Alberta pollster Janet Brown, whose latest survey shows the NDP in majority territory (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

“We are going to beat the NDP in rural Alberta, we are going to beat the NDP in Edmonton, and we are going to beat the NDP in Calgary,” shouts Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in a little video ad for voters in next Tuesday’s Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election that popped up on social media yesterday.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith as seen in yesterday’s social media ad (Photo: Screenshot of United Conservative Party video).

Cheerful music plays in the background. 

But if an election were held today in Alberta, Rachel Notley’s NDP would win a majority, says a new survey by respected Calgary pollster Janet Brown, who has an enviable history of accurate election calls. A major factor, the Janet Brown Opinion Research poll commissioned by the CBC indicates, is that Albertans don’t like Premier Smith.

No music plays in the background of the CBC’s online news story. The sound of Chopin’s Funeral March you’re hearing is just your mind’s reaction to what you’re reading. 

If Smith’s ad sounds a little desperate, that’s probably because it is. She may win next Tuesday’s by-election in a safe rural riding, but anything short of total electoral shock and awe is going to contribute to the narrative of an inevitable NDP victory in 2023. 

Perhaps former premier Jason Kenney’s favoured candidate to replace him as leader of the United Conservative Party, Travis Toews, had it right when he warned that choosing Ms. Smith instead of him as premier would lead to the election of the NDP when Albertans finally had a chance to vote throughout the province. 

Alberta Opposition Leader and former premier Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Well, he’s in Ms. Smith’s cabinet now, so you won’t hear him saying that for the time being. 

And maybe Mr. Kenney himself was on the mark when he warned that the party he by and large created in his own image was on the verge of being taken over by lunatics. “The lunatics are trying to take over the asylum,” was the way he put it, which seems fair. 

He promised not to let them. He seems to have failed. Thirteen days after Ms. Smith was sworn in as premier of Alberta, a slate of vaccine-objectors and convoy sympathizers loosely allied with her campaign captured all nine contested positions on the UCP’s 18-member board during the party’s annual general meeting.

According to a better-late-than-never look at the Take Back Alberta slate in the Globe and Mail Wednesday, up to 900 of the 1,800 delegates at the AGM in Edmonton were adherents of the Q-adjacent insurgents. 

So, what happened sounds more like a coup than a hostile takeover like the ones Mr. Kenney imposed on Alberta’s Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties in 2017. 

Say what you will, though, about the folks behind the TBA takeover, what’s left of the UCP is definitely not your father’s Conservative Party! 

Which gets us back to Ms. Brown’s look at the numbers. 

Notwithstanding TBA leader David Parker’s vow to the Globe’s reporter that “Phase 4 of our plan is defeat the NDP,” Ms. Brown’s poll results suggest Albertans are recoiling in horror from the New UCP, even in some rural areas on the edge of suburbia. 

Her tally puts NDP support at 47 per cent (up from 32 per cent in the 2019 election won by Mr. Kenney’s version of the UCP). The poll shows the UCP now at 38 per cent (down from 55 per cent in 2019). Smaller parties are just ghostly traces on the political radar, as voters worried about the hands the UCP is now in move to the NDP. 

The survey of 1,200 Albertans was in the field from Oct. 12 to 30.

As noted, Ms. Brown’s poll also looked at the personal popularity of Premier Smith and former premier Notley. 

Only 18 per cent of respondents were “highly impressed” by Ms. Smith; 39 per cent were highly impressed by Ms. Notley. More than half, 54 per cent, were “not impressed” with the premier; 35 per cent were not impressed with the Opposition leader. 

Voters’ skeptical reaction to the premier “really stems from the fact that Albertans are really disappointed in Danielle Smith as a leader,” Ms. Brown explained politely. 

By every measure noted by Ms. Brown’s poll, the UCP fares worse than the NDP. And on health care, which the conventional wisdom sees as the biggest concern of Alberta voters right now, 78 per cent of respondents thought the UCP is on the wrong track. 

UCP results for managing education, post-secondary education, and just being honest are similarly terrible. Even when it came to “building pipelines,” supposedly the UCP’s strong suit, Ms. Brown’s survey suggested more Albertans think the UCP is on the wrong track than the right track. 

If this trend continues, especially if it gains momentum in rural areas, it seems likely Premier Smith will have to find a way to wiggle out of the May 29, 2023, fixed election date. 

It probably also means that more traditional Conservatives in the UCP Caucus – at least those who haven’t been co-opted by membership in Ms. Smith’s humongous cabinet – may finally try to take back their party. 

Pass the popcorn!

Join the Conversation

30 Comments

  1. Perhaps Danielle the delusional is close to being trussed up by her own party? Will she out last a head of lettuce? Bring popcorn!

  2. I think the UCP are finished in 2023, unless Danielle Smith remains stubborn, and she attempts to postpone the provincial election. With Rachel Notley, we had sensible and practical leadership that was in the style of Peter Lougheed. That’s exactly what we need again.

  3. What is a “more traditional conservative” in Alberta these days, Dave–a former Ralph Klein supporter? Edmund Burke left with Peter Loughheed a long time ago.

  4. Well it looks like the Liberal Party of Canada will once again be flying its victory banner in Alberta under the generic NDP brand name of course. Congrats.

    1. Liberalism and social democracy aren’t even close to the same thing. While the NDP aren’t card carrying social Ds (this IS Canada) they’re hardly liberals, and looks a lot like sour grapes from where I’m sitting. Politics as sports teams doesn’t really work when you can see a qualitative difference in their governance.

      Folks who say things like that really need to grow up.

    2. That Trudeau/Notley banner got landlocked Alberta crude to tidewater! Klein couldn’t do it! Stelmach couldn’t do it! Redford couldn’t do it! Prentice couldn’t do it! Even as PM with all those CON preems, Harper couldn’t do it! Kenney – his AB lieutenant – couldn’t do it! But Notley and Trudeau got ‘er done! And there’s no way the CONs can spin that! Have a nice day!!

    3. A page right out of the bent J.K. UCP playbook. ( gaslighting 101 ). Claim that Trudeau and Notley are joined at the hip there by focusing all the anger the Rubes have for Trudeau away from him and onto Notley. A cunning ploy but there are no Rubes to mis direct here so a wasted effort.

    4. Fwiw if you realize that not all people and parties who disagree with you are the same, imo you will gain a richer understanding of politics and be harder to deceive and manipulate.

  5. May is a looooooong way away folks, but if you need to cozy up to a poll to sleep better at night, I get it. Please know that how you feel about Smith, is how we feel about Trudeau, and you folks siding with him on the outrageous use of the emergencies act is as offensive as us backing whatever nonsense Smith tries. Having said that, Smith hasn’t really DONE much as premier yet, where Trudeau has ALREADY trampled rights for years. If Notley spoke out against that, or Singh’s propping up of black face, she would be in mega-majority territory. I guess we’ll wait and see. Fun fact: NO ONE likes when the “other side” is in power. There’s some pretty big brain-differences between lefties and righties and we would all do well to take a breath and try to understand those differences so that we can work together. Otherwise we’re all screwed.

    1. The middle of the ground is fenced off
      While my conservative friends and I aren’t fans of Trudeau we aren’t dumb enough to bash him for giving Albertans an extra $30 billion to save us during this pandemic and oil industry crash, and we certainly support his plan to ban assault rifles and handguns to protect Canadians from the gun violence stupidity we are seeing in the U.S. The retired R.CM.P friends certainly agree with us and the use of the emergencies act, but I guess you prefer to be part of the minority who didn’t support it, making yourself look like a damn fool? As our retired lawyer friends have pointed out over the years “Making sarcastic comments about Trudeau’s blackface is just plain stupid . It has not cost taxpayers a single penny compared to what that clown Ralph Klein did to us . Making fun of Trudeau while ignoring what Klein did is not very smart”. Don’t forget while you whine about Right and Left you are insulting mostly former conservatives who aren’t dumb enough to support these Reformers who are hellbent on destroying everything our hero Peter Lougheed created for us, so why are you?

    2. Yeah we know you are all single issue obsessed with Trudeau, it’s because your parties are basket cases and your leaders are a laughingstock, literally, of the free world. We don’t care what y’all think, we think you are all insane.

    3. The thing is, the “left” deals in facts, the “right” deals in delusions. Did you know it is inpossible for a fact to have a bias? It’s true!

    4. Dear Middle Ground is Fenced off: You say “Trudeau has ALREADY trampled rights for years.” I am assuming you mean the so-called vaccine mandates. So, are you opposed to the vaccine mandate that says we cannot travel to and from Africa or most of South America without being vaccinated against yellow fever? How about any number of other hemorrhagic fever viruses for which there are also vaccine mandates? Your freedom from those vaccine mandates would also mean you would certainly be bringing back one of those deadly viral diseases and spreading it to the rest of us.
      Your freedom ends where your actions or in-actions hurt others. As an old Presbyterian theologian of my acquaintance might observe: You are not talking about freedom, you are talking about “license.”

    5. Keep fornicating that chicken, buddy. Even most Albertans maybe aren’t buying that BS anymore.

    6. You made some cogent points in quite a civil fashion, thanks for contributing. One thought:

      There sure are a lot of conservatives in Ottawa testifying variants of, “your honor, I can’t recall if I did that illegal thing but if I did it’s because I believed the law didn’t apply to me, and I see you attempting to find the truth and hold me accountantable as a betrayal and a violation of my rights. “

  6. Well, as was said, even a lot of UCP members predicted this reaction to Smith. Some were Kenney loyalists, some not so much. It is particularly telling how few of the other UCP leadership candidates or their supporters backed Smith despite the eventual feeling she would win the leadership. Of course, most of those are in the cabinet now, so they are no longer openly critical for now. With polls like this that might not hold, or more likely some will just quietly decide not to run again.

    Like much of what Smith has done the by election ride has been bumpy too. First of all there is a riding with no MLA in Calgary. Not only did Smith not run there, because chances of her winning were not good, but there will be no by election for them to presumably save the UCP from potential embarrassment. Second, her preferred riding MLA, where she lived, did not step aside for her to run, so she had to find another further away, which she has no close connections with. Presumably, it was chosen because it was seen as a winnable one, but people do not like being seen as a second choice or taken for granted.

    I suppose a by election loss could put a quick end to the Smith era and the UCP’s current misery, but that is probably unlikely to happen. So Smith and the UCP will likely continue to muddle on until they have to face Alberta voters.

  7. Yes, it does look like the current premier will try to avoid a general election in 2023. She’s already avoided facing the music in Calgary Elbow. That was easy. If she determines from the polls that the people are “wrong”, she will do her best to stop them. Not a fan of democracy, that Danielle Smith.

    Meanwhile in Ontario, educational support workers went out on strike today. Apathy got Doug Ford into power again, but he should not have counted on further apathy when he enacted his new Charter-busting law to force non-essential workers into a non-negotiated labor contract. Pay attention, Danielle Smith.

  8. I think there is no doubt that, from the perspective of some Kenneyite UCP members, it would be a good thing if Danielle Smith lost her byelection bid next Tuesday.

    Such a scenario is not impossible, I keep telling myself. In addition to Brooks meat packers being disgusted with Ms. Smith’s position on Covid, and disillusioned UCPers staying home, there is also the fact that staunch UCPers can cast an NDP vote secure in the knowledge that it will in no way result in an NDP government.

    A Smith loss is a hypothetical I have enjoyed playing out these past few weeks. Would Ms. Smith try her luck in another ‘safe’ riding, continue without a seat until next May, or resign her position as leader? Another byelection brings to mind Einstein’s comment about insanity. If she held off until the next election, where would she run?

    Having just competed a leadership vote, if Ms. Smith resigns I assume the UCP would just appoint the electorate’s second choice, Travis Toews, but since the recent leadership vote was a preferential ballot, it would be interesting to recount the ballots by going to each voters’ next choice after Smith.

    If you, or rather some UCP executives, accept my premise that the UCP would be better off with a Smith loss, the next question would be what would those executives do to try to bring it about? Since Smith-supporting Take Back Alberta now has a significant presence on the board, nothing could be done there. It is not hard, however, to imagine Shaping Alberta’s Future, who actively campaigned against Danielle Smith during the leadership contest, and other like minded groups, looking for a way to nip Ms. Smith in the bud. (Given that this is the party that had a kamikaze candidate in its first leadership vote, that may not be as far fetched as it seems.) Too bad for anti-Smith UCPers, it is not possible for them to donate directly to the NDG’s Gwendoline Dirk’s campaign; all donations have to go directly to the provincial office.

    Meanwhile, if the NDP accepts my premise that the UCP would be better off with a Smith loss, you have to wonder how badly they want Ms. Dirk to win the byelection, if it results in them having to face a more difficult opponent next May.

    Just Me has definitely created an appropriate theme with her popcorn comments.

    1. The only thing about the NDP having to face a more difficult challenger if DS is somehow gone by may is , there isn’t one ? There’s no one waiting in the wings, this is their horse they’re betting on.

  9. I still recall the survey the Medicine Hat News conducted last spring. They asked “ if there were an election next week who would you vote for “. Notley got 76% and Kenney 17% and the fact that more than 1,500 people took part showed the people cared so let’s hope they all still feel that way next Tuesday.

  10. The real struggle here is the UCP is not the conservative party of the past and it is nice to see that people are seeing that even late. Not saying the NDP are the answer here but what did the NDP do in power? They invested proactively in then energy sector, they put government spending caps on wages from top to bottom. Put them against any other NDP party it was pretty tame. Limiting/freezing spending in the public sector that’s not what most people think when they hear NDP. What does the UCP do they promptly gave billions of tax dollars that went south of the boarder so much for Alberta jobs! They cut their wages in a big show of look at us filling the new cycle and the media posts, only to revert it 60 days later and give themselves a little bump for the trouble hardly a peep. Then they slashed and burned all public services while saying “Look it doesn’t work” Of course it doesn’t work if I fail to pay for gas in my car it won’t work either. The self-fulfilling prophecies of the UCP saying “look governments don’t work!” What we need is a return to options on the spectrum. When the PC merged, they gave up too much. Pragmatic leadership is a thing of the past. Reasonable thoughtful leadership/statements don’t make headlines and don’t get elected cause we need that next outrages fix to share in our bubbles.

  11. I would invite those who want more oil development to consider the following:
    Pipelines successfully negotiated by Conservative governments since Harper began = 0. that’s a Conservative PM with Conservative provincial government at the same time for three consecutive election cycles. Pipelines successfully negotiated by Federal Liberal and Provincial NDP governments since Harper began = 1, and it was passed early in the first election cycle for both governments.

    Put the culture war stuff aside for a moment and think – who has accomplished the thing you told Canada and Canadians that you wanted so badly you were considering secession?

    In hockey, you cheer for your team harder when they’re losing. No matter how badly the UCP govern Alberta, they won’t get to draft first overall as a result. Also, hockey players can lose in ways that are not blameworthy, and when hockey players lose no human beings suffer as a result. When politicians are losing it’s because they’ve done something wrong or because they’ve failed to do something right – if we blindly support them no matter what they do, they learn they can do anything and we will blindly support them. When politicians lose, their constituents suffer, or at least prosper less than they would have. This is true of all political parties and leaders, it is not a dig at the Conservatives.

    Never be on the side of any political party or leader because none of them can succeed at politics while remaining on your side. Instead of supporting parties or people, support specific policies you like and oppose specific policies you dislike. When other people raise specific objections to the policies you support, consider their positions and respond respectfully. Allow yourself to be open to the idea that you may be wrong, or you may be only partially right. Both things happen to responsible adults. Don’t raise objections that aren’t sincere or eventually people will just stop listening to you when you object.

    I used to really value Conservative perspectives, because they could often point out to me ideas and perspectives that I tend to overlook and they helped me discard a lot of incorrect ideas. Now that the most vocal of them are raving nutcases at best, committed Christofascists at worst, I am deprived of that perspective, and I am poorer for it.

  12. Given that it now becoming highly questionable if Danielle Straitjacket knew anything about ‘Operation Peacock’ or not is beginning to cast a shadow over her claim that she is an outsider. In fact, Smith is very much an insider and is inclined to engage in all kinds of shenanigans for the sake of her ambitions. (Sound familiar?)

    Now that it’s beginning to seem that Smith is about to be embarrassed in a solidly CON rural Alberta riding, it may be that, finally, everyone is beginning to see the UCP for the clown show it really is.

    Now that it appears that the other CON premiers in Western Canada want nothing to do with Smith and her big ideas, may be Alberta will finally get a brain and see these CONs for what they really are, a tribe of grifters?

    I’m not holding my breath just yet.

  13. One-percenter Danielle-Smith’s paean notwithstanding, an objective observer inured to rationality would find it preposterous. But that viewpoint would have to be, in this age of conspiracy theories, more than hypothetical—perhaps ‘hyperthetical’ or, better, ‘metathetical.’ For sure it ain’t too mathematical: plug in the variables and Danielle’s UCP is set for a drubbing. But it’s as if she doesn’t care about that.

    I remain convinced that Smith hasn’t a democratic bone in her head and that she doesn’t contemplate any psephology at all beyond the by-election directly in front of her—and even that has its ulterior purpose, the one I suspect is what her prairie-dog soldiery is all about: that she personally tables her highly suspect “Alberta Sovereignty” bill in the legislative nursery her riding shovelled her into in 2012 and the electorate shovelled her out of in 2015 (had things gone her way in 2012, she would have become both a rookie-parliamentarian and premier the very instant her riding victory was confirmed, but I bet she finds her current weasel trail into that high office much more delicious).

    Two premises: first, that Smith is pursuing a course that by all measurable accounts will democratically disempower the vehicle she’s managed to undemocratically commandeer; second, that the redoubter ethea she subscribes to—disingenuous claims of victimhood (carbon tax, federal gun regulations, Saskatchewan’s quantifiable federal harm, mandated Covid protocols, Justin Trudeau making BoJo laugh at tRump, &c), justified revenge (Freedumb Convoys), and partisan purity (leave the [ ] blanc)—is commonplace neo-right strategy everywhere from UK through Canada and the USA, and on down under to Australia (the globalist diagolon). Unless Smith does something different than ‘all’s-fair-in-loving-the-War-Room’ while her polling numbers flag, then she’s arguably only in it to throw a judicial-arbitrage sugar cube into constitutional axions and, that done, wait for the chain-reactionary bot to pervade the federal machinery and stealthily metabolize before the hallucinations even start. The clever part, naturally, is that by the time voters put out the trash it’ll already be too late to stop Danielle’s political polonium.

    I could be wrong, of course, but at least not as wrong as Danielle is if her ploy is anything like the sixty-one loopholes to overturning the election Donald F tRump found closed in US courts of law or K-Boy’s “Best Summer Ever”—or, for that matter, any number of players who gamed the system and lost, from Tamara Lich (limits of rights and freedoms) to Stephen Harper (Northern Gateway and outstanding indigenous sovereign claims), on to the likes of Keegstra, Zündel, Riel, William Lyon Mackenzie, and many more—including the guy who reassembled the wreckage of two parties Danielle left in her wake.

    Smith’s repeated assurances that she’s simply not interested in anything medical experts have to say seems way out of whack with the shaky state of public healthcare in Alberta. It might look like she has at least a stunted sense of democratic weight, if only that of the anti-vaxxer faction which sneaked her in the back door of provincial politics—but when four of five Albertans think her party is on the wrong track on healthcare, with such a short time left to even start fixing anything, and with the issue plainly crossing partisan lines, it’s fair strange Smith looks dug-in to continue the very unpopular assault on the system’s administrative integrity. Again, she appears psephologically carefree.

    While Danielle’s agenda is picking fights with the Ottawa, the latest poll strongly suggests her more formidable challenge is really Rachel Notley’s NDP whose own government’s superior performance remains fresh in voters’ memories: only three years ago Notley was still in power. But Smith’s anti-NDP paean looks too perfunctory by half, again suggesting her priority isn’t about winning the next election. It also suggests that her bigger challenge exists—quietly for now— among her own caucus, at least the ones who actually are concerned about their electoral prospects. Meanwhile, Smith didn’t profit from the bump Kenney’s ouster momentarily gave the party, and has gotten very poor marks from citizens ever since, dragging the whole party down with her. And she hasn’t even won a seat in the Assembly yet.

    Very nearly half the UCP was determined —six ballots determined—to keep Smith from becoming leader. Now that she (barely) is and her radical support base controls half the party administration, it’s unlikely she can be deposed before next May, the scheduled election—UCP baggage is too heavy anyway. It won’t be any better for her unfriendly faction if she decides to extend the term by working around the fixed election date. The traditional unpopularity of approaching five years again suggests Smith has another priority—and I that the only reason she’d do that would be if she hasn’t got that other priority done yet. So what’s a UCP MLA who wants to get re-elected supposed to do in spite of Smith making the party unelectable?

    I think they can only wait to see if her policies can be tempered enough to save the party, never mind the government. As improbable as that seems, what then can they be waiting for? To me that would have to be the well-considered moment when to distance from her. And the only way an MLA who is thus booted from caucus can hope to be relevant enough to get re-elected would be to join with others who have also been booted. Now that’s a conspiracy theory I believe PC ghosts might indulge in. Meanwhile, forget about Edmonton, probably parts of Calgary, and maybe even a surprising number of rural ridings.

  14. Alberta electorate has been disappointing me for 50 years. This does not mean that I don’t hope these polls are proved correct. I just wouldn’t put a lot of my own money on it.

  15. With May a long way away there is plenty of time, the NDP campaign of fear may not have the staying power they hope. Take the Q adjacent type name calling, does that really play well with Albertans? Maybe in some echo chambers but the with the wider public?
    The real problem the NDP has is the energized UCP base, looking at membership numbers alone is a good indication. If Smith can separate from the missteps, to put it mildly, of Kenney over the last almost 3 years the negatives fall to the NDP. They are still supporting vaccine mandates even though it clearly didn’t work, masking kids in school well now that the overwhelming negatives are known who still supports that? Prentice went negative and lost, Notley went negative and lost learn from the past.

    1. It is pretty ballsy to suggest the NDP is running a fear based campaign as the UCP has been saying Rachel Notley will destroy alberta since before they even existed as a party. It’s likely that folks hear culture war narratives because that’s what they WANT to hear, but most albertans hear investment in healthcare, stable relationships with our neighbours and international investment coming to Alberta, not to mention reversing WILDLY UNPOPULAR UCP policies like the tax on K country.

      The folks who are scared of a Notley government aren’t champions of this province or good neighbours in their community. They’re selfish entitled whiners who want to punish the rest of us for not thinking the way they do.

      1. The party that wants to make covid their entire identity going on three years after the onset of the pandemic will LOSE. People are tired of talking about this. Light yourselves on fire for all I care, you’re just destroying your party.

  16. “The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.”
    When Dozi Dani wins with a landslide and then paints alberta 100% blue in the spring …we will all get to be certified Q anon stolen election crazies.
    If the NDP win; the “it’s a mistake” “conservatives didn’t mean to vote like that” ” if they really thought it might really happen”
    bloggers will bloom like the prairie buffalo beans.
    Fun times and hope I’m here to read the next chapter.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.