Front Burner - The United Conservative Party holds onto power in Alberta

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party have been returned to power in Alberta, as voters reject the NDP and Rachel Notley's vision for the province. Smith overcame a slew of stumbles and hiccups in her first seven months as premier, and won over enough people to secure another four years in control for her party. On this episode, CBC Calgary's Jason Markusoff shares his analysis of how Smith won, what it means for Alberta, and for the rest of the country. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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 Jodi Martinson. Incumbent Premier Danielle Smith will get another four years at the helm of Alberta's government. Now, many folks wrote us off, even just as recently as last month. But you know what happened? Despite it all, today Albertans chose to move our province forward

by re-electing a strong, stable, united, conservative majority government. For Danielle Smith, who first became premier in October, after her predecessor Jason Kenney stepped down, the road to re-election was rocky. But she ultimately triumphed. For more on what this means for Albertans and the rest of the country, I'm joined by the CBC's Jason Markosoff in Calgary. Hi, Jason.

Hi, Jodi. Okay, so before we get into the results, it was kind of a weird night because those results were coming in really slowly at first. Yeah, I can legitimately say to you, good morning, Jodi, which is wild. It's past midnight here in Alberta when we're recording. We figured we'd be recording this a few hours after polls closed and things were pretty clear, but the elections in Alberta was shockingly slow to count votes. And it took us up until 11 something,

1130 or so to declare this election. So three and a half hours after polls closed. Normally it takes half an hour, one hour in the past to declare who the winner is in Alberta. Sometimes it's even closer when the old landslide days. But this was a weird night. They had huge delays in tallying the advanced vote.

Even the day of vote was coming in slowly. They had these new fancy tabulators for the advanced vote and those didn't seem to be working at a point. But anyway, here we are. We know who the premier is going to be. And before we talk about that, I mean, what has Alberta elections said so far about what was going wrong behind the scenes? It's not entirely clear. There were some reports.

I haven't heard directly from elections Alberta folks, but there were some reports on the CBC broadcast that they'd said that their machines were malfunctioning and now they say they're functioning as they needed to, depending on when things could start counting. I'm not clear. I'm sure we're going to find some answers

when the very, very tired, exhausted people wake up. But at this point, there's enough votes in, enough things have finally arrived four hours later that we have some clarity on what kind of Alberta government and opposition we have. And everybody was saying this was going to be a really tight race. And so at this point, and I know we're still counting votes there in Alberta, but was it actually a very tight race?

The UCP had appeared to be pulling ahead in polls in the final week. Things had been tighter earlier. The NDP was in the lead in several polls, but things seemed to be closing in the UCP's favor toward the end. And the UCP, based on the numbers I've seen early on, may have outperformed their polls. There is a history in Alberta polling recently of the NDP vote being a bit overcounted and the UCP vote being underestimated a bit. All that said, though, this is quite possibly historic for Alberta. Alberta is used to having massive seat gaps between the two main parties.

We're talking 30 some, 39 seats in the last election that the UCP had. So, you know, at this point we're looking at 13 seat gap, 40, 50 seats for the UCP, 37 for the NDP, but some of these seats are very tight. So things could shift, but we're, you know, if it's closer than 15 seats, that's historic for Alberta. If it's closer than 19 seats, we're talking a closer gap than any time since the Second World War.

And the NDP, as Rachel Notley noted in her concession speech, seems almost certain to have the largest opposition bench in Alberta history. I'm very pleased that we will be welcoming at least 10 more MLAs to our caucus. Who will form part of the largest official opposition this province has ever seen in its history. So Jason, we did an election setup episode a little while ago, and we talked about how Calgary would be really important to the results. And we were hearing that battleground Calgary idea. And you guys talk there about the three-legged stool, the idea that you need some combo of Calgary, Edmonton, and rural areas to win. So how did Calgary vote from what we know so far? So Calgary seems like it's going to go half NDP.

So Calgary seems like it's going to go half NDP, maybe 13 or give or take of the 26 seats in Calgary will go orange from the looks of it at this hour. But that's not enough. It's not even enough to win close because, yes, there is this three-legged stool that we talk about where Edmonton is one leg of the stool and the NDP control Edmonton. And rural and small town Alberta is the other leg and the UCP controls that. So Calgary, which can go back and forth in the last few elections, was in NDP control when they won eight years ago. They lost almost all the seats they had last time. So Calgary is the volatile thing. But the issue with that is that not all legs of that stool are of equal size. There are more seats in small towns and small cities and rural areas in Alberta.

And the UCP stayed true to those, to that strength. And they seem like, you know, if you look at a map, a riding map of Alberta, the whole province, you got to squint to see much of the orange. It seems like the UCP may only lose one seat in the Rocky Mountain towns of Banff, Cannon, Ascus riding. Whereas the rest of their rural stronghold, small town stronghold, even in the neighbourhoods around Edmonton, stayed true. So the NDP we knew going into this needed to do not just take half of Calgary, but win it resoundingly. And that does not seem to be the case in this port. The suburbs, especially the southern suburbs of Calgary, stayed blue. And I think it's fair to say that at the beginning of this campaign, there were some real questions about the baggage that Smith carried into this race.

What baggage did she come with when this election campaign began? All leaders, all politicians have baggage of their own. I think Danielle Smith seemed unique in that she had a baggage carousel. It's wild, the things that she has said that she has tried to shrug off. The NDP had several instances in the last couple of years of Danielle Smith talking openly about the benefits of making people pay for their doctors, having more user pay and privatization within the healthcare system. Those were things she said before she made this return to politics last year to become a UCP leader to take over for Jason Kenney. What if instead of paying for that 100% with the government paying it directly, what if they deposited the money in your health spending account and you paid your doctor out of your health spending account when you visited

they'd give you a nice little debit card it would have your name and face on one side like a driver's license and then you'd swipe it and 37 would come out of your account government during her broadcasting career uh in COVID, she questioned science. She touted some very questionable COVID treatments, was unsure about vaccines, and said in tape that was unearthed during the campaign that the rise of Hitler, the way that Hitler rose, could be perhaps seen in the way that Canadians and Albertans were embracing vaccination. So many people say that they would not have succumbed to the charms of a tyrant, somebody telling them that they have all the answers. And he said, I guarantee you would. And that's the test here is we've seen it. We have 75% of the public who say not only hit me, but hit me harder and keep me away from those dirty

unvaxxed what are we becoming what are we doing um some pretty pretty wild stuff and then there's also uh the the innuendo or in the controversy around potential accusations of judicial interference and in the middle of this campaign on the night of the only debate, oh my goodness, this happened only in Alberta, the ethics commissioner came out with a report into some allegations of judicial interference by Danielle Smith and found that the same day that she had a conversation

with a very controversial pastor who'd been charged criminally and is now convicted, that same day, she actually phoned her justice minister and asked him what could be done about this fellow's case. And ethics commissioner, Marguerite Trussler, called that a threat to democracy. That's her quote, a threat to democracy and found her in breach of the Conflicts of Interest Act. On the day of the debate. On the day of the debate. On the day of the debate. Yeah, it was like, you know, that's an exciting day to start with. And then this drops that morning.

And this was all mid-campaign. So all these controversies that Daniel Smith had, and polls showed earlier on this year and last year that they seemed poised for the opposition benches. They seem poised to let the government flip back to the NDP. But Danielle Smith and her team have worked really hard to present a new version of her. Well, and you have this great anecdote about a sign that they actually had taped up in some of the UCP offices that really speaks to trying to rein her in and keep her on message. offices that really speaks to trying to rein her in and keep her on message.

Yeah, the communications director, Jonah Moses, and I was in his office in the winter, and I noticed this sign in the back of his desk, and he said he printed it out for all his staff, all other ministerial aides and communications. It said, will this help us get elected in Calgary Pagan? Calgary Pagan is a Southeast Calgary riding that to this, uh, this official's, uh, reckoning was the red line seat, the seat that if they lost that,

they lost the government. Um, so the idea of this thinking behind this for Daniel Smith, for her team, for other ministers teams is let's think about what that suburban Calgarian, that moderate, um, you know,

maybe a little bit fiscally conservative, but not socially conservative, uh, andgarian, that moderate, you know, maybe a little bit fiscally conservative, but not socially conservative and pro-vaccine Calgarian will think. And we have to tailor every single thing we do and every single thing we say to that voter's wishes. And Danielle Smith has not talked about private user pay for healthcare, has not talked much, at least

publicly about amnesty for, uh, for the people prosecuted under COVID, uh, rules, you know, said, stop talking about wanting to, uh, pull Alberta out of the Canadian pension plan and make it an Alberta only, uh, pension plan. This very strange, uh, and risk fraught gambit. Uh, she spent heavily on health care, despite her fiscal conservative background. She talked, you know, just about taxes, grow the economy, support public health care now.

And, you know, she even promised right before the election $330 million of provincial funds to help Calgary build its and complete its Calgary Flames Arena project. And thanks to that provincial contribution, combined with the significant commitments from the city, from CSEC, and from the Stampede, I'm here to report to you all with great excitement that we did get the Calgary Arena deal done. Calgary will be home to one of the greatest arena and event centres in all of North America, igniting esports, entertainment...

The sort of thing that the fiscal hawk type of Daniel Smith would have never done. But this was somebody thinking, what will help me get elected in Calgary Pagan? And sure enough, Calgary Pagan went by a couple thousand votes to the United Conservative Party. 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.

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To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. And I guess to understand what happened tonight, we also need to talk about Jason Kenney. And so that's the province's former leader who stepped down midterm. And he really laid the foundation by uniting the right in Alberta. And it seemed for a moment that that could come undone during Smith's campaign. So how much of a debt do you think she owes to the work that Jason Kenney did? I mean, I guess she owes two debts of gratitude to Jason Kenney. On one hand, it's the fact that he mishandled the COVID pandemic so much that it cost him his job and his party turfed him. But the other one is that this is a very strong coalition.

This was this very canny thing that Jason Kenney, one of the craftiest political maneuverers traditionally in Canadian history, did in creating this force, this consolidated right-wing party when he fused the former Progressive Conservatives and Daniel Smith's old wild rose party into one party basically built to defeat the NDP. And this time again, when people were not doubting whether this could survive Daniel Smith's leadership, all the grief that candidates in Calgary and other urban areas were getting about Daniel Smith at the door, that people came home to this party. Conservatives did not leak very heavily to Rachel Notley's NDP. They stayed within this big tent. They were focused on opposing the NDP,

it turns out, focused on sticking around. I'd imagine that Jason Kenney, who wasn't a giant Daniel Smith fan from many indications during her leadership campaign when he was still premier, might have been sitting somewhere quietly sipping some maybe some nice Irish whiskey. And the other thing going on was that, of course, Rachel Notley has a reputation. She worked as a premier and left the province with multi-billion dollar deficits and lots of debt. So how did Smith use that track record to her advantage? This is the thing about Rachel Notley. Yes, she's fairly likable, but she has a record. In 2015, when she won the first time, she was this relative unknown breath of fresh air with no baggage on her,

except for the fact that people aren't sure whether they want to vote NDP or not in Alberta. Historically, there's no pattern of that until the last few years. But now in 2019, she lost on the record that she had as premier. And in 2023, that was coming to haunt her as much as the people say the NDP ran a very negative campaign, highlighting Danielle Smith's

controversies. The UCP was resoundingly, unremittingly negative as well. So often talking about Rachel Notley and the NDP's time as premier, when not only were there high deficits and high debt load, the province was accumulating, but also recession. Oil prices were very low. So, you know, there will be a lot of people arguing, including Rachel Notley, that that was not their fault. That was an economic situation out of her control. But she also raised income taxes and corporate taxes at the time and brought in the carbon tax. So those tended to paint a big target and a big pin of blame

on not least backing people. Did not forget that, it seemed. Okay, so taxes kind of takes us to our next questions, which are all about the vision that Danielle Smith has for the province going forward. What is she going to get to work on right away? going forward. What is she going to get to work on right away? So her big promises are to cut the personal income tax, create a new bracket of only 8% down from the base rate of 10%. Now for middle income earners, she's going to actually pass as her first bill, this plan to this idea that if any future government would want to raise income taxes or corporate taxes, it had to go to the public in a referendum.

The first bill of our government in the legislative session in the fall will be to guarantee that unless Albertans say otherwise by referendum, the only direction business and personal taxes are headed in this province is down. are headed in this province is down. She's going to lower taxes herself, but to raise them, to raise revenue and to raise the rates, you'd have to go to the voters. So you'd have to ask the public

to approve taxes against themselves to be able to do that. There's already this law on Alberta's books saying that you need to go to the public in referendum to bring in a sales tax. Alberta is very proud of not having a sales tax. And this is going to be challenging because we talk a lot about Alberta being very reliant on oil revenues and oil royalties to finance its social services. And, you know, they're very volatile.

We've seen them slip to almost nothing over the last few years. They're doing better now, but everybody is aware that the future could change things. So the idea of a premier not being able to raise income taxes without going to referendum seems a bit of a tricky proposition for Alberta, but it's popular. She didn't make a ton of promises this campaign, but here's something to watch. When she was elected as leader of the party, she had promised a bunch of things like pursuing amnesty for the COVID prosecuted, making the right to be unvaccinated an Alberta human right, the Alberta human right code, more aggressively pulling out of a community pension plan, pulling out of the RCMP, getting a provincial-only police force, and doing several other things that she didn't wind up doing and actually wound up running back from pretty quickly. This time, it'll be interesting to see what she winds up actually implementing and what she winds up shrugging off. She has to keep this party intact. There's a hardcore right-wing base still within this party. There's this insurgent group, Take Back Alberta, that drew a lot of attention, uh, in the last while that seems to want to, uh,

really hold her to be in this, uh, very, uh, populist firm hardline libertarian. And they're going to want that they could turn on her like they turned on Jason Kenney. Uh, so her leadership may not be totally firm. Alberta conservatives have this really wild history of, uh, turfing their leaders in the middle of their, uh, middle of their term.

Uh, Ralph Klein, Ed Stalmach, Alison Redford, Jason Kenney, all the last premiers that won elections, uh, they did not last to, uh, to survive another term. Okay. So that'll be interesting to watch. And one more thing that I think people outside of Alberta care about and big question that people will have about her leadership is how will the province deal with oil, gas and carbon emissions?

And so what will she do on carbon reduction? On one hand, she came out with a promise plan right before the election that says that she will go to net, that Alberta would go to, or aim to go to net zero by 2050, like the country, with a bunch of caveats. However, in her speech, her victory speech tonight, she took a lot of aim at Justin Trudeau and what Justin Trudeau wants to do on emissions. Well, hopefully the prime minister and his caucus are watching tonight. But let me be clear, this is not a road we can afford to go down. If he persists, he will be hurting Canadians from coast to coast, and he will strain the patience and goodwill of Albertans in an unprecedented fashion. And as Premier, I cannot, under any circumstances, allow these contemplated federal policies to be inflicted upon Albertans. I simply can't and I won't.

its climate change and emission reduction ambitions without very serious involvement and participation and cooperation from the province of Alberta with its major oil and gas sector. Danielle Smith will signal up more fight on many of the priorities the Trudeau government has on this, including a cap on oil and gas emissions, special targets for that sector, electric vehicle targets, net zero grid promise by 2035. You know, she's always talked a good fight. Now, a lot of Alberta premiers have talked a good fight about going against especially a liberal government in Ottawa.

Danielle Smith seems intent to be firmly in that tradition, perhaps more firmly than any other premier before her. Okay, Jason, thank you so much for all of this. And I'll let you get back to everything you have to finish before you can finally go home and go to bed. Thanks. That was very fun. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jodi Martinson.

Thank you for listening to FrontBurner.