Never mind what Danielle Smith promises, here are the Top Ten Things that WON’T happen in Alberta politics in 2023

Great list. In regards to the provincial election in Alberta, I’m seeing indicators that it will commence in 2023. The UCP are throwing so much bribe money around, including restoring funding that they cut. That doesn’t happen if a provincial election isn’t pending. It’s known that the UCP doesn’t respect democracy, so they may try to postpone the election, for as long as they can, but they will eventually be forced to have one.

I generally agree with DJC’s list of unlikely things. Quibbles aside, it correlates well with my own set of ranking-factors, particularly the two most critical features listed: the number-one ranking prospect of a May 2023 election and maintaining UCP unity, ranking ninth— which is that much less unlikely than Smith weaselling around the current fixed-term law.

Fellow commenters agree why a May 2023 election is ranked the highest unlikelihood: Danielle Smith waylaid a party in existential tumult by promising gin-besotted policies that appealed to the more extreme of the two factions now uncomfortably adrift in their shared, Queequeg lifeboat, HMS “Two Feathers.”

The now-tillering Wildrose faction squeaked her a sixth-ballot win for the UCP leadership and, coincidentally, the premiership— even though the combined support of this party faction and voters who elected her MLA in a parachute-riding by-election amounts to somewhat less than 5% of the Alberta electorate.

Most of the ‘most-unlikely’ lists policies so impolitic among the general electorate that almost any single one of them—never mind all of them together—would render the UCP unelectable if an election were held in just five months from now, May 29 being scheduled under the four-year fixed-term statute. This is the supposed rationale for Smith to avail instead the five-year term limit required by the Constitution of Canada, as impolitic as this would be, in and of itself: if she goes on the scheduled date, the UCP will almost certainly be thrashed at the polls.

It’s not as if Smith can simply shelf her unpopular policy proposals in hopes the electorate will simply forget or, even more unlikely, forgive them: the Wildrose faction, however, won’t forget and would never forgive her for trying to renege. As politically dumb as these Freedumbites are, they do comprise one of the most important likelihoods that her hand might be forced—that is, to raise these issues despite their unpopularity. Smith made this bed of undemocratic and impolitic technique, so she might be forced to lie in it—although she might also find the last steps toward reincarnation somewhat embarrassing (the Bardo Thodol is recommended reading).

Let us, then, also put to bed the notion to that Smith’s extended-term strategy might be used to gradually convince the general electorate that these polices are good for them and Alberta, and not just for her own political career: none of them—save, perhaps, the Calgary-Banff passenger train issue which is politically fungible for any party—can be implemented in time to show any salutary effect within the next 16 months (presuming she needs the full amount of extra months, minus one for campaigning); indeed, even attempting to implement them would probably have the reverse effect. That being so, expect Smith to distract from the worst of the list by way of decoying the ones which will assuage her extremist faction without, she hopes, overly disturbing the electorate’s mood. I think that would include at least the policing issue and the two, totally moot proposals: the Sovereignty Act and the Covid-Response Inquiry. The majority of voters will get how moot they really are, but I don’t reckon they’ll be all that impressed with wasting time on them when there are more important issues which need immediate help.

Anyway, any of the list will invite challenges which, depending on the decision to go for May 2023 or not, I group into four categories: guaranteed, contingent, particular, and snake-in-the-grass, each one with its own cast. As mentioned, the Wildrose faction is guaranteed to figure large, no matter what, but so too the NDP Opposition which will doubtlessly challenge the UCP at its most vulnerable points, all to do with healthcare (see list items 3, 4, and 10), and of course the Treaty Six Confederacy (directly concerned with list-item 2) because it disturbs Constitutional Aboriginal Rights and (item 7) because of the gun lobby’s emphasis of aspirational “stand-your-ground rights” in which indigenous citizens have been prejudicially and often fatally targeted. That is, the decoys Wildrosers might force Smith to publicly gin are also very vulnerable to two very formidable interests which won’t shy from reminding voters what Smith promised her supporters that she’d do to all Albertans.

More diverse and less formidable in isolation are particular interests like pensioners, healthcare professionals, citizens with chronic and/or predisposing health conditions, environmentalists, and civil rights activists, to name but a few. They are, however, voters.

Possibly the most dangerous for Smith’s government are interests revolving contingently around the election date, most importantly being the UCP’s ProgCon faction which tolerates Smith only insofar as its members’ interests are attended to —in no particular order: the future of the UCP, their own political careers, and the future of the partisan right in general. I for one am not convinced that extending the term will comfort the ProgCon faction because, as real politicians ( that is, not including Smith and her Wildrose faction) know very well, going much past four years has always been very unpopular, and there are enough examples to infer that it wouldn’t be any different in Alberta. The ProgCons might therefore see a better future by opting for schism if Smith extends the term as many expect her to do. It would take only twenty of them to precipitate an election by withdrawing parliamentary confidence from the UCP cabinet (Smith might have anticipated this and handed out such a huge number of cabinet-post cookies to forestall such), a contingency that would almost guarantee survivors a term in Opposition, that being perhaps better than an eternity of oblivion in the history books.

Which raises another matter swinging around the fixed-term date: if any UCP MLA resigns cher seat between now and whenever the writ is dropped, the touchy matter of holding by-elections will again remind everyone that Smith has left Calgary-Elbow dangling without an MLA since last August (when UCP MLA Schweitzer resigned) and only won her own, parachute-riding by bumping another UCP MLA out of her safe Brooks-Medicine Hat seat. Demand to call by-elections will be very hard to argue against if any MLA vacates cher seat before whenever the writ is dropped.

The feds are a contingent factor in a number of list-items related to the Canada Health Act (which Smith proposes to offend, risking the loss of federal funds), the Clarity Act (as it relates to the obvious separatist motivations of the Alberta Sovereignty Act, provincial policing, CPP, &c) and even the Emergencies Act (as it relates to the Coutts Freedumbite blockade, gun registry, policing, &c). Odds are the feds are better at rope-a-dope than Danielle hopes she can be with regard the goofy, moot-foolish policies she ginned her WR faction with. But there is a contingency which the feds are quite interested in.

And that’s the snake-in-the-grass: the federal CPC with its Freedumbite-loving leader and its Western Prairie roots. Every day the Alberta election extends past four years taints the UCP’s big-sister-party with the same unpopularity and, depending on the duration of the federal government (which, remind, is a minority existing at the pleasure of the NDP), brings the federal and Alberta provincial general elections into closer proximity to each other—possibly even overlapping. With his own popularity problems and list of leadership ginnings he hopes voters will soon forget, Bitcoin Pierre is an unlikely UCP ally and, as always, depending on highly variable variables, Smith might even get the cold shoulder in order the CPC doesn’t get tarred at the polls with the same sand as the UCP is likely to be buried in.

The exercise continually reminds me that Smith doesn’t appear to have any policy, political, or psephological sense or rationale (now, there’s a 3P for you!): so what the hell is she up to? What could she possibly sabotage of the public enterprise that couldn’t be immediately repaired the minute she’s booted from power? The only thing I come up with is sabotage of public trust and participation in the political process. The absurdist tRumpublicans have certainly accomplished that in a way that will take a long time to repair, if that’s even possible in America’s neo-right ruination. The difference is that Danielle Smith and her Wildrose supporters comprise only a tiny percent of the Alberta electorate. I’m willing to bet that her support will shrink even quicker if she opts for extending the term. I therefore predict that this will be the critical factor in predicting the future. A crystal ball filled with smoke, but one that’s sure to get clearer within the next five to twelve months.

But, Danielle, by then it will be winter, nothing much for you to do—and those winds sure blow cold way out there…

I can see your audience is mostly NDP
I didn’t vote for her but if we need to vote for the lesser of two evils I’m definitely voting UPC because getting another Trudeau/Singh NDP government would finally put this province down for the count. I hope people realize that Notley won’t be in charge, they will be. Or 100% Trudeau will be. Singh does what he’s told. I voted mad and Notley got in and wow what a nightmare. I hope Albertans are smarter this time because it can not happen again. And a question. Why do NDP not want to put Alberta first? Why do you live here if you don’t want Alberta to prosper for all its citizens? Why would you want Trudeau to totally control us? Its genuinely confuses me why. And by the way its very Trudeau of you to call people names because they don’t share your opinions.