Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair, rusticated from the United Conservative Party Caucus by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for trying too hard to look out for his rural constituents, sure has been quiet lately.
So quiet, indeed, one almost wonders if the Independent MLA from the riding 250 kilometres northwest of Edmonton is about to be beamed back aboard the UCP mothership.
Readers will recall a lot of brave talk last summer about Mr. Sinclair and former UCP infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie firing a bolt of electricity through the moribund remains of the Progressive Conservative Party that ruled Alberta for nearly 44 years and jolting it back to life.
Mr. Sinclair was kicked out of the UCP Caucus in March 2025 for threatening to vote against Finance Minister Nate Horner’s budget on the grounds it didn’t do enough for rural ridings like his.
Mr. Guthrie had quit cabinet in February over how the premier was dealing with the former Alberta Health Services CEO’s allegations about dodgy contracts being pushed by government insiders and was expelled from caucus in April for demanding a judge-led inquiry into the allegations.
The pair announced their Progressive Conservative renewal plan on July 2, 2025, when they showed up on the Real Talk With Ryan Jespersen video podcast.
“The premier is going to be held accountable for morphing the party from what was supposed to be a mainstream, big-tent party into a separatist party,” Mr. Sinclair told Mr. Jespersen. “We’re going to be able to provide people with a very comfortable option with a name that has credibility, with two MLAs to start that have reputations that I believe are reputable, are solid in their constituencies, and represent a lot more mainstream Albertans.”
Alas, it was not to be. Last fall the UCP went to court to block the use of the PC name by any new party. Then, in December, the UCP majority in the Assembly passed legislation forbidding new parties from using words or phrases already associated with registered parties or their predecessors – including “Conservative.”
Since then, while Mr. Guthrie has continued to regularly lambaste the government, Mr. Sinclair hasn’t had much to say.
After Mr. Guthrie announced the new party would be rolled into what was left of the Alberta Party and awkwardly rebranded as the Progressive Tory Party in an effort to get around the UCP legislation while still encouraging fond memories of the 44 years the PCs ruled Alberta, Mr. Sinclair publicly said he’d remain an Independent in the Legislature, thank you very much.
He wanted to work constructively across party lines, he said at the time. He also wanted to ensure his Lesser Slave Lake riding remained viable when the Electoral Boundaries Commission issued its report – which it did. All that, though, is now in doubt again with the UCP decision to dump the report and replace it with whatever a stacked MLA committee headed by Leduc-Beaumont MLA Brandon Lunty comes up with.
So from Mr. Sinclair’s perspective, this would be a good reason for a rapprochement with his former party.
And as the UCP’s only Indigenous candidate in the 2023 election, the UCP brain trust may see a useful role for Mr. Sinclair to help counter the growing hostility among First Nations leaders to the UCP’s separatist machinations.
Mr. Guthrie will never be forgiven for his political sins. There is real fury in Premier Smith’s inner circle at his repeated criticism of the UCP’s dodgy contracts scandal, its increasingly open separatism, and most recently its plan to politicize the drawing of electoral boundaries.
UCP leaders may soon find a way, though, to welcome Mr. Sinclair back into the bosom of the party.
Is there some sort of kickbacks coming for Scott Sinclair, from the UCP, if he were to re-enter the UCP fold? If he really has any integrity, he’d renounce the UCP and Danielle Smith, because they are the farthest thing from being Conservative. You also get the sense that the UCP are getting quite desperate to win the provincial election in Alberta, in 2027. Gerrymandering of ridings, enticements announced for Edmonton, which seems like a retread of broken election promises from the provincial election just 3 years ago, and other questionable actions from Danielle Smith. What is this?
Province seeking to lower food prices, says Premier Danielle Smith | Calgary Herald https://share.google/rthiFNArHiuOXKWMT
I am reminded of Lyle Oberg, who was chastised by the Alberta PCs for criticizing them, and he had to sit and an independent MLA. He claimed to know about the skeletons in the closet. What were they? You have to wonder what else Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair might know about any shady activities from the UCP and Danielle Smith.
Anonymous: I don’t think Scott Sinclair knows anything. I think Peter Guthrie knows a lot, which makes him very dangerous. Remember, as someone famously said, some of the things he knows about may involve “serious people.” DJC
Smith: Racist? But some of my best MLAs are indigenous……
Smith, who took over the UCP with tepid support and reservations from many in her own party was never considered a unifier. However, power and good enough popularity seems to have tamped down many of the critics in her party for now. So it would not be a surprise now if a wayward MLA comes back. Despite grumbling by some more moderate conservatives, the extreme right wing remains in charge and another more moderate party seems to have not really taken off. So in the two party world that Alberta remains they will have to either ride with Smith, or perhaps sit on their hands and stay home.
Some in the UCP may want an independent Alberta, but provincially or in their own party they really do not want much independent thought. Extreme right wing thinking remains the only official state ideology of the UCP and resistance by party members now appears futile.
I imagine Sinclair read the tea leaves and saw a future that looked grim for himself. The new party didn’t exactly set the province on fire and he knows he’ll never be reelected in his blue riding as an independent. I think DJC is right. Better to eat crow, shut up and collect a (very generous) paycheque than to head back to obscurity and unemployment in Slave Lake.
Every time people drive on the crap highways north, they think about Scott Sinclair asking why the north’s natural resources don’t equate to better roads and services. Then we remember the UCP doesn’t give a shit.
The riding of Lesser Slave Lake has gotten more than its share of attention since the UCP was formed. First they were stuck with Pat Rehn, the MLA that never showed up to the riding, and caused an unnecessary problem for Jason Kenney. Then they get Scott Sinclair, who attempted to overcompensate for Pat Rehn’s inadequacies and got kicked out of the UCP caucus for being overzealous in his representation of the riding. Residents of Lesser Slave Lake are learning the hard way the truth of the curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’.
For a while it looked like the UCP’s problem of Lesser Slave Lake had solved itself when the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s interim report eliminated the riding altogether, and split it up into the adjacent ridings. The fact that the riding was reinstated in the Commission’s final report does leave me wondering if Danielle Smith’s Office of Gerrymandering directed the Commission to reinstate the riding since the UCP had arranged a truce with Scott Sinclair.
On a totally different front,
In David’s annual April Fool’s column, which I always look forward to, our host’s column seemed much less outrageous than previous years’ columns, to the point that I did wonder if it was true. In retrospect I think the column is a result of David’s often made comment, ‘you can’t make this stuff up’. I think that when he sat down to write this year’s April Fools column, David simply realized he cannot create anything as outrageous as what the UCP comes up with for real, so he didn’t even try. Really, could you have picked out the fake news headline from the following if you had read them when Danielle Smith first became premier?:
1. Danielle Smith changes the citizen initiative rules to make a vote on separation easier.
2. UCP government bans electronic vote tabulation machines because they resulted in the 2020 election being stolen from Donald Trump.
3. Danielle Smith uses the not withstanding clause to end a labour dispute.
4. Alberta government bans electronic scoring of provincial achievement exams since they use the same technology that resulted in the 2020 election being stolen from Donald Trump.
One could take an additional reading that the UCP are interested in welcoming him back because they very much would like to retain that riding in the coming election. IF* they are so concerned with their future of a government they’re counting single rural ridings as potential trouble that could be an indicator the facts on the ground don’t necessarily match the breezy polls they almost surely selectively leaked. It seems to me the UCP is very focused on ensuring no one from their base wanders, that doesn’t look like a confident governing party to me, that looks to me like a government that’s worried they may lose their majority status, and maybe not form government at all.
These aren’t large communities and once a party like the UCP becomes a pariah, or a leader like smith does, that’s it. It’s all over but the singing.
Is that happening across the province now ? Maybe not, but I bet there’s places where it is. Rural alberta has received just as much chaos and uncertainty with their healthcare and pensions and the endless lying and corruption.
This party is a Frankensteins monster like creation that has no business in government. Conservatives in alberta are not of one mind, and that’s why they weren’t of one party either. Life can change fast in alberta, ask the Socreds and the Liberals. If one assumes that shakey alliance between maple maga and run of the mill albertan cons can’t last forever than one must concede that it won’t last forever either. I am pointedly NOT saying that will lead to another orange wave, but I honestly can’t see this charade going on for all that much longer. they’re just like the American maga, (but they have less money and they’re not as organized and this isn’t America,) & just look at how spectacularly #47 is decimating those folks. Y’all really think the UCP, a gang of idiots and grifters the likes of which this country has never seen will do better with less ? Most people regardless of political leanings are not assholes, and I really don’t see how a party who has made that their governing principle can remain a big tent. Something else is already coming, and they may not be able to call it that right now, but it will be conservative.
Fwiw I think they should call it the constitutional party of alberta, CPA is pretty great from an acronym standpoint and it would allow the national press at least to call them the alberta cons which would REALLY burn the ass of this loser party we have in government. (Free idea)
As an avid viewer of Question Period, I have seen the change in Mr. Sinclair lately. Given the re-drawing of the fittings and his being eliminated may have encouraged a change of heart. In the last few sessions his questions were really critical, where this week they were really soft compared to before. So maybe he is trying to work his way back into caucus as suggested? Meanwhile, Mr. Guthrie continues with his full on attack of the UCP and I don’t see him backing down any time soon. He clearly has unearthed some skeletons in the Dingy closet.
Whatever is new about this. Once they realize the amount of real work to form a party and the UCP is willing to do to shoot them down, everything changes. I just wished they would be mature enough to realize that before coming out as Superman and then having to just go down into the sewage. They should know better. This is Alberta and politics are to say the least a disgraceful joke.
By the way Pierre Poilievre is back on MAGA mindset, this time and as usual he is the only one capable of being a joke like his friend down south. He just cannot grow up and like Trump he is amazed that only 39% really trust him – Oh Gee I wonder why?
I guess Scott Sinclair will be crossing the floor back to where he started.
Do your homework. Sinclair has owned his own business in Sherwood Park for years. Were you thinking he was some kind of welfare bum?
Neither the UCP nor anyone else can “politicize the drawing of electoral [riding] boundaries”–unless drawing of riding boundaries to make them advantageous for a particular partisanship means to “politicize.”
I submit it does not mean that.
Politics is how public policy gets done; it’s understood a fundament of democracy that public policy be good for the public at large. A policy which advantages one part of the public by disadvantaging another part cannot be politics for the public good, or the public at large. Unfairness breeds resentment, partisan enmity and divisiveness, and ultimately distrust in the institution of government.
Partisanship is normal. Differences of opinion in about particular policies or how they should be gotten done exist in every society. Citizens join parties–that is, become partisans– to develop policy proposals for their elected representatives to advocate in parliament. Politics, in contrast, is the process by which differing policy opinions are ironed-out; starting within parties, rough ideas are cooperatively hammered into cogent proposals. Politics is how elected parliamentarians debate policy proposals and pass the compromise position into laws thence implemented. Sometimes further vetting by the judiciary is needed to ensure the compromise political position complies with existing laws, again in the best interest of the public weal, peace and order–the political environment most conducive to finding and living within fair limits to political compromise that are reasonable in a free and democratic society.
Every step of the political process, from a party-membership’s brain-storming to formal, parliamentary processes — analysis and debate in committee, opportunities to criticize and/or amend drafts during rounds of parliamentary readings, and putting the resulting bills to a parliamentary vote–seeks cooperative compromise, or “the art of the possible.” The judicial process, mainly constrained to finding whether legislated policy itself is compatible with the body of law as a whole, is not a political process per se except insofar as a court might strike down parts of a legislation and return it to parliament with recommendations restricted to how the legislation’s legal flaws might be fixed. Not least is jurisprudence to ensure legislation, its implementation and enforcement, are fairly applied to everyone equally . Politics–and therefore “politicization”–is designed precisely to mitigate partiality, not to promote it. Gerrymandering in favour of a particular party, as the UCP appears to be attempting, is the opposite of impartiality. (Legal challenges will naturally ensue.)
The misuse of “politics” and its derivative terms–“political,” “politicize,” “politician,” &c–as pejoratives to mean “partisanship” or “to make too partisan,” or “chauvinism” is a bad habit that has crept north of the border with the MAGAfication of the USA under Donald F tRump. Presumably the best candidates are elected to be politicians but somehow “politician” has become an untrustworthy enemy of the people, a petty partisan of self-interest or a henchman of absolute partisanship, or chauvinistic loyalty. “Politicization” has come to mean bad things always-suspect politicians always do.
This confusion and/or substitution of terms, now commonplace in US MSM, conspicuously matches MAGA’s barely-concealed anti-political aspirations and chauvinistic loyalism, the absolute “partisanship” tRump demands. Scare quotes are used because his ideal is the cult of his own person, not even a one-party state, but rather a no-party state. Although, technically, there can be no partisanship in a one-party state, tRump’s sadistic psychosis needs an opposing partisanship to blame when things go wrong. Like, all the time…
(The real absolute is obvious when tRump gleefully inflicts pain on friend, foe, and even his own family, without discrimination, an important fact often obscured because the supply of victims to scapegoat could just as well be necessitated by the fallout from his disastrous “policies” –scare quotes because none of them can be politicized to serve the public good no matter how hard anyone tries. Anyway, the Orange One never dwells much on technicalities.
It sounds like hair-splitting but, of all people, journalists know the importance of words as well as propagandists understand the insidious undermining of rivals’ reputations by repeated slights, innuendo, taunts and name-calling, and consistent pejoration –in this case of the terms “politics” and its derivatives. By itself it might not topple democracy, but little by little it probably helps: it turns people off of politics, politicians, and government, undermines trust in elections, and normalizes disrespect for the law. The case rests by simply pointing to what’s plainly happening south of the border.
Let’s stop using “politics” to mean “partisanship.” Let’s avoid substituting “politicization” as a pejorative that excessive partisanship, or chauvinism, deserves instead. We actually need to politicize issues to get policies that address them done.