Evan Menzies: Danielle Smith will soon face a fall leadership review. Will temperamental Albertans give her a passing grade? 

This fall, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will be facing her fourth test from voters over her leadership in just two years. In October 2022, Smith won the leadership race of the United Conservative Party. Since then, she has put together a decisive byelection win in her riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat and lifted the party to a majority victory despite a wave of skepticism driven by months of challenging polling headwinds. Now she is facing a leadership review mandated by the party by-laws, to be conducted by UCP members who are willing to pay the bills to attend and travel to the party’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Red Deer. No one can accuse the UCP or Alberta of not giving deference to voters or making regular check-ins with them a priority. Conservative members that show up to vote at these AGMs in Alberta have a long tradition of giving their leaders a hard time and placing them under the glaring lens of scrutiny no matter their record of electoral success. Making things more complicated for the premier and her team is the fact that those with an axe to grind or with a single policy grievance tend to be more motivated to come out than those who are generally satisfied with the direction of the party. We can see that pattern tracking in the recent history of leadership reviews for conservative premiers. Premier Jason Kenney had a well-documented and dramatic leadership review process where he was able to muster the needed 50 percent-plus-one majority support but chose to step aside for the sake of party unity. In prior iterations of the party, Premiers Alison Redford and Ed Stelmach received a more than respectable 77 percent after giving their parties decisive electoral wins, but they were both later destabilized by their own caucus revolts. And Premier Ralph Klein famously stepped aside with a surprising 55 percent at his leadership review after stating his desire for 75 percent to keep pressing forward—this despite a now mythical period of leadership that conservatives look back at with collective fondness. With that history in mind, Albertans shouldn’t be under the illusion that this is a rubber-stamping exercise by party members—the politics of these leadership votes are complex and hardly ever clearly represent the broader view of party members or conservative supporters in the province. But for those conservatives who will be attending the AGM and participating in the leadership review vote, the question they’ll need to ask themselves is: has Smith effectively strengthened the unity of the party while advancing conservative values? On party unity, the premier has clearly learned from the bumpy roads she faced during her time as Wildrose leader and has done the work to keep both her MLAs and party members stitched together. Given the number of spinning plates in the air on the policy front, this has been no easy task. The COVID era opened several deep rifts in the conservative heartland. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s increasingly interventionist policies and arguably unconstitutional forays into Alberta’s jurisdiction have many conservatives anxious and restless to move quickly on massive policy initiatives like shipping out the RCMP, beginning an Alberta revenue agency, or moving on an Alberta Pension Plan. This despite, as public polling has shown, a general uneasiness shown by the general public towards any of these policy prescriptions, especially in vote-rich battleground Calgary. In general, though, while not everyone in the conservative tent has gotten what they wanted across these files, the premier has deftly navigated those choppy policy waters keeping her caucus, the party’s constituency associations, and the general public mostly on board. Her Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, once widely criticized, has been seen as a useful and practical tool against Ottawa’s more outrageous policies, specifically regarding Alberta’s ability to produce reliable and affordable power and develop its own natural resources. She has done what she promised in the past election and opened the question of an Alberta Pension Plan to the Alberta public for feedback. And on the question of an Alberta Provincial Police, she has been practical, allowing cities and towns in the province to develop their own local forces when they ask and expanding the impact and use of Alberta’s sheriffs to strengthen community safety across Alberta. Beyond the issues of keeping the “united” in the UCP, Smith hasn’t shied away from using her voice and legislative tools to more broadly advance a conservatism that respects and advances the protection of speech, religious expression and freedoms, the importance of the family unit, and parental choice and notification in the education system. She has also notably started the needed work of building up Alberta’s Heritage Savings Trust Fund to ensure a secure source of revenue is available for future generations. She has welcomed talking directly with voters, showing up to town halls with conservatives from across the province and sitting down for interviews with influencers, the media, and podcasters across the political spectrum. Smith and her team have continued the work the UCP began after its first election victory to implement a policy package that draws its heritage from the deep heartland of Alberta’s Wildrose movement—a movement that prioritized principle before party, ideas before power. Alberta is a land of more direct democracy, more individual choice and freedoms, more choice in education and deference to parents, and more balanced budgets than any other jurisdiction in Canada after six years of a UCP government and two impactful years under Smith. Many of these policies would not be a reality today without her nimble leadership. There’s a reason why polling indicates that conservatives, and even Albertans more generally, across this province believe the premier is broadly on the right track. Has the premier’s term to date been without hiccups? Of course not. Name a premier who’s term has. There have been some legislative bumps in the road. The province is facing a messaging high-wire act with the public. On one hand, it wants to stress the need for future savings and balanced budgets while it boasts about multi-billion dollar surpluses. On the other hand, the timing of a promised tax cut is still to be determined—a move that the anxious Albertan public is impatient for as they feel the ongoing squeeze of the affordability crisis. Cabinet faced its most contentious legislature sitting to date this past spring when they brought forth substantial changes to municipal elections, including introducing political parties and giving the province new oversight powers. This was particularly controversial. What seemed like needed accountability measures to the government looked a lot like arrogance and imposing undemocratic principles on the government’s critics. The premier and her team will more than ever need to be conscious of the fact that Albertan voters are temperamental and ready to send a message at a moment’s notice, especially if they feel the government has lost its way or lost touch with the priorities of regular people. Expressing humility before arrogance each and every day will continue to serve the government well in the months and years ahead as it faces a well-organized opposition in the NDP, now headed by a boisterous new leader spoiling for a fight. While there are blips deserving a critical eye, the premier’s record over the past two years as leader of her party more broadly shows she deserves the enthusiastic support of party members to keep advancing her agenda and the agenda of Alberta’s broader conservative movement into the next election. It will be up to those supportive conservatives across the province to make sure their voice is heard in November. Not all Canadians have a chance to participate in a system where they get to give their party leaders a mid-term report card. Albertans should make sure not to take it for granted.