Cheers emanated from the counting room as UCP officials counted the votes for Danielle Smith’s leadership review.

The more optimistic in Smith’s camp expected his proportion of support to be somewhere in the 80s.

Getting 91.5 percent meant that, of the 4,633 party members who voted at the UCP convention this weekend in Red Deer, Alta., fewer than 400 said no – despite a seemingly well-funded campaign messages And leaflets demanding that the United Conservatives send a tough message to their leader.

A jubilant Smith said the United Conservative Party “is more united than it has ever been.” History shows the truth of that, given how much better Smith is doing than the 54 percent support that gave him the party crown in 2022, or what his predecessor Jason Kenney achieved (51 percent) in a review, or what the last three conservatives got. Prime Ministers face leadership ratings received: Alison Redford (77), Ed Stelmach (77) and Ralph Klein (55).

It’s his party’s tacit green light for Smith to become the first Alberta leader to carry the blue banner in two consecutive elections in more than two decades.

Basic player

This is a hard-won victory for the Premier, during a very intense campaign in recent months: first a summer tour of members-only town halls across the province to show that she listen, and then a series of government bills last week to show she is taking action. on the wishes of these members.

Changes to the Bill of Rights and new policies on transgender health and sex education were inspired by UCP members at past party conventions.

At the convention on Saturday, as members voted to review her leadership, Smith held a first-ever “accountability session” to prove how many of the UCP’s dozens of policy resolutions from previous years she had transformed in action. Answer: almost all.

Require parental consent for students to change pronouns at school? “Do!” Smith told his loyal party. Crackdowns on vote counting machines, professional regulators and solar panels on farmland? Check, check, check.

One of the Smith government’s Bill of Rights reforms would add “free speech” to existing and similar freedoms of speech and press. Well, that was policy resolution 2 at last year’s UCP annual meeting, the premier reminded this year’s crowd.

All this embrace of grassroots desires will only increase supporters’ expectations that Smith and his cabinet will maintain the trend with this year’s party policy statements. The UCP approved 35 other policy resolutions in Red Deer, most of them with the same overwhelmingly “yes” vote that Smith herself received.

“These are the new mandate letters,” remarked a government official who is not authorized to speak on party affairs. (A first gives mandate letters to new cabinet ministers, in the hope that they will carry out all requests.)

Reforms demanded by the UCP base in its resolutions include the adoption of more far-reaching transgender policies: an end to public funding of transition health services and non-binary options on ID cards, as well as the banning transgender women from restrooms or women’s shelters.

“You are (sic) quite right, we did it!” said Bruce McAllister, a senior adviser to the prime minister, on social networks. The Prime Minister has previously transmitted resistance to regulate who uses which changing rooms.

Another resolution would see Alberta abandon any pursuit of net-zero emissions targets and reject the long-standing scientific consensus on greenhouse gases by viewing carbon dioxide as a vital nutrient for life rather than a pollutant .

“This puts an ax to the root of the climate change debate,” UCP member Christopher Bell said during the policy debate.

When a young UCPer from central Alberta argued that “too much CO2 is bad for the planet and people,” some in the crowd groaned and scoffed.

Smith used to express climate skepticism years ago, but following the party’s wishes would mark a major shift in the UCP government’s environmental policy aimed at continuing to reduce emissions, but not at the pace or methods desired by the Trudeau Liberals.

On her toes

Will the premier feel the same obligation to the UCP base now that she doesn’t have a membership leadership review hanging over her head before the 2027 vote?

After winning the party leadership in 2022 on a campaign focused on the Sovereignty Act and the Rights of Unvaccinated Albertans, she appeared to shift toward more appealing affordability issues ahead of the 2023 provincial election.

She will once again face a balancing act between what the party wants and what the general public wants, but the party will keep her on its toes, said Vince Byfield, a Smith ally whose tenure on council of provincial administration of the UCP expired last week.

“She knows the history of this party,” he said in an interview. “When you ignore the will of the rank and file, it doesn’t end well. It never ended well.”

He was previously regional captain of Take Back Alberta, the grassroots activist group whose founder David Parker lobbied against Smith’s leadership over the weekend.

Byfield acknowledged that the UCP convention attendees were much more rural than the province as a whole, and gave some credence to NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi’s position that Smith was governing for one’s own partisan faction rather than for most of the population.

“Nenshi is right: the issue of rights (of the unvaccinated) is dear to the hearts of many grassroots members, but not necessarily to the vast majority of Albertans who have been vaccinated. This is not a question for them. “Byfield said.

Following rights

Smith’s party has put one of his issues at the top of the provincial government’s political priorities.

He endorsed a revision to the Bill of Rights that was much stronger and more expansive than the revisions Smith introduced last week – including new freedoms “from excessive taxation” and enshrining the right to use violent force to defend one’s property. , as well as the removal of terms that limit rights. in justifiable situations.

“Alberta’s Bill 24 is nothing more than a soft, whitewashed panacea to wipe us out,” said Ian Parkinson, a member of the Black Hat group who championed a document on stronger rights. “It’s fucking hard. We’re here.”

Some party members argued that the proposals were poorly written and deviated from federal criminal jurisdiction, but the Black Hats received overwhelming support from convention attendees.

“This is a message to the caucus,” Black Hat leader Mitch Sylvestre told the crowd. “This vote will give the government the direction and strong support it needs to move forward.”

Justice Minister Mickey Amery had been under pressure from Black Hats for stronger reforms before the bill was released, as well as last week after the bill was passed. not responded to these wishes.

In a brief interview Saturday, Amery said the UCP caucus would meet to discuss potential amendments to Bill 24 and that “we will evaluate them next week.”

Leadership, revised

Under Danielle Smith, members of the United Conservatives have become accustomed to their political dreams becoming a legislative reality, and they show no signs of stopping expecting the same.

Perhaps that’s why anti-Smith campaigners’ claims that she wasn’t doing enough for the conservative base didn’t ring true, not with more than nine-tenths of the thousands who flocked to Red Deer.

If she starts betraying their wishes now, party members could start echoing more of these complaints and give Smith political headaches, even though they won’t get another chance to weigh in on her again. leadership.

The next test of Smith’s leadership will come in the 2027 general election, in which a broader group of Albertans may not appreciate how far the premier and her UCP have come.