Front Burner - The political resurrection of Danielle Smith

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

There was a time when former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith was in the political wilderness, cast out by a stunning floor-crossing that alienated and angered many Alberta conservatives. Now, it seems the former political pariah is back in the fold, as she makes her play to replace Jason Kenney as leader of the United Conservative Party and become Alberta's next premier. She’s drawn big cheers at the Calgary Stampede and brought in big dollars to her campaign with her anti-mandate and anti-Ottawa message. Today on Front Burner, CBC’s Jason Markusoff is here to discuss Smith’s past political downfall and her current political resurrection.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. There was a time not too long ago when former Wild Rose Party leader Danielle Smith was in the political wilderness, cast out by a stunning floor crossing that alienated and angered many Alberta conservatives. At the time, she tried to apologize to her constituents on Facebook, but it didn't go over so well.

If she wants to apologize, then she should go door to door to all her constituents and apologize face to face, if she's got the guts. Who cares? You know, I think what they did was wrong. They were elected as members of the Wild Rose Party and they should have stayed there. I think what she did was dastardly. So now with an apology, I don't know what that's going to do. But we're about seven years out from that now. And it seems the former pariah is back in the fold

as she makes her play to replace Jason Kenney as leader of the United Conservative Party and Premier of Alberta. She's drawn big cheers at the Calgary Stampede and big dollars to her campaign with her scrappy anti-mandate and anti-Ottawa message. People want to be free again and more importantly they want to be free from Ottawa and their economic sanctions. Everybody wants a fair deal for Alberta. And if we can't get it through negotiation, we're going to fight for it. And you know that I'm going to fight for you.

Earlier this month, she hosted a campaign event with the former NHL star Theo Fleury, who's recently veered into some pretty extreme conspiracy territory when it comes to things like COVID vaccines and the World Economic Forum. Here he is talking to Tucker Carlson about Justin Trudeau. And I don't believe he's running the country. I believe that there's certain entities that have infiltrated our country and have taken over. I believe he's being blackmailed by these entities. Appearing alongside Fleury got one Calgary Herald columnist to comment that Smith is playing to a sharp edge of extremism.

So today I've got Jason Marcus off with me to explain Daniel Smith's political downfall and what's now driving her political resurrection. Hey, Jason. Hello. Thank you very much for making the time today. So maybe you could tell me a bit about Daniel Smith's early political career. How does she become the leader of the Wild Rose Party back in 2009? Let's take a little bit of a step back and think about how politicians become politicians. There are different routes. Daniel Smith has done it this way. Business advocacy to politics to media, to business advocacy to politics to media, to business advocacy, and now

back to politics. She started this journey. She was a University of Calgary political junkie, She started this journey. She was a University of Calgary political junkie, a property rights advocate. And then at 1998, at age 27, she became a Calgary school board trustee, got kicked out after 10 months when the board was so dysfunctional, they dissolved it. And that seemed to be, at that point, the end of her political career, cut short early. So she joined the Calgary Herald as an editorialist, quite a conservative voice in Alberta public life, became a business advocate again. And then in 2009, at the point when the Wild Rose Party had just one seat and was quite a fringe right-wing party, she took on this leadership role as a fairly high-profile person in a party without many high-profile people. Danielle Smith and her Wild Rose Party are no strangers to challenging

conventional wisdom, like taking on the 41-year Progressive Conservative dynasty. The party greatly improved under her leadership, tapping into dissatisfaction with the center-right politics of the Progressive Conservative Party at the time, who had been in power for more than 30 years. And she came really, really, really close to becoming premier in 2012. What happened? What stood in her way? The 2012 election, her versus Alison Redford, this remarkable period where it was a foregone conclusion that Alberta would have elect its first woman premier in a general election. She was leading in the polls the whole way through.

Recent polls suggest Wild Rose is poised to present the ruling Conservatives with its biggest electoral challenge in decades. The PC party can't be changed from within, and it's time for us to create something new. And then a week before the election out came this resurrected sermon from one of her candidates in Edmonton, remarkably homophobic stuff talking about how gays would burn in the quote lake of fire. Now the striking thing was not that this guy said it, but that she would not denounce it. She would not remove this candidate. She really took this firm free speech stance. The other thing that really hurt her was that she was openly talking about her skepticism about climate change science.

So those two things sank her and gave the progressive conservatives one last shot at running government. Okay, so she didn't win, but she did become the leader of the opposition until this dramatic floor crossing. And tell me about that. This was, again, one of the most remarkable things I think anybody's seen in Alberta politics. Yeah, and there's been some real good ones. We've had a bumpy ride for the last at least decade of nothing but, oh my God, is this really happening? What is Alberta politics doing situation? But this was one of the peak moments. Jim Prentiss, out of seemingly nowhere, most of the Wild Rose caucus, including their leader, Danielle Smith, crossed the floor to become progressive conservatives to join the governing party. And so today the PC caucus welcomes the leader of the Wild Rose, Danielle Smith,

and many key members of her team to our caucus. These MLAs are both wanted and needed in our government caucus as part of our team. Alberta is stronger today with these committed Albertans working together. This afternoon I tendered my resignation as Wild Rose leader and notified the speaker that nine members of the Wild Rose caucus, including myself, will be joining the government caucus. Basically eliminating most of the opposition party, and Danielle Smith is leading this. And she was persuaded by Jim Prentiss that this would be some sort of merger, or at least she believed it was going to be, that they would have a lot of power coming into the Conservative government.

They'd be this sort of unity party. Today we are making a significant step towards reuniting the Conservative family. I'm asking Wildrose members to come with us, that this is a time, especially in this era of global economic uncertainty, where we need Conservatives to stand together to be able to make the hard choices that we know are going to need to be made over the next number of months. And that was not the case at all. She was basically played for a dupe. And it spelled her exit from politics. She couldn't even didn't even get the right to run in the next election. She was toast and she was incredibly unpopular from everybody across the

political spectrum for this. Why did this end so badly for her? She was the leader of a grassroots populist party. The Wild Rose Party emerged in 2008, fueled by voters' disillusion with the Tory government. Where the members of the party, the people who supported it, felt like they controlled the party. And she actually chafed against that. They were much more socially conservative than she was. She was much more libertarian, and they would vote against her wishes at party conventions. They wanted to make sure they controlled the party, not the leader. And here was the leader basically saying, I'm not Wild Rose. Wild Rose is no longer a thing.

Let's all become progressive conservatives. And it just seems cynical and weird that the opposition leader just folds tent and goes into the government what do you say to the 400 000 people that voted for the wild rose party in the last election that worked on your campaign that worked on the by-elections that worked on your leadership race that donated money to the wild rose party over the last two and a half years What do you say to them today when by and large what we're hearing from many people that are within that party, they strongly disapprove of what you're doing today? Well, I think we'll hear from a lot of voices over the next little while.

And sure enough, the public was so fed up with that, they voted a much even smaller party, Rachel Notley's NDP, as government to get rid of this whole crew. This whole merged, fused, wild rose PC coalition was all in opposition when Jim Prentice held an election. And Danielle Smith at this point was completely in the political wilderness. Yeah. And I know, obviously, she's in the political wilderness. She leaves politics. And then she starts hosting a talk radio show in Calgary. And tell me about her tenure there.

Yeah, back to media for her. Her second tour in media. And a lot of people thought, well, I guess she's coming back into public life. She became an AM talk radio host. Danielle Smith is in the know. Be a part of the story. Be part of the conversation on the things that matter to you. Toll free 1-800-563- On this private radio station that was kind of the big talk radio voice in both Edmonton and Calgary. She did conventional stuff, hosting politicians, news of the day, but she would

also bring on people who would normally not get public airtime, whose views were out of the mainstream. I'm talking people who question the science of climate change. You see, one of the problems that these people that have pushed human-caused global warming all along has been that people like me who knew what the climate history was said, hey, you know, a thousand years ago, it was much warmer than today. I'm talking during the COVID period, people who were questioning the science of COVID. And it appears to be more of a political move to have all these mask-wearing bylaws now. And my biggest question would be, why not in March and April? If the science really was settled, that's when we were trying to flatten the curve. And why now? And their bosses didn't like it.

The hydroxychloroquine thing, I know, got you in a lot of hot water internally and from corporate. What about outside of there? Do you regret in hindsight sharing that tweet? I mean, it made news when you deleted it. I have to assume you were ordered to delete it. I was ordered to delete it. I regret overstating it. I regret calling it a cure. We may have found a cure for COVID because that overstates it.

But a lot of the public did. A lot of the public thought that she was giving voice to these groups that were feeling censored or not part of the public conversation. And that excited a lot of people out there. As COVID continued, she was actually able to use her platform to pepper Premier Kenny himself with questions about the COVID response, right? Yeah, this is something somebody was telling me, and it's a really compelling point, that she was in the political wilderness, but figures like opposition leader then Premier Jason Kenney would give her credibility as a voice in the public square by going on her show often. In fact, when she ended her show on her last program in February 2021, Jason Kenney was a special guest. And he wasn't doing interviews with most other media outlets, but she would get an audience from him. And I remember listening to some of her final interviews with him.

It was basically her complaining about the COVID regulations and why won't he lift them. She's heard about this report or this study, about the effectiveness of PCR tests. In making sure, I don't want people to be going and getting a test and having 14 days where they have to isolate, their family has to self-isolate, if actually they've recovered

from covid and you've got dead viral particles being picked up by this test so can you explain that sure so danielle i haven't said that active cases as defined by a positive pcr test is irrelevant i've said that it should not be the only metric we consider and many of your colleagues she wants to get a haircut and she can't but But for heaven's sakes, Premier, I cut my own hair yesterday because I have no idea when you're going to allow me to get a haircut again. And I think there's lots of people who are in that situation. Oh, badly. I put my hair in a... And so she was basically needling him from the COVID restrictions are too tough side.

And how do we put it forward so someone can advocate on our behalf to get some of these restrictions lifted? Well, you certainly do in your program. And as you know, we've responded. And he was trying

to stay pretty strong, but that was her stance. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling

numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, so as Kenny's political fortunes start to turn, we all know what happened there, her ambitions to replace him they clearly began to grow and here we are she's now running for leader we got nearly 5 000 of you to sign my nomination papers thank you so much but in addition to that we have submitted the full 175 000 payment that we need to make to enter into the leadership for the UCP.

So thank you so much. It seems actually it's going pretty well for her, right? She formally entered the race earlier this month with $175,000 up front and 4,800 party member signatures. That's, I think, like five times the number of signatures required to enter the race. And what has changed here? How has she shaken off that sort of old political stink i guess she had post floor crossing and the fallout that came after

it's a remarkable political resurrection and when she launched a lot of uh pundits did not think that she would do this that she was basically she she had done the unforgivable seven and a half years ago and had no shot. I think what people discounted was that she had been laying the groundwork for this comeback. Basically, people are willing to forgive her for what she did seven and a half years ago because she's telling them what they want to hear right now. I know she addressed her past political career when she announced that she was running for leader. She basically said, like, don't assume I'm the same person I was back in 2015. She also said she is what was a mainstream conservative.

There is sort of a tendency to think now that I've decided that I'm going to jump back into politics, seeking the leadership of the UCP, that this is just a continuation of my last political life. And I would encourage you not to think that way because so much has changed since 2015. I'm sure none of you are the same person you were in 2015. And I'm not either. I'm a mainstream conservative. I've seen a lot of dialogue. And so I want to talk about her politics now. What is she running on? I would say that every politician, regardless of their political stripe, or the stridency of their politics, would call themselves a mainstream politician. Nobody's exactly going to say, hey, I'm a fringe politician, vote for me. But she is claiming a type of

conservative that is very strong and very vocal and the very type that voted out Jason Genney from the UCP. And she is mashing the exact same two buttons that pushed people to vote against him then. That's COVID regulations. She is basically saying no more lockdowns. So let me be perfectly clear. As your premier, our province will never lock down again. Your kids will stay in school. Your business will remain open. She's saying she would go around apologizing

for the pastors and restaurateurs who defied COVID restrictions when there were COVID restrictions and then got prosecuted and fined for that. And she's getting extremely tough. People thought Jason Kenney was tough on Ottawa with his equalization referendum and suing the government, challenging the carbon tax and other regulations. She's going far further than that for those many United Conservative voters who did not think Jason Kenney went far enough. She's put forward this stunning, very shocking and controversial policy called the Alberta Sovereignty Act,

which she argues would allow Alberta to just choose not to enforce any policy it thought ran afoul of its jurisdictional rights or were not in Alberta's interests. So if we are going to get respect from Ottawa, we have to stop acting like a junior player. We have to stop cowering. We have to start asserting that we have, that we've read the constitution. We understand that the constitution gives us those rights and we do intend to defend them. And we will, we'll turn the tables on the federal government. Look what they do. They interfere with our rights all the time. And then they make us go to court to try to get them back. Well, we're going to assert that our rights matter. And I will argue all day long in the court of law that when we say we're not enforcing that federal law because of this section of our of our Constitution and because of these charter rights, and then we'll just see what the court has to say about it. Experts say that's not how it works and that is not going to work in reality. And she is basically saying your establishment, we're going to do this. Yeah.

It seems like she's well aware of the idea that invoking this to trigger a constitutional crisis, right? Like she said, I'm kind of somebody who believes in asking for forgiveness rather than permission. That's right. She wants to poke the bear. The people who are behind her who've put forward this idea that she's run to the races with, they don't see constitutional crisis as a bad thing. They also see the current situation with Ottawa and Alberta as disastrous, and we may as well just separate if it's going to be like this. She doesn't use that S-word, the separatism word that's been in and around Alberta politics for a while, but she comes closer than a lot of politicians have in the past. Even Jason Kenney, who was, you know, setting new bars for how anti-Ottawa one could be in a leadership role. Yeah. Although lots of anti-Ottawa rhetoric

there, especially around equalization payments, but like nothing came of that for Kenny. And that was a big problem for him, right? That he promised and didn't deliver. That's right. For the people who believe in this stuff firmly, like he's flirted with the idea of Alberta getting its own police force, getting out of the RCMP, starting up its own provincial pension plan, getting out of the Canadian pension plan. He's mused about these things, but hasn't gone through with them, in large part because the public doesn't want them. But the United Conservative grassroots, the people who are voting for Danielle Smith, they want it. And she is promising that to the individuals, which is going to raise a really interesting question. Should she win? And it seems, seems you know unless things change at this point that she stands to win um what happens when she has to face the general public uh with these policies that are

not popular the public is not as interested as the united conservative grassroots is in this ottawa alberta uh squabble are not as interested in thinking back about COVID issues. There are more meat and potato stuff, health care, oil and gas issues, economy, inflation, education policy. These are the things that, you know, are animating the public. So how does she does she pivot to what the what's, you know's on the public's minds? I mean, it's very much like what's one of the big questions in the federal conservative race. Once Pierre Polyev becomes leader of the conservative federal party, which seems increasingly likely that he's going to win that one. Does he pivot? How does he pivot?

does he pivot? How does he pivot? One big difference, though, I would say between Polyev's situation and Danielle Smith's situation is that Polyev isn't likely to face an election until potentially 2025. In Danielle Smith's case, she wins the leadership in October. She has to run a general election in May. So she has to get her government up in gear, start this political agenda, unite this party that is incredibly hard to keep together. And who knows if she can do better or worse than Jason Kennedy did. And then come May next year, face a party that's incredibly put together and solid, the Rachel Notley's NDP. Talking about how she is the front-runner right now,

I wonder if you could just give us a sense of that before we go today. Like, I know you were recently at an event in Calgary. She was there with Theo Fleury, actually. And, like, what did you hear there? What are people saying about her? You know, why do people think she's the frontrunner? One of the things is she's pulling in big crowds. Are we going to just continue to sit back and say, gosh, you know, maybe we should negotiate?

Or are we going to take a stand? The Alberta Sovereignty Act is about taking a stand. That's right. She can get 300 people at an event in a small town, in a big city, anywhere she goes. She's able to, she's been raising huge amounts of money, getting, you know, as you said earlier, way more signatures than needed. And there are only a few more weeks to buy memberships to vote in this race. So this is, it's getting late pretty early in this race, as they say in the States. And unless she has a big stumble or somebody really captures the zeitgeist from her, she could likely win.

Jason, the leadership debate is this week in Medicine Hat. And so what are you going to be watching for? So we'll get to see how our competition responds to her and how she tussles with them. She's running up against another former wild rose leader brian jean who replaced her um and a few cabinet minister former cabinet ministers from jason kenney's cabinet including the finance minister travis taves um her ideas are you know a lot of them are actually publicly speaking out against her alberta sovereignty Act. We'll see how she fares and whether that can resonate with people, if that hurts her candidacy or somebody else rises up. Okay. Jason, thank you so much for this. This is really interesting. Thank you. My pleasure.

All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.