So what happens now that half the 18 elected members of the United Conservative Party board are vaccine-skeptical allies of Premier Danielle Smith?
While media was concentrating on the speeches and calls for unity at the UCP annual general meeting in Edmonton Saturday, members of the so-called Take Back Alberta group captured all nine contested positions on the party board.
These are people who not so long ago former premier Jason Kenney dismissed as lunatics.
“I assume that the other 9 are largely Kenney loyalists,” Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt said in a tweet yesterday.
This is all very well while everyone in the UCP is doing their best to make a show of unity, but things could get interesting quite quickly if Ms. Smith and the party continue to slip in the polls.
One recent survey of voter intentions showed the NDP leading among committed voters with 53-per-cent compared to 38 per cent for the UCP. The same poll showed low approval rates for Premier Smith compared to those of NDP Leader and former premier Rachel Notley.
A continued slide for the UCP seems quite possible with Ms. Smith determined to focus on her vendetta against Alberta Health Services for the public health measures it implemented during the pandemic.
After all, recent polling shows concern about the health care system is on the front burner for a majority of voters, but that doesn’t mean they share Ms. Smith’s obsessive fury at past vaccine mandates or even want to think very much about COVID any more.
While Ms. Smith might encounter opposition about this in the UCP Caucus, she is now buttressed by at least nine fellow travellers on the party board who agree with her about Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This suggests her hostile takeover of the party bureaucracy is proceeding apace.
Of course, if Ms. Smith can reverse the party’s slide in the polls, she will have no difficulty keeping everyone on-side. After all, success outweighs a multitude of sins.
Take Back Alberta – the name echoes the dog-whistle in Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan – is a political action committee created to defeat Mr. Kenney in last spring’s leadership review for, the group says on its web page, “the harshest, most restrictive assault on freedom in our province’s history.”
“We fight for … a medical system that works … protection of our God-given freedoms,” says the group’s home page. “And we’re not asking anymore. We’re talking Alberta back.”
Commentary on the group’s Facebook page is also illuminating.
The board positions captured by the Take Back Alberta slate were the party’s treasurer, vice-president of policy and governance, VP communications, VP membership and one director in each region – Edmonton, North, South, Calgary, Central.
Seats not up for election this time were the party leader (Ms. Smith herself), party president, chief financial officer, secretary, VP fundraising, and five regional directors.
In addition to Ms. Smith, two MLAs also sit on the board.
Thanks to Dr. Bratt for details about which board positions were up for election.
Now, as others have pointed out, there are things party officials can do and things they can’t.
They can influence the selection of candidates, decide how party money is spent, and control party functions like policy conventions and the just-ended AGM.
However, they cannot tell the party’s Legislative caucus what to do, or order the premier to follow their lead on policy. That will likely not be a problem for the Take Alberta Back candidates, though, with Ms. Smith as leader.
Judging from past comments attributed to the group founder and director David Parker in a Calgary Herald story, though, Take Back Alberta may not fully appreciate the limits of board members’ power over a premier.
For obvious reasons, party officials and elected representatives usually march in lockstep toward the same political goals.
But now the UCP has a board divided along ideological and strategic lines similar to the rift in the party’s Legislative caucus that can change.
So while UCP MLAs may not want to talk about it just now, the potential for disputes about strategy and ideology to break out among the normally low-profile members of the board as well as in caucus is quite real.
If that happens, the potential outcomes are unclear. The fact a party breakup would likely end the UCP’s chances of re-election is a powerful incentive to stick together.
If the UCP stays low in the polls, though, don’t bet against the possibility the Smith Government will find an excuse to ignore Alberta’s fixed-election-date law and delay the general election as long as possible under the Canadian Constitution.
I recall another UCP meeting not that long ago, a great and somewhat convincing show of unity for another leader was made – that would be Mr. Kenney. Less than a year later, he was gone as leader.
The more recent UCP meeting also gets reasonable marks for political theatre, the UCP seems to have some remaining ability for that, but let’s not confuse performance and reality.
The long internal battle between the COVID skeptics and the more sensible part of the UCP continues. With the current division on the UCP board a future battle or flare up may happen there.
Of course you have to also wonder how fully Ministers like Shandro, Copping and Toews will embrace the vaccine resistance that has for now taken over the UCP. If Smith doesn’t sabotage herself again, one of her unique talents, then perhaps one of her Ministers will.
I know the role and functions of the board ten times better than you. If you are a black belt in Karate, I am a black belt in this.
David: Hai Sensei! Domo arigato gozaimasu. DJC
I love it when they say “ten times better than you”. It makes for ten times more fun! Mmm? Some times? You win. Some times you lose. But without accepting a challenge? You automatically lose! 私はあなたの挑戦を受け入れることを誇りに思います
Hi David Parker: I just have a small question on Personal Sovereignty which I could not find on your web site. Do you support the Personal Sovereignty of oil and gas drillers to force themselves on private farm and ranch land, or do you support the Personal Sovereignty of farmers and ranchers to just say no?
You know you could issue postage stamps from your Sovereign acreage as a revenue source. Just a suggestion.
My understanding is that “sovereignty” is only owned by nations. You can “own” land but you are not “sovereign” over it. A company can “lease” or “purchase” land but cannot gain “sovereignty” over it. #notanexpert
Hi, David Parker,
A few questions.
-What is your beef with electronic voting? You do see that the writing is on the wall, and Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani and even Fox are going to have to pay large lump sums in damages for their verifiably false statements about electronic voting, right?
-Just how short-sighted are you? You seem to understand something of long-term planning. I mean, your Facebook page indicates you know that fertilizing a field results in greater yields, so you get that doing something today means that many months down the road you will see a result.
Do you understand that viral infections present a current and future danger to society, and that they have successfully been used to fight outbreaks, reduce the spread and severity of disease, and even eradicate some very deadly diseases, with minimal harm? And do you understand that new and different viruses can and will arise that will threaten your live, your loved ones, and the Alberta with disease and death? And do you see that sometime in the future, vaccine mandates might be a useful and indeed necessary tool to protect yourself, your loved ones, and Alberta? If so, why do you insist on trying to eliminate these tools from our shed? Do you not see that in this, you are behaving just like Justin Trudeau, trying to keep you from being able to fertilize your field today, so that you will be able to feed yourself, your family, and Alberta tomorrow?
I hope this is just some internet rando who decided to type “David Parker” into the name field. One would certainly hope that the actual David Parker could do a better job refuting claims. If this were the eponymous David, I would be disappointed that someone with such limited ability to form arguments has managed to gain any attention. See, when I think someone is wrong, I can say specifically what they are wrong about and why, and then someone else can agree or disagree. That said, I’ve worked very hard to be a responsible adult, and that’s left me feeling pretty lonely in Canada.
I don’t know the roles and functions of the board at all. Can you please explain to me what this article is incorrect about?
Hi Neil,
I don’t know if the poster above is the actual David Parker, but I am the real Joe Friesenhan, the former VP Policy that Mr. Parker saw fit to replace.
Based on TBA’s campaign materials at the AGM I completely reject the notion that Mr. Parker knows the roles and function of the board ten times better than anyone. What he is a black belt in is fomenting dissent and amplifying it to achieve an objective – in this case, tossing the board. You can’t argue with results.
To answer Mr. Lore’s question, the job of the board is administration of the party apparatus – making sure the UCP’s funds are spent responsibly, holding required events such as AGMs and elections, etcetera. These positions are unpaid volunteer positions that are elected for two years at a time. My job was to chair the policy development committee for the party and administer the process we used to allow members to submit resolutions for debate and voting at the AGM.
My job was NOT to weigh in on vaccines, lockdowns, or administration of AHS. My replacement on the board will be sorely disappointed if he thinks he will even be asked about these topics.
As for electronic voting: TBA doesn’t have to have a position on it because for a variety of reasons NO ONE WANTS THAT. I swear, if David Parker takes credit for a lack of electronic voting in the UCP I’m going to lose my mind.
I’m frankly getting a little pissed off at the number of people – David Parker, Duane Bratt, and others – who assume that I’m just some Kenney loyalist. It’s fascinating to me how I spent the first six months of my tenure on the board being accused of trying to take down Jason Kenney from the inside and the remainder being accused of propping him up. No one with a blog or a media position has ever bothered to ask me about any of these things – they just publish their unvalidated assumptions and disparage my work, directly or indirectly.
The truth is that TBA is about one thing: David Parker’s ego. I give him credit for obtaining a great deal of political clout. It’s too bad he squanders it.
Under my tenure the UCP offered unparalleled direct access by the members to the policy process. I’ve taken hard positions on behalf of grassroots UCP members in internal meetings and done my best to advocate for the membership at large on all topics, whether it’s timing of leadership reviews or ensuring difficult resolutions make it to the floor of the plenary. I spent hundreds of hours of my volunteer time to do so.
Not sure if that fully answers your question; maybe now that I have all this time on my hands I’ll create a blog of my own and you can follow up there…
Mr. Friesenhan: Thanks for this very helpful response. One of the pleasures of this blog is the generally high quality of comments. DJC
Perfectly articulated
I had not expected such a fulsome response! Thank you for your time Mr. Friesenhan. A few thoughts:
“…the job of the board is administration of the party apparatus – making sure the UCP’s funds are spent responsibly, holding required events such as AGMs and elections, etcetera.” Oh my God that must be such a thankless, teethgrindingly impossible task! Like Sisyphus having a bunch of chimps throw their own dung at him while he rolls a ball of stupid uphill all day. I’m torn between “respect and sympathy” and wondering “does the board actually have the tools needed to accomplish this task, and if so, where has it been?” (I’m mostly being a smartass there, you don’ t need to answer that 🙂 )
“My replacement on the board will be sorely disappointed if he thinks he will even be asked about these topics.” Anything seems possible to people who don’t care what is actually possible. A few terms worth knowing – epistemic delinquency (knowingly choosing to believe easily falsifiable absurdities), epistemic injustice (when information is withheld from people in order to limit the choices available to them, or when no one will believe or accept a person’s testimony for unjust reasons), epistemic despair (giving up on the belief that knowing things matters, or giving up on one’s own capacity to successfully tell fact from falsehood). If we examine “the deplorables” through lenses such as these, and if we tilt our heads and squint just right, they become “the redeemables.” Some days you really gotta tilt your head and squint hard though.
“I’m frankly getting a little pissed off at the number of people – David Parker, Duane Bratt, and others – who assume that I’m just some Kenney loyalist.” This inspired me to google you, and sadly, I could find very little. (If each town had 15 independent newspapers instead of Postemedia owning everything I think this would be less of a problem) I found a campaign page of yours that didn’t include any culture war bs or racist dogwhistles and did include rational, coherent arguments made in a civil, respectful manner. You are clearly one of the “good conservatives.” That being said, I would respectfully invite you to consider how low that bar is. No matter how much I hate to acknowledge it, a strong Canadian Conservative party is historically the best check on Liberal arrogance, waste, and up-their-own-ass-ness. I would prefer electoral reform, but as long as we’re FPTP someone needs to be able to tell the Liberals “no” and have Canadians take them seriously. The NDP seem incapable of this, the Greens are imploding, Quebec doesn’t want to be in Canada at all and doesn’t care what happens to the rest of us, so that leaves the Conservatives, who are a flaming pile of doorknob-licking garbage (I totally don’t want to make you feel blamed or associated with any of this, I’m just calling em likes I sees em). We live in scary times.
I also found that you voted against a bridge because after the first two years the town would be on the hook for the maintenance. I definitely approve of long-term, responsible financial planning, no matter what party it is coming from. I also understand that responsible adults who serve in municipal politics do so at their own risk and their own expense. Stick-tap. https://www.ladysmithchronicle.com/news/ladysmith-council-approves-permit-for-holland-creek-bridge/
“The truth is that TBA is about one thing: David Parker’s ego. I give him credit for obtaining a great deal of political clout. It’s too bad he squanders it.” IMO if you are going to game theory today’s right winger (ie: the far right) you need to know about narcissism, nihilism, moral nihilism, cosmic nihilism and moral egoism. Also Fascism, which is WAY more difficult to define than it is to say! It is also helpful to know about Plato’s ‘devolution of regimes’ and why he considered Democracy to be a very weak form of government (holy crap am I not advocating for overthrowing Democracy, I like it a lot, just want people to understand how rare and fragile it is).
“I spent hundreds of hours of my volunteer time to do so. Not sure if that fully answers your question; maybe now that I have all this time on my hands I’ll create a blog of my own and you can follow up there…” I think people who have served (in good faith) as elected officials deserve a respect similar to (but different from) those who have served in the armed forces. I’m sure there are a ton of things we disagree on, but as near as I can see (from a very far distance), you did your best to do your best and I respect the hell out of that all day long. Thank you for serving. For what it’s worth, you are not alone in your anger.
When you start your blog put the url in the website column below here. I follow here fairly regularly, and I’ll check yours out too, if and when it happens. Character is destiny. I think you’re going to be okay.
Hi Neil,
I caught your reply a little late and don’t know if you are still reading this page… in any case, the Joe Friesenhan from Ladysmith isn’t me, it’s my dad. Anything to do with BC is generally him and Alberta is generally me. 😛
Between the two of us we’re two of the three only Joe Friesenhans on the planet, the third being my own son.
FYI, Joe Sr. is a life-long Liberal voter. Go figure.
The Saskatchewan PC government of Grant Devine delayed the expected 1990 election there by almost a year as it too feared defeat. The result — utter and demoralizing defeat in 1991, followed closely by criminal fraud convictions to most members of his Cabinet, and Devine’s own permanent exile from Conservative circles. History may well repeat itself if Smith tries this tactic.
The Constitutional upper limit on the life of a Parliament or a provincial or territorial legislature is five (5) years, but Canadian politics is rife with examples of voters punishing governments for waiting that long to call elections. Trudeau père, 1974-79, & Mulroney, 1988-93, both come to mind. So, while those so-called “fixed election date” laws have little force or effect in a Westminster parliamentary system — even though the Mother of Parliaments itself also has one — from a practical perspective four years is the effective upper limit for a legislature in this country.
The crazy continues, accelerating hard. Jason Kenney enabled these idiots with his “Alberta is a victim” BS, and Smith’s backers are making the most of it.
I wonder what Preston Manning, the eminence grise behind Oilberduh’s loony right, thinks now?
Further evidence of the collective stupidity is the resolution from the UCP convention to turn municipal politicians into lobbyists. Really. Nobody realized that would mean Smith and her ministers would have to register as federal lobbyists–which would at least be poetic justice.
Mike J Danysh: Preston Manning isn’t in good health, right now, from what I’ve heard. His memory isn’t so good. The UCP isn’t going to endure. He can’t see its demise. Preston Manning was one of the people who helped create the UCP.
Hi Anonymous I am hoping that with you being a former rural Albertan that you will response to my letter in the Brooks Bulletin dated Oct.19 “ Say No To Danielle Smith” about how you feel about her suggesting Rural Albertans are a lot easier to fool than Calgarians, like she has done. It makes a lot more sense for Brooks and Medicine residents to elect someone in their own riding, don’t you think? Rather than Smith who couldn’t even get elected in her own home riding in 2015.
Here we are. The walnuts are telling the tree what to do.
Isn’t amazing how easy it is to fool seniors. The majority of the 1,800 shown at her convention were seniors , letting her treat them like morons once again, and watching her recent former enemies in Brian Jean and Travis Toews hugging and kissing her proves just how two-faced they are, doesn’t it? Of course they want to continue to live off taxpayers and screwing us out of our money. It reminds me about how Smith and Jim Prentice bad mouthed each other in the legislature while they were secretly planning a party merger behind closed doors. Albertans certainly showed them what they thought of that stupidity. The former MLAs were right you can’t trust them. Too bad many of our fellow seniors aren’t smart enough to understand it? Can you think of a better way to help her reform party pals fill their pockets with our taxpayers money than creating this huge government like she has done. She has in true Reform Party Fashion bought off her enemies just like they have been doing since the Klein years by helping the rich screw Albertans out of their oil and tax wealth. As a lawyer friend would say it’s all they know.
Alan K. Spiller: Danielle Smith is good at talking out of both sides of her mouth. She says she will help the disadvantaged and seniors in Alberta, but forgets that the UCP made cuts to both groups. Hopefully, Albertans give her the boot in 2023.
FWIW, if white people with grey hair are currently acting like deranged rubes, it’s not because they’re white, and it’s not because their hair is grey. Every healthy society in history has been able to look to its elders to provide an example. We can’t do that. It’s not “old people are rubes,” it’s “these specific individuals, who happen to be old, are rubes.”
On the bright side, I don’t have to listen to old people shouting about how young people aren’t adults anymore, because the old people are too busy frothing at the mouth and shouting racial slurs at passing clouds.
How ironic — that the UCP would use the Canadian Constitution to get an undemocratic result that it might desire. Sadly, it is reasonable to assume that the UCP would use every dirty trick in the book to maintain their grip on power and ignore the fact that they have no mandate from the voters to enact that batshit crazy plans from the fevered brain of Danielle Smith and her fellow RWNJs.
IMO if the Canadian Constitution produces an undemocratic result, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. We must be among the least democratic democracies in history.
I am looking forward to the new Alberta.
Just imagine….no rural hospital closures because staff shortages. Huge increase in unvaccinated health professionals coming into the Province from different jurisdictions.
Instead of being in a hospital bed some will be transferred to four star hotel accommodation.
Ambulances and ambulance personal will be staffed to level where there will never be a ‘red alert’ in any city.
Our grandchildren will apparently not require those pesky MMR, polio, covid etc vaccinations in order to attend public school.
Hospitals will be providing Ivermectin treatments in order to quickly cure covid victims, move them out of ICU, to make room for more serious health conditions.
Yes….people will definitely consider moving to Alberta. Especially those with children or those nearing retirement age.
Physicians, surgeons, and associated talented medical professionals will be lining up to relocate to Alberta from other jurisdictions to practice their profession in Alberta’s hospitals and work under a new, improved AHS. Personally overseen by a Premier who is a self acknowledged expert in the public health care arena.
As long as we don’t get sick, need immediate and specialized health care, or prompt ambulance service it should all be good.
Well said, Brett.
I fully expect Smith to delay the May 2023 election.
If the Calgary Elbow byelection stays uncalled past Aug of next year without a general election call … then the UCP government is breaking the Elections act.
I do wonder what Lt. Gov. Lakhani will have to say on that?
Is it kabuki theater? (I see blackbelts posturing), world wrestling again?, or the standard fashion, popularity and beauty contest again? ( first place to infinity will be awarded healthy pensions and lots of freedom )
In this corner we have Double Down Dozy Dani fighting for the freedom of “no pants” and health by trucker mandate.
Fun times.
Stay tuned.
‘Take Back What Belongs to Alberta’ would be a better slogan.
https://globalnews.ca/news/9220476/albertas-oil-production-booming-revenue-leaves-province/
A windfall tax would have been appropriate and good for paying off emergency spending from the Covid crisis. Not gonna happen in the Kingdom of Oilberduh, though.
Danielle Smith is good at talking, and telling people what she thinks they want to hear. They swallow it down, like a thirsty person drinks water on a hot summer day. When Danielle Smith’s ideas can’t turn out the way she had hoped, she will make any excuses she can to say what went wrong. None of it will be her fault, of course.
It wouldn’t surprise if Danielle Smith dodged the statutory four-year term law if, by the province’s next scheduled general election on May 29th, 2023, she hasn’t gotten done what she set out to do and the prospect of an incumbency win which would allow completion of her agenda appears as remote as current polling suggests. It shouldn’t be surprising since it’s well known that Smith is a dedicated systems gamer with either little sense of, or little concern about social licence and the democratic principle of popular approval (or both) which would normally temper a policy proposal like her “Alberta Sovereignty Act” —which is about as radical as a federated province can get and, accordingly, as generally unpopular.
But so is playing games with the election date—which is why governing parties seldom, if ever, overstay their welcome by approaching the five-year term limit mandated by the Constitution. Danielle Smith, however, amply demonstrates her cavalier attitude about what the great majority of the electorate consider repellently impolitic: she fully intends to challenge the Constitutional division of powers between the federal and provincial governments as if she can amend the nation’s highest and enshrined laws with a snap of her fingers, a drastic policy proposal even though she hasn’t been sworn in as premier yet, hasn’t a seat in the Assembly, hasn’t much much more party approval than that which got her predecessor ousted, has even less popular approval according to up-to-date polling, and has the confirmed approval of only about one percent of Albertans. What qualm, then, would she have about repealing the fixed-term law? Well, wondering if her caucus, particularly the moderate faction which didn’t support her leadership bid, can be whipped into supporting a legislated repeal would be my guess, but Danielle acts as if she’s oblivious to what is or isn’t politic.
Fixed-term laws were passed by right-wing governments across Canada, starting in BC in 2001. Yet the same right-wing parties were the first (but not the only ones) to abrogate it by way of being granted early elections for their own partisan sakes.
Naturally the fixed-term law must contain an exception since a government can lose the confidence of the House before its four-year term is up and, if no group of Members will commit to passing bills, an early election must be called. That is, the federal Constitution in which the Westminster parliamentary system is enshrined trumps the stricture of a statutory fixed-term. Yet governing parties are regularly granted early elections if they want one, usually rationalized as for the public good, but widely recognized as for the party’s sake or advantage (the only time I can think of when such a request was refused was in 2017 when BC Liberal premier Christy Clark asked the BC Governor to dissolve the parliament and call an election because her minority government —only just elected on on May 9—had just lost a confidence vote on May 29. The Governor properly refused Christy’s request and instead recognized the Green-Dipper alliance as government since, combined, it had one more seat than the BC Liberals).
I’m trying to think in what circumstance would the Governor allow a government to extend its term beyond the statutory four-year limit. I conclude that instead of risking the Sovereign’s refusal, the statute would sooner be repealed using the governing party’s majority. But in Smith’s UCP there are many MLAs who wouldn’t want to put their name behind such an unpopular move (although if the polls were looking especially bad for re-election, a what-do-I-got-to-lose calculus might prevail. Still, pretty grim).
For the time being, I’ll stick with the caricature Smith has crafted for herself and presume that she’ll be less concerned about the party’s popularity come next May than she’ll be about how long it’ll take for her to provoke reaction from the SCoC or the federal government, reactions she deems useful to her crusade for Alberta sovereignty. I wouldn’t put it past her to challenge the Constitution and then rationalize extending the term in order to wait for the court’s decision to come down —which is usually so slow that she’d have to extend the term beyond the five years constitutionally allowed. Now that would be something to see!
I can hear her say, “What care I for the law?” (With apologies to Steve Goodman’s “Lincoln Park Pirates”)
Lots of description of the sausage making.
The gist is in the “gRistLE”: can DS and the UCP survive the TBA takeover.
I guess that’s TBD.
If Danielle Smith is going to delay the provincial election, doesn’t that prove that fixed election laws in British-style parliamentary system is a bad idea? In particular, the provision in federal and respective provincial governments that fixed election laws doesn’t limit the powers of the GG/LG to dissolve the legislature. Hence, it makes the law meaningless.
Even the British’s version of fixed election law (in force from 2011-22) had more teeth. Except for losing a non-confidence vote, the only way to call an early election is to have two-third of the total membership of the House of Commons to vote for one.
The 2015 Alberta election and the 2021 Federal election proved that calling an election at an advantageous time doesn’t work. Most voters are smart enough to see the BS.
I think convention is a better force than law for elections, although convention does, sadly, require people to remember what happened yesterday and care what will happen tomorrow, two things Canadians struggle with. The problem with fixed election laws is that sometimes there are valid reasons to delay an election, and sometimes there are valid reasons to rush elections. “Valid reasons” do not include “partisan advantage.” If we bothered to educate normal Canadians to a 21st century standard they would be perfectly capable of deciding whether a given election was held at an appropriate time or not. JMO
Does the NDP publish the results of resolutions debated at its convention? Perhaps a link.