Jennifer Johnson, the deplorable poop-cookie lady, is welcomed back into the bosom of the UCP

CALGARY – If the United Conservative Party Caucus in the Alberta Legislature were cookie dough, I suppose the addition of Jennifer Johnson wouldn’t significantly change the flavour of the cookies that came out of the oven, if you know what I mean.

As predicted more than once in this space, Ms. Johnson, the “Independent” MLA who infamously compared trans children in school to poop in the cookie dough just before the last Alberta general election, when it was too late for anyone to get her name off the ballot, has been welcomed back into the bosom the UCP.

“Like a teaspoon of poop in the cookie batch, it’s that little bit of poop that wrecks it,” Ms. Johnson proclaimed to an audience of home schoolers, who doubtless were nodding along in agreement, in a video that surfaced shortly before the 2023 election.

Embarrassed by that ugly revelation, which came too late to remove the candidate from the ballot, Premier Smith vowed that if elected, Ms. Johnson wouldn’t be allowed to sit on the UCP benches. Cynics, like this one, predicted that she would be rehabilitated soon enough.

That was then, when Ms. Smith was trying to win an election in which a lot of votes would be needed from folks in urban ridings who believed saying that kind of thing about children ought to permanently disqualify anyone from public office.

This is now, when she needs to ensure that a lot of the people who dominate the UCP, folks with attitudes quite in tune with Ms. Johnson’s views, don’t turn on her.

Even so, when pictures of Ms. Smith and Ms. Johnson standing together and cheerfully applauding something at the Ponoka Rodeo were posted to the government’s official Alberta Newsroom Flickr account on June 30, it was apparent the day of Ms. Johnson’s total rehabilitation was nigh.

The captions on the photos didn’t mention Ms. Johnson by name, although in one photo her name tag could easily be read, but the message to her supporters in rural Central Alberta was clear enough: The premier really has no problem with what she had to say.

Well, at least her return to favour ought to deflect attention from the question everyone was asking yesterday: Why is Marshall Smith, once upon a time touted as Alberta’s “Drug Czar,” about to be replaced as Premier Danielle Smith’s chief of staff?

That, of course, is a question worth pursuing. There has been a lot of billowing smoke in the form of rumours about Mr. Smith (who is no relation to the premier of the same name, by the way) in the past few days, which is obviously intended to leave the impression that there must be a fire somewhere.

It is always worth remembering at times like these, though, the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s wise observation that, “sometimes, where there’s smoke, there’s a smoke-making machine.” So, before we jump to conclusions it might be worthing thinking about who within the UCP really wanted Mr. Smith gone, and why.

Regardless, back in her Lacombe-Ponoka Riding, where Ms. Johnson was nevertheless elected despite her deplorable comment about children, and in other parts of the UCP’s rural comfort zone, Premier Smith has been under pressure to let the MLA be admitted to the caucus.

Ms. Smith has been heard to say to her supporters that she’d really rather wait until after her party has introduced its anti-trans bill to the Legislature before Ms. Johnson was made welcome. But the so-called 1905 Committee, which seems to be what Take Back Alberta has shape-shifted into, has been demanding that the door be opened to Ms. Johnson immediately.

The group said in an email sent to media yesterday it had “successfully forced” the premier to allow Ms. Johnson to return to the party for which she ran.

As part of her effort to see her political career rehabilitated, Ms. Johnson made a half-hearted apology for using “an inappropriate analogy,” and met with a few members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, leaving them them unimpressed.

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi noted in a statement today that at the time Ms. Johnson’s remark became public, Premier Smith called the comment “vile” and “unacceptable and does not reflect the values of our party or province.’”

“Allowing Johnson to join the UCP caucus is yet again proving that the Danielle Smith who ran for premier is not the same Danielle Smith who is the premier,” Mr. Nenshi said. “Johnson’s apology lacked true remorse.”

Recently appointed Alberta Senator Kristopher Wells, a prominent advocate of 2SLGBTQ+ rights, called the news “disappointing but not surprising. If you’re going to pass anti-trans policies, human rights and decency are not priorities that matter.”

It would be interesting to know if anyone in the UCP Caucus spoke up against welcoming Ms. Johnson to their ranks. After all, a couple of them are still around from 2015 when they were mightily upset about how a young NDP MLA named Deborah Drever had once posted a photo of prominent Conservatives Ric McIver and Jim Prentice on her Instagram account over the words “Gay boyz.”

While this was rightly condemned as casual homophobia, it seems pretty mild compared with Ms. Johnson’s outrageous statement, especially considering the fact that, unlike children, Messrs. McIver and Prentice were quite capable of speaking up for themselves.