Love her or hate her, Danielle Smith just won big

I’ve heard a downtown oilpatch crowd describe this faction of the UCP base as the “Strong and Free people,” in reference to the slogan that’s replacing “Wild Rose Country” on Alberta’s new licence plate. Smith’s predecessor, Jason Kenney, once called his most extreme dissidents “lunatics trying to take over the asylum.” If an internal party strife erupts this weekend, there will be no shortage of observers who say Smith brought it on herself. She, who allegedly stoked separatist sentiments; who held town halls to legitimize sovereignty ideas like the unpopular Alberta pension plan; who used the notwithstanding clause to push through transgender legislation—all, her critics say, to appease the loudest of her base. But there’ll be more defenders. And they’ll make a point that’s hard to argue. Whatever one thinks of Smith’s more populist instincts, she pulled off something objectively monumental this week. She extracted major concessions from Ottawa that no Alberta premier has seen in a generation. She singlehandedly reset the tone with a Liberal prime minister and positioned her province as the indispensable partner in whatever “nation-building” direction Carney intends to pursue. As one energy analyst described it, if one of the main hindrances to investment in Alberta has been a sense of “chronic, unending animosity” between Ottawa and the province’s main industry, a little bit of thawing of that ice-cold relationship can go a long way. And Smith risked real political capital to get there. Recall the early days of the U.S.–Canada trade war, when it was all hands on deck, and the Alberta premier refused to play ball on retaliatory tariffs? That move baffled pundits outside Alberta who called her a “traitor” to the nation. Yet her approval rating climbed at home. Every Alberta premier who’s ever entered the national ring knows the script. Making Ottawa the heel comes at almost no political cost. Even former NDP premier Rachel Notley—no conservative firebrand—pulled this suplex when she needed to. So when Smith publicly declared she wanted to make a deal with Carney to prove that Canada could work, the sneers came fast. Overconfidence, naïveté, earnestness—pick your critique, or conspiracy theory—like it was all a ploy to trick or harm the prime minister. Through every stage of the MOU negotiations, Smith had every incentive to score easy points by wrecking their relationship. Instead, she played nice. She showed patience bordering on unnatural for a UCP premier heading into a UCP AGM. Even when another easy foil in B.C. Premier David Eby kept trashing the MOU while basking in his LNG victory, she didn’t bite. In fact, her response was graceful—we support your projects. That restraint is rare in modern politics. It reveals a depth in diplomacy, strategic planning, and even patriotism. Her base should give her credit.