Categories
Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s time on the disastrous Calgary Board of Education

With Danielle Smith‘s campaign for the United Conservative Party leadership appearing to pick up momentum, and recent endorsements from Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Devin Dreeshen, Strathcona-Sherwood Park MLA Nate Glubish, Edmonton-South West MLA  Kaycee Madu, and Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pat Rehn suggesting the mood in the UCP caucus is shifting in her favour, some people have been sharing links of a series of articles I wrote 13 years ago about Smith’s time on the disastrous 1998-1999 Calgary Board of Education.

The series was published in the weeks after Smith won the Wildrose Alliance Party leadership in 2009.

Here are the full set of links for anyone interested in reading the series:

Reading it now, I see it’s a little awkwardly formatted, so please forgive this young blogger from 2009.

It’s also important to recognize that the Calgary Board of Education in those years wasn’t a gong show just because of Danielle Smith. It was a real group effort.

The board of trustees was so dysfunctional that it was fired by the provincial government.

Smith’s current beliefs and past record on public education became more relevant after last week’s UCP leadership candidates forum at the Alberta Teachers’ Association summer conference in Banff, which you can watch here:

(If you haven’t already, sign up for the Daveberta Substack)

7 replies on “Danielle Smith’s time on the disastrous Calgary Board of Education”

I am not surprised if there was plenty of blame to go around for the Calgary school board debacle. However, as someone said a few months ago, disaster does seem to follow in her wake. I don’t think its a total coincidence.

I am not yet convinced she will win the UCP leadership, but I also realize one should not over estimate the how smart UCP members are – after all they chose Kenney too.

Also, lest we forget, Smith won a party leadership before. The harder part is what comes after. Maybe she has learned the lessons from her previous spectacular flame out, but from what I have seen so far that is not clear.

Danielle Smith is another pretend conservative and Reformer who can’t be trusted to do the right things for Alberta. One of her big political heroes happens to be Ralph Klein. We know that Ralph Klein did a lot of damage in Alberta, and the effects of his needless austerity are still felt to this very day. I would not be fooled by whatever Danielle Smith proposes. It’s not going to end well for Albertans.

This just in, if the sovereignty act allows Alberta to retain 10% of taxes to the feds, government union workers will be able to get a raise.

Bret Larson: Danielle Smith is another pretend conservative and Reformer who thinks that she can tamper with federal government policies she disagrees with. She can’t. There are federal government policies that were put there when Justin Trudeau wasn’t in power.

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *