Tag: Rob Smith

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Alberta Politics

4 ways Danielle Smith’s UCP could react to the Forever Canadian citizen initiative

Thomas Lukaszuk
Thomas Lukaszuk

Has Thomas Lukaszuk’s pro-Canada petition boxed in Danielle Smith on Alberta separatism?

If there is one big takeaway from last weekend’s United Conservative Party annual general meeting it’s that the separatist movement in Alberta is deeply intrenched in the governing party.

From jeers and cheers to at least half the board candidates endorsed by the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project getting elected, the weekend gathering was a showcase of how influential Alberta’s most prominent separatists are in Premier Danielle Smith‘s UCP.

Smith’s unwillingness to challenge the burgeoning separatist-wing she helped inflame and instead accept them as key players in her party leaves the Premier in a precarious position after yesterday’s news that Chief Elections Officer Gordon McClure has validated and approved a pro-Canada citizen initiative petition asking the question “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

The Forever Canadian campaign was spearheaded by former Progressive Conservative MLA Thomas Lukaszuk, who represented Edmonton-Castle Downs in the Legislature from 2001 to 2015 and launched the citizen initiative in response to the separatist movement showing momentum earlier this year.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith hopes pipeline deal with Mark Carney will quell separatist sentiments

Premier Danielle Smith will be able to walk into the United Conservative Party AGM this weekend triumphant about her pipeline deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney, and maybe even confident enough to consider calling an early provincial election in 2026, but she may get more jeers than cheers from some sections of her party who will be unhappy she was willing to have truck and trade with Carney (though I can guarantee that Steven Guilbeault’s resignation will get cheers).

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Alberta Politics

“Danielle wanted lapdogs,” says influential separatist Jeffrey Rath

According to influential separatist Jeffrey Rath, one of the main spokespeople for the Alberta Prosperity Project, the UCP board of directors is to blame for blocking a separation debate at the AGM. Rath has openly criticized incumbent UCP President Rob Smith for casting the deciding vote against holding a debate about Alberta independence. A debate and vote on Alberta’s separation from Canada could have received overwhelming support from AGM delegates — making the UCP an official separatist party.

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Alberta Politics

Quashing Alberta separatism debate could spark fireworks at UCP AGM

Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Calgary on November 27, 2025 (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)
Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Calgary on November 27, 2025 (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)

Danielle Smith’s pipeline deal with Mark Carney could get more jeers than cheers by some at the UCP AGM

The United Conservative Party’s most dedicated activists and supporters will gather in Edmonton on November 28, 29 and 30 to debate a swath of policy resolutions and elect members of its provincial board at the party’s annual general meeting.

Since the UCP was founded in 2017, the party’s AGM has become one of the most interesting and closely-watched political events of the year. It’s an annual reminder the delegates attending the meeting — the UCP’s most enthusiastic activists — are as a group among the most influential people in Alberta politics today.

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Alberta Politics

Separatists accuse Danielle Smith of purging UCP board

The United Conservative Party’s board elections are happening at its AGM at the end of November and the rhetoric is heating up from the party’s bustling separatist wing.

Alberta Prosperity Project co-founder Jeffrey Rath took to the internet to accuse “Danielle Smith’s Death Star team” of abusing their access to party membership lists to purge the party board of separatists.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta is Recalling. UCP MLA Angela Pitt facing recall campaign in Airdrie-East

Airdire-East MLA Angela Pitt (source: Angela Pitt / Facebook)
Airdire-East MLA Angela Pitt (source: Angela Pitt / Facebook)

Also: Look who’s running in the UCP AGM board elections

An MLA Recall law championed by United Conservative Party MLAs four years ago is coming back to haunt some of those politicians today.

A second recall campaign launched this month aims to recall UCP MLA Angela Pitt in her suburban Airdrie-East riding north of Calgary. Pitt is the second MLA to face a recall effort in recent weeks with a similar campaign being launched by constituents of Calgary-Bow UCP MLA and Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides in October.

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Alberta Politics

Evasive maneuvers! Alberta politics on a collision course!

A large rally of around 30,000 striking teachers gathered outside the Legislature to welcome MLAs back for the fall session on October 23 (source: @atalocal8 / Instagram)
A large rally of around 30,000 striking teachers gathered outside the Legislature to welcome MLAs back for the fall session on October 23 (source: @atalocal8 / Instagram)

A loud crowd of 30,000 teachers and their supporters welcomed MLAs back to the Legislature

When MLAs returned to the Legislature yesterday for the Speech from the Throne and the start of the fall session they were welcomed back by a very large and very loud crowd of around 30,000 Alberta teachers.

More than 51,000 teachers from public, Catholic, and Francophone schools across the province have been on strike since October 6 with workload challenges being their biggest issue, namely class sizes and per-student funding.

Instead of getting back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal that could satisfy both the government and teachers, Premier Danielle Smith has signalled her government’s plans to fasttrack back to work legislation — and there is wide speculation that it could use the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to block any court challenges of the law.

The Order Papers for next week shows that Minister of Finance Nate Horner will soon introduce Bill 2: Back to School Act along with motions to severely limit debate at all stages of reading. With a 6 vote majority in the Legislature, UCP MLAs should have no problem pushing it through swiftly, though the opposition NDP can be expected to try its best to delay the passage of the bill.

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Alberta Politics

Andrew Knack is the next Mayor of Edmonton

Andrew Knack speaks to reporters after winning Edmonton’s 2025 mayoral election (source: Andrew Knack / Instagram)
Andrew Knack speaks to reporters after winning Edmonton’s 2025 mayoral election (source: Andrew Knack / Instagram)

Knack bests former frontrunner Tim Cartmell in race to replace Amarjeet Sohi

Results from Edmonton’s low-key municipal election were very slow to trickle in but by mid-afternoon today we learned that Andrew Knack will be the next Mayor of Edmonton.

The three-term councillor has represented west Edmonton since he was first elected in 2013 and jumped into the mayoral race after initially planning to leave municipal politics and not seek re-election to council.

Knack bucked what felt like a strong wave of anti-incumbent sentiment going into the campaign and defeated south side councillor and Better Edmonton Party leader Tim Cartmell by a margin of around 8 points with an abysmal 30 per cent turnout of voters at the polls (at the time I am writing this only 217 of 236 polls are reporting in the mayoral election). Knack ran as an independent candidate.

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Alberta Politics

UCP and NDP Presidents Rob Smith and Bill Tonita running in municipal elections

Bill Tonita (centre) with fellow NDP candidates Chantal Saramaga-McKenzie (left) and Karen Shaw (right) during the 2023 provincial election. (source: Bill Tonita / Facebook)
Bill Tonita (centre) with fellow NDP candidates Chantal Saramaga-McKenzie (left) and Karen Shaw (right) during the 2023 provincial election. (source: Bill Tonita / Facebook)

The introduction of municipal political parties in Calgary and Edmonton has generated a lot of confusion and consternation in this election but lost in the noise of the big city debate is that the presidents of Alberta’s two main provincial political parties are on ballots in county elections outside urban centres.

United Conservative Party President Rob Smith is running as a candidate in Mountain View County council’s Division 6 and Alberta NDP President Bill Tonita is running for re-election in Strathcona County’s Ward 4.

Also, big city mayoral candidates Andrew Knack and Jeromy Farkas got the gift every election candidate in Alberta dreams of in the final stretch of the campaign: a Janet Brown poll showing you’re in the lead.

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Alberta Politics

Controlling Everything Everywhere All At Once

Sherwood Park MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)
Sherwood Park MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)

NDP’s Oscar-winning film inspired catch phrase captures the UCP moment in Alberta politics

“Danielle Smith wants to control everything, everywhere, all at once…”

In the middle of the weekly chaos of Alberta politics, a catch phrase inspired by an Academy Award winning film has captured one of the driving themes of Alberta politics today.

“Danielle Smith wants to control everything. Pensions, police, health care, schools, local councils. Any dollar spent anywhere in the province, and any decision made by anyone. Everything,” NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski first said in an April 29 press release.

Kasawski is the rookie MLA from Sherwood Park who became the opposition’s sole Municipal Affairs critic when co-critic Sarah Hoffman joined the NDP leadership race earlier this year.

While Municipal Affairs can sometimes be a sleepy file, on both the ministerial and critic side, it has been front and centre over the past month as Premier Danielle Smith and Minister Ric McIver rein in municipal and university funding agreements with the federal government and expand the provincial cabinet’s power to fire locally elected officials and overturn municipal bylaws.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith hosts Alberta’s largest call-in talk show: the United Conservative Party

Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at the 2023 United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith speaks to delegates at the 2023 United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Any good talk radio host understands that the show doesn’t belong to the host, it belongs to the listeners. And if this past weekend’s annual general meeting is any indication, talk radio host-turned-Premier Danielle Smith might be taking a similar approach as leader of the United Conservative Party.

Aside from a nod to protecting parental rights during her keynote speech, Smith largely stood out of the way as more than 3,700 delegates packed into Calgary’s BMO Centre to vote on party policy and elect a new executive board. It was an impressive crowd and probably the largest provincial political convention in Alberta’s history.

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Alberta Politics

Look who’s running in the UCP AGM Board elections

Rick Orman announces the results of the 2022 UCP Leadership Review (Source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)
Rick Orman announces the results of the 2022 UCP Leadership Review (Source: United Conservative Party / Facebook)

What to make of Take Back Alberta, the Unity Slate, and everybody else on the ballot.

With the United Conservative Party’s November 3 and 4 Annual General Meetingfast approaching, the party’s Board of Director elections are a major focus of attention.

The UCP board is the governing body of the organization and is made up of seventeen elected directors, party leader Premier Danielle Smith, and two non-voting MLAs who serve as Caucus liaisons. The two MLA spots, which are chosen through a vote of UCP MLAs, are currently filled by Camrose MLA Jackie Lovely and Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland MLA Shane Getson.

Half of the UCP director positions are up for election this year and the sweeping success of the slate of candidates backed by the social conservative Take Back Alberta group at last year’s AGM has fuelled a lot of speculation about what might happen in this election.

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Alberta Politics

Buckle up, Alberta. The UCP leadership review results are coming.

Premier Jason Kenney during an October 8, 2021 Facebook Live.
Premier Jason Kenney during an October 8, 2021 Facebook Live.

Buckle up, Alberta. It’s going to get bumpy.

The results of the United Conservative Party leadership review will be released tomorrow.

The fate of Premier Jason Kenney hangs in the balance.

Kenney says he’s confident he will win. He says 50%+1 support is enough to stay on as leader.

His opponents are confident he will lose. They’ve already planted seeds of doubt in the results.

A recent survey shows the majority of Albertans think Kenney should lose the review.

Only a slim majority trust the leadership review process.

One UCP constituency president says he won’t accept a Kenney win.

“We will not believe that result. We will not accept it, but we won’t even believe it, because our own polling here within our constituency is 72 per cent against Premier Kenney,” Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills president Rob Smith told CTV.

There’s a whole cabal of UCP MLAs who probably share Smith’s cynicism.

If Kenney wins he’ll have to decide the fate of his biggest critics in his own party.

What happens to Brian Jean? Leela Aheer? Angela Pitt? Jason Stephan? Peter Guthrie?

Cast them out and they’ll form another conservative party.

And then the UCP might as well drop the U.

So there’s the problem. Even if Kenney wins he still loses.

It’s a win-lose or lose-lose scenario.

It’s going to be a wild ride.

The UCP leadership review is probably going to take up most of the political oxygen in Alberta over the next few days, so I just wanted to note a few candidate nomination developments:

  • Former federal Liberal candidate and provincial Liberal leadership candidate Kerry Cundal is running for the Alberta Party nomination in Calgary-Elbow. She ran for the Alberta Liberal Party leadership in 2017 and joined the Alberta Party shortly afterward. A nomination meeting is scheduled for May 28, 2022.
  • Former cabinet minister David Eggen will be acclaimed as the Alberta NDP candidate in Edmonton-North West on May 18. Eggen is the second longest serving MLA currently in the Legislature, having represented Edmonton-Calder from 2004 to 2008 and 2012 to 2019, and Edmonton-North West from 2019 to the present.

The NDP now have 23 candidates nominated in 87 ridings. The UCP have nominated 21 candidates.

 

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