Is Danielle Smith crossing the floor again, the NDP has thoughts, and back to 2015
Emergency Edition of the latest colossally irrational goings-on - January 22, 2025
My Scottish/Irish ancestors arrived on the east coast of so-called “Canada” in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s and were part of several waves of genocidal colonization of the Indigenous people who were already here. We arrived uninvited on the traditional unceded territory of the Wəlastəkewiyik (Maliseet) whose ancestors along with the Mi’Kmaq / Mi’kmaw and Passamaquoddy / Peskotomuhkati Tribes / Nations signed Peace and Friendship Treaties with the British Crown in the 1700s. I like to start every new post by explaining my family’s history and keeping this foremost in my mind (and my writing) at all times. I know I have benefited as a result of colonization, and I find the history deeply troubling. It is what motivates me to understand the true history and advocate for real reconciliation. As a child in the 1970’s, I moved west with my family and am grateful to be writing this newsletter now in Moh’kinsstis, and the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. This territory is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. I recognize that the land I now work and live on was stolen from these nations (truth) and I support giving the land back as an act of reconciliation. Lands inhabited by Indigenous Peoples contain 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge and knowledge systems are key to designing a sustainable future for all.
The NDP put out a social media post about Danielle Smith and it is worth noting.
The party seems to be struggling mightily in its communication, which is not surprising, given its recent big tent merger with a group of new members who merely followed Naheed Nenshi into the party.
Assembling a communication strategy with many conflicting opinions on what and how to focus messaging is no easy task at the best of times. In the current chaotic timeline, well, I’m sympathetic.
But, people are running out of patience and the NDP needs a breakthrough soon to start building momentum.
Alberta’s NDP has always been close-knit but they expanded their reach in 2015 with the help of groups such as 1ABVote and others encouraging progressive voters from the liberals, the greens and even moderate conservatives to unite around a single candidate in every riding.
This helped to defeat Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservative party in May of 2015. Yes, there was a strong Rachel Notley factor, too. She did an amazing job as leader and was very popular across all progressive parties.
My point here is that the Alberta NDP can and have united diverse factions in the past, and they should be able to do it again.
Especially since there was another factor at play back then - Danielle Smith - and she seems to be repeating the mistakes of 2014.
This is something that the recent social media post recognizes and it could spark some conversations about Smith’s leadership.
Let’s travel back in time just over 10 years ago to December of 2014.
In a move The Canadian Press wrote had “shattered” her caucus, Smith, the leader of Alberta’s Official Opposition and eight other Wildrose Party MLA’s, crossed the floor to join the Progressive Conservatives, already holding a majority of seats in the government.
Rob Anderson, government house leader at the time, joined Smith in crossing the floor. Anderson now serves as the executive director of the Office of the Premier under Danielle Smith and was her campaign chair for the UCP leadership race. He’s also a separatist and one of three people behind the Free Alberta Strategy advocating for Alberta to become a sovereign jurisdiction.
Notley said at the time that she thought Smith’s floor-crossing “will really offend the basic values of many Albertans.”
One thing we do know is that it offended many members of the Progressive Conservative (PC) party. Within three months, Smith was ousted by her new party in a nomination race in the provincial riding of Highwood, south of Calgary. She would end up sitting out the next election, while the Wildrose Party elected Brian Jean as leader.
Jean would go on to become leader of the Official Opposition in the next election, after the Notley NDP pulled off its major upset victory. Jean would later lose the leadership of the newly merged United Conservative Party to Smith but he is now the province’s energy minister.
In her Wildrose resignation letter in 2014, Smith explained her decision and talked about her leadership of the Wildrose as having “one singular objective” which was: “to return to government the conservative values and principles that I had spent my life defending.”
Her loyalty, as she explained, was not to any one party, but to her conservative values.
The decision to defect to the PC party was not discussed with the Wildrose party’s executive committee nor was it put to the membership, which the party’s constitution required, as reported in The National Post.
A few days later, Smith told the CBC she had asked Prentice for a cabinet position, but none was offered. She also called the floor crossing a “victory” for the Wildrose Party.
"To me, it's declaring victory and uniting conservatives under the leadership of one person so that we can deal with some very significant challenges ahead."
Smith certainly has a way of seeing the world that is unique and she does sometimes say the “darnedest things” with a straight face. I’m just not sure many Wildrosers saw it the same way.
A month after she joined the PC party, she apologized in an article for The Canadian Press for acting without discussing it with the party and reflected on her decision. But she remained convinced she had done the right thing.
“You make tough decisions sometimes. Not every decision is a popular one."
“You make tough decisions sometimes. Not every decision is a popular one." She went on to say, ”I misunderstood just how angry people would be. I have to take responsibility for the fact people were surprised...it was unexpected. But in the end there were just certain factors that we had to deal with.”
By early May, immediately following the PC’s massive election loss, she was singing a different tune and told a call-in radio talk show host that she was “very, very naive,” and that she “was sold” a bill of goods by former premier Jim Prentice.
Smith’s tendency to fall for dodgy things hasn’t gone unnoticed.
A lengthy profile of Smith written by Luc Rinaldi in Maclean’s in 2023 mentions that Doug Firby, who edited Smith’s columns for the Calgary Herald in the late 2000’s said her writing “often read like mouthpieces for whatever sources she’d spoken to.”
“There was a kind of naivete at play,” Firby said.
Her future career as a lobbyist may have grown out of this approach to journalism.
During the pandemic in 2020, Rinaldi wrote that “Smith consistently erred on the side of medical quackery, promoting bogus cures and giving airtime to vaccine-skeptical doctors. She chafed at mask guidelines and lambasted UCP premier Jason Kenney for kowtowing to federal health mandates.”
Columnist Graham Thomson has also written about Smith’s flawed decision-making.
“She is articulate and personable and is skilled at winning over an audience — but that counts for naught when she makes simplistic declarations and takes action apparently on a whim.”
Thomson details how the decision to buy $70 million worth of generic acetaminophen ended up with the delivery of only a few thousand bottles to hospitals, with little chance of Alberta ever receiving another 3.5 million bottles it paid for.
The purchase was prepaid and Alberta still has more than a $40 million credit with the company, but cannot get a refund.
“It turned out to be a promise made without proper planning, transparency and accountability. It backfired spectacularly — and in so doing provided a glimpse into the motivations of a premier who too often makes decisions and policy on the fly, with Albertans left holding the bag,” wrote Thomson.
“It backfired spectacularly — and in so doing provided a glimpse into the motivations of a premier who too often makes decisions and policy on the fly, with Albertans left holding the bag”
Smith said she “learned a lot” in the process, but there are doubters, including Thomson.
He concluded that Smith’s actions “too often appear to be a combination of personal bias and political impulse mixed with pandering to her socially conservative base.” And as for whether she learned her lesson, his take in December of 2024 was, “we shall see.”
Which brings us to the present day where Smith appears to have crossed another line, mostly acting on whim. On January 15, she refused to sign off on a joint statement by fellow premiers and the prime minister on Canada’s plan to respond to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
She also refused to appear at the news conference and immediately began a campaign of undermining Canada’s position of solidarity.
“We will take whatever actions are needed to protect the livelihoods of Albertans from such destructive federal policies,” Smith threatened on X.com that same day.
The destructive federal policies she was railing on about in the post and in the graphic on that tweet weren’t Trump’s, they were the “Team Canada” policies that all other premiers had discussed and agreed with. Smith then implied there was a rift only between Alberta and Ottawa, rather than Alberta versus all of the other Canadian provinces, referring to the strategy as a “Ottawa tariffs.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was particularly strident in his opinion on the importance of a united approach, even going to great lengths to produce a blue baseball cap with the words, “Canada is not for sale.” (Although he’s since been accused of hypocrisy on his stance).
Smith seemed to fundamentally disagree with that position since Alberta’s oil and gas is clearly 100% for sale. She made it clear she will do anything to ensure that nothing gets in the way of that transaction, even if she has to beg Trump for a tariff exemption.
Smith continues to insist that retaliation is not the correct approach. Tone deaf doesn’t seem to adequately describe her response, which has been to criticize the federal government and other provinces for rejecting earlier pipelines, like Northern Gateway and Energy East.
“We also urge our entire nation to use this tariff threat as an opportunity to correct the misguided direction of this country”
“We also urge our entire nation to use this tariff threat as an opportunity to correct the misguided direction of this country and commence multiple infrastructure projects that focus on developing, upgrading and exporting our oil, gas and other natural resources, instead of effectively land locking them and keeping us fully reliant on one primary customer,” tweeted Smith.
As if the Canadian government hadn’t already done enough by purchasing the TransMountain oil pipeline at a cost of $4.7 billion in 2018, a cost that 12 years later had ballooned to $34 billion. The pipeline finally began operating in early 2024, after several setbacks and plenty of opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous communities, exporting Canadian oil to global markets.
She advocates for provincial autonomy yet demands the federal government force other provinces to bow down to Alberta’s pipeline aspirations. She’s in full fossil fuel lobbyist mode, refusing to blink even though her own behaviour has led some to label her a traitor to Canada.
Smith’s blustery statement was accompanied by a graphic with an amateurish mash-up of the American and Canadian flags, displaying a further lack of judgment on Smith’s team. In response, social media erupted in outrage when the maple leaf was totally obscured, while the stars and stripes could be seen clearly.
The question is whether Smith can be trusted in Washington, Mar-a-Lago, or in a hotel in Panama, to look out for Alberta’s (not to mention Canada’s) best interests in a negotiation with Trump over tariffs.
She has often admitted that she’s a person who is “very trusting,” and in her former role as a lobbyist to the fossil fuel industry, she was required to represent the industry without question.
It takes a certain type of person to continuously and comfortably promote a position or point of view, even when it is unpopular or unwelcome or possibly even misleading.
This is something she’s doing a lot lately. She joined Kevin O’Leary for a reception at Mar-a-Lago, and has been happily rubbing elbows with ex-pat Canadians like Jordan Peterson, who - like O’Leary - has moved to the United States and is quick to criticize the federal government. O’Leary even went so far to tell Trump not to bother meeting with Justin Trudeau.
Nevertheless, her team proudly posted photos of Smith on Facebook and on X, seemingly oblivious to the criticism.
While not directly saying whether or not she wants Canada or Alberta to become the 51st State, she has dodged the question, and coyly explained the idea is just not very popular.
It can't be overlooked though, that Smith owes a lot of her political success to a small band of Alberta separatists who openly want to remove the province from Confederation, in some form or another. This is an uncomfortable truth and many Canadians are absolutely cringing at Smith’s actions right now. For Albertans, this is not new behaviour for her, but it is still disturbing.
I’m sure I’m not the only Albertan worried about what she’s going to do next. Her loyalty to the conservative movement and values have been clear, but her loyalty to Canada is anything but certain.
From a political perspective, this is a real opportunity for the NDP and Nenshi to differentiate themselves from Smith’s hero worship of Trump and all things MAGA.
Defining Alberta’s strengths without jeopardizing Canadian unity could be a welcome message to build their campaign around and one that Albertans would probably really appreciate right now.
Someone needs to offer up an alternative. And quickly.