mirthfully nutty rhetoric, then the ‘evil socialists’ will win the subsequent judgement by the general electorate. The real threat is that Smith seems to instinctively know her audience’s grasp of politics is so weak that she can replace workable policy with pure partisanship and get away with it—even when every Canadian citizen should know that much of her goofy platform is totally—literally—unworkable. But, worse, if Smith could do what she says she would with regard federal jurisdiction, heaven only knows what else she might do with disrespect of constituted rights her freedumbites so gormlessly bleat about. No offence to pigs—even ones with lipstick—, but on Danielle Smith’s farm, she’s the Napoleon.

    A system works when all of its components work the way they’re designed—like the parts of an aeroplane. Governance is a system of complexity most citizens trust their elected officials to understand and operate. But Smith is duping rubes by pretending components of governance can be swapped around (her tactic has already been proofed to some extent, exemplified in a comment above that “medical science has become highly politicized, a powder keg waiting to be ignited,”— confusing politics with the extreme partisanship apparently intended. Science, after all, has one of the narrowest policies around, the discovery of testable facts which speak for themselves and, regardless popularity, it leaves persuasion about what to do with these facts to politicians). The American right drones that its partisan rival intentionally makes issues “political” when the correct term is “partisan,” whether the accusers know it or not. The GOP candidate for the presidential nomination, Donald tRump, proclaimed, “I’m no politician” in the most partisan fashion imaginable—that voters who vote Democrat are “unpatriotic”—and his base ate it up cheering. Smith likewise substitutes partisanship for policy and politics for patriotism as if an aeroplane’s landing gear can be swapped around with its jet-engines and still fly safely; she does it because she knows her uniformed base won’t twig and believes that getting power is legitimate even if the desired government has no intention of getting done what can’t be done anyhow. Reverse perversity? Oh, that Danielle!—ever the psychologist!

    Smith melds the emotive hot buttons of partisanship with batty notions of patriotism. She is a child herself of Albertan exceptionalism —the kind De Tocqueville observed of the American South’s slave-supported culture: impulsiveness, pleasure and excitement-seeking thus afforded typifies those whose fortunes are founded upon others’ grinding monotony which they have no cause to know—and plenty of cause to maintain. Has Alberta’s great fortune of found wealth fostered the petulant aloofness of the Old South? Betcha Danielle Smith is counting on it: ‘patriotism’ that proves itself unpatriotic, that gets policy done—or not—by winning power for partisanship’s sake.

    That’s all her audience needs to know, and she knows it.

    But she’s failed a number of tests we would call “political”—as partisan-testing as some of them were—so proper observers of prudent policies must hope she will also fail her next one, as it seems she should.

    Still, I can’t help wishing for Rachel Notley-Danielle Smith to square-off against each other just to see Smith’s wonky nostrums run through the wringer in front of a less partisan crowd. Meh, if it doesn’t happen, I can always rationalize that the Pays and better policies came first, as they always should have.

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