Smithing the Premier’s “Alberta First” Platform
Throughout a campaign period, most political leaders generally talk about the goals they have for their potential government to accomplish within 100 days of taking office. Generally, the policy items targeted in that period are what one could call high profile quick wins. They usually come in the form of rescinding some controversial piece of legislation, amending existing laws, or putting a new law in place that is more symbolic in nature.
For Jason Kenney, this quick win was scrapping Alberta’s homegrown carbon pricing initiative implemented by the former NDP government. For Premier Danielle Smith, we know that it will be passing the Alberta Sovereignty Act (among other things).
The difference between Kenney and Smith here is that the former was expected to have a full four-year term to accomplish their goals. Smith will have 194 days from the publication of this article before the next election is scheduled to take place.
Premier Smith’s first 100 days present a much shorter, focused runway than her predecessor benefited from. Also unlike her predecessor, the new premier is making a point of making her mandate letters for her cabinet publicly available. While not all the ministries have published their letters at the time of writing this article, the documents released to date give us a clearer vision of what we can expect to see over the course of the next 100 days.
Alberta’s Relationship with the Federal Government
Before getting to the ministerial mandate letters, it is worth quickly turning our gaze to a mandate letter sent to Mark Parsons, deputy minister for intergovernmental relations. There are a number of references we can reasonably assume to refer to the Alberta Sovereignty Act, including the identification of federal policies that are deemed to be a “violation of exclusive provincial jurisdiction” and advocating for all federal cost sharing negotiations to be “no strings attached”. There is also reference to build stronger relationships with American governors and the organization of trade missions to D.C. and Germany.
The deputy minister will also be tasked to “draft a position paper on a range of options for how the federal government could end the federal equalization program,” based on the results of last year’s equalization referendum.
Although there was no speculation that Premier Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would become best friends following her election in October, this mandate letter indeed signals that the provincial government likely will experience an increasingly adversarial relationship with our federal counterparts until the next election.
An Alberta Provincial Police Service
On the subject of a strained relationship with Ottawa, Premier Smith appears to harbor no desire to further delay the implementation of a provincial police force. Minister Tyler Shandro has been given the objective to “work with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services to finalize a decision on establishing an Alberta Police Service.”
While the language falls short of ordering Minister Shandro to officially put into motion the necessary steps to launch a provincial police force, it is clear that Premier Smith wants to have a final decision in place prior to the next provincial election. However, Premier Smith uses different language in her mandate letter to Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services, Mike Ellis.
“Work with the Minister of Justice, as the lead, and Municipal Affairs to launch an Alberta Police Service (APS).”
Rural Municipalities of Alberta President Paul McLauchlin indicated that he just doesn’t understand the decision.
"I think Albertans need to decide, to be quite honest. I think this needs to be part of the next election because we're worried that this is going down a path that will become hard to fix, and easy to break.”
The National Police Federation has also issued a response to these mandate letters.
“In the face of rising inflation, an affordability crisis, an uncertain economic future, and notable challenges in healthcare, mental health, and addiction supports, it's unclear to many Albertans as to why this purely political proposal continues to move forward.”
Addressing Affordability for Albertans
As we get closer to election season, political messaging from all sides of the spectrum will begin to shift to the daily bread and butter issues and away from “insider baseball”. Given the current economic climate, one of the top three election issues in 2023 will indeed be addressing the rising cost of living. Premier Smith clearly recognizes this given she has created the first ministry of affordability and utilities.
Now, many of the mandate letters include references to addressing affordability concerns across government, but the mandate letter to Minister Matt Jones gives us some insight into where her administration’s focus will be. On Monday, Premier Smith dismissed the possibility of “Danielle Dollars” being distributed to Albertans, but she has made clear she wants to implement some targeted measures.
“As the lead, work with President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance; Minister of Children Services; and Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services to prepare and implement a package of inflation relief measures aimed to address affordability and cost of living concerns of Albertans through this difficult time of financial uncertainty.”
At this time, there is not much indication as to what those relief measures will look like, so stay tuned for details.
Minister Jones’ mandate letter includes two other priorities – addressing the cost of utility payments and increase affordability and availability of child care.
Of course, there is also the news that the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) and the Seniors’ Benefit will be re-indexed to inflation on a go forward basis. The move reverses an earlier decision of the UCP in 2019 to de-index the benefits; however, the re-indexation will not be retroactive to 2019.
The Future of Healthcare
At the time of writing, Premier Smith has not released a mandate letter from Minister of Health Jason Copping. It was made clear throughout the UCP leadership race that Smith would pursue aggressive healthcare reforms if she were elected – specifically within Alberta Health Services. For the most part, exact details have been hard to come by, so residents will turn a keen eye to the mandate letter when it is finally released.
While we await the release of Minister Copping’s mandate letter, it was announced that the province has announced the successor to the now former Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw. Alberta Health Services vice-president Dr. Mark Joffe was announced as the interim Chief Medical Officer of Health shortly after a press conference where Premier Smith refused to use Dr. Hinshaw’s name in reference to the title.
Premier Smith has also indicated that she will be releasing the details of a doctors advisory panel in the coming days, so stay tuned for those details.
We will discuss Dr. Joffe in more detail later in this issue.
What’s Next?
There are still a number of mandate letters which need to be released that will help give Albertans a better sense of the direction this government will take until the next election. As we’ve mentioned, it is a rather short window to work with, so the UCP will be looking to balance the need for short-term wins while also setting themselves up for a potential second term in office next spring.