Danielle Smith Looks Set to Win the Premiership. The Hard Part Will Come After October 6th

In politics, much like hockey, it’s never over until it’s over. But when a team is three goals down with a minute to go, the crowd often starts to leave to beat the rush. In perhaps the best indication of which way the wind is blowing over the past few weeks, endorsements have been switching from Toews to Smith - including sitting cabinet minister Nate Glubish.

Minister Kaycee Madu can also be added to the list of Smith endorsers.

So, while a Danielle Smith victory is not a foregone conclusion, it is now certainly reasonable to ponder what things could look like if we wake up with Premier Smith on October 7th. Winning the UCP leadership race may end up having been the easy part for Danielle Smith; considerable new (although not necessarily insurmountable) challenges will await her on October 7th.

Getting a Seat in the Legislature

Perhaps the most immediate challenge for Smith will be to find a seat so she can actually get into the Legislature without sitting in the visitor’s gallery. The original plan was for Smith to contest the nomination in Livingstone - Macleod against Roger Reid, but it does not appear that the incumbent MLA is willing to give up his seat to appease the new leader and waiting for the general election is not an option. Calgary - Elbow is now vacant with Doug Schweitzer resigning as an MLA, but the riding is not conservative enough to offer a high enough likelihood of victory - risking a loss is a non-starter.

Would Jason Kenney step aside in Calgary Lougheed, a considerably more conservative area of Calgary? Rumour is that this is not likely to happen. Premier Kenney appears unlikely to do any such favours for Smith (and one could see why).Plus, even a fairly safe Lougheed riding may be a risk too far for the likely new Premier; by-elections are a funny beast and the UCP’s fortunes in Calgary under the leadership of Smith are untested. She will also not want to waste four weeks actually campaigning and door knocking; she will have more important things to get done.

Instead, the most likely (and safest) strategy for Danielle Smith will be to convince a rural MLA to relinquish his or her seat so she can stroll to victory while keeping her focus elsewhere. With her new powers she will have plenty of carrots to dangle in front of MLAs.

Picking a Cabinet

The next challenge for Smith if she becomes premier will be to pick a cabinet. Of course, picking a cabinet is a major challenge for any incoming premier, but doing so after a contentious leadership race with six months to go before a general election certainly ramps up the pressure. Add to that the critical question of how Smith will be able to keep her party united and building a cabinet becomes even more complicated.

In her ideal world, Smith would likely purge the existing cabinet of anyone that has been too close to Jason Kenney. This would please her base and settle some old scores, but the reality is that Smith will have to be far more cautious and strategic than that or risk smashing the fragile coalition that is the UCP to pieces.

The first question mark is about how she will approach her fellow leadership race contenders. As a nod to unity and goodwill, it may well be that she extends an olive branch to all six of them. But not all cabinet positions are equally desirable. Would she offer Travis Toews something meaningful like Finance, Health, or Education? Or would she offer her main opponent – and lightening rod to many in her base - a ‘token’ cabinet position like Culture or Service Alberta in the hopes that he would decline and ride into the sunset?

It is also unclear how likely it would be for Smith’s opponents to accept a cabinet position, regardless of how high profile it may be. For some, like Jean and Loewen, it is unlikely to be a conundrum because their campaigns have had quite a lot in common with Smith and they will likely not find it hard to support her in the Legislature.

For Toews, Aheer, Sawhney, and Schulz, accepting a cabinet position may not be that simple because it will mean that they have to support (and vote for) Smith’s Bill 1, the Alberta Sovereignty Act. They might be able to abstain and hide as backbench MLAs, but in cabinet there is no place to hide as Smith will certainly demand fealty. And how can Travis Toews support an Act he said would unleash ‘economic chaos’ in Alberta? Aheer called it ‘crap’ during the last debate while Sawhney demanded that Smith put it to the general public before pushing it through. It would require considerable moral gymnastics for any of these potential cabinet ministers to change their minds on Smith’s key leadership election promise.

The challenges on the cabinet front won’t end there, either. Calgary is a key battleground in the next election but Smith has few loyalists there. Will she keep existing cabinet ministers in the city despite the fact many of them supported COVID-19 restrictions? There are many difficult calculations ahead.

Getting Caucus Support

The first (and virtually only) piece of business for Danielle Smith in the fall session will be to pass the Alberta Sovereignty Act. As mentioned in the previous section, a number of fellow leadership candidates spoke out strongly against the act and will find it hard to pivot. But it is not just leadership candidates who took strong positions. Other members of her new caucus have done the same, like Jason Nixon and, of course, Kenney himself. 

Fresh off a leadership race victory it is unlikely many UCP MLAs will stand up against Danielle Smith and the Alberta Sovereignty Act. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see which MLAs ultimately ‘kiss the ring’ and buy into the direction of Smith and her team, and which ones bow out. Smith has promised to reopen some nomination races if she wins, which can be a tool for her to wield if needed. Getting the Alberta Sovereignty Act passed should not be a major challenge for Smith, but if a good number of respected MLAs and/or Ministers take the high road to oppose it despite what it may mean for their political fortunes, it could still leave the new Smith administration looking shaky. Handling this strategically and skillfully will be a top concern for Team Smith.  

Pivoting to the Political Centre

Danielle Smith has made a lot of promises to her base during the leadership race so far; some of them will not win broad appeal with the general electorate in May 2023. There is much work that will have to be done in order to change the perception that she is a ‘radical’ option as she has been labelled even by some of her fellow leadership contenders. In pivoting to the centre, Smith will have to be careful not to go too far and upset the people that got her into the position of premier in the first place.

The greater risk for Smith, however, is not pivoting far enough to the centre. Her base is unlikely to abandon her even if she adopts some moderate policies and abandons some of her more radical promises made during the leadership race. Regaining enough trust to improve her reputation among those who would consider themselves in the political centre or, even those who see themselves as ‘red tories’, may require some considerable effort - and Smith does not have a lot of time to get this done.

The good news for Smith on this front is that there is a tonne of resource money to spend in Budget 2023. This will make it much easier to take some strategic action to please the moderate voters she needs in Calgary and the ‘burbs to win the general election.