Six thousand.
That’s about the number of United Conservative Party members expected to gather in Red Deer this weekend for their annual meeting. It might be the largest party get together in Alberta’s history.
And those 6,000 might be the most powerful people in the province on Saturday.
That’s when they will vote in a UCP leadership review on whether they want Premier Danielle Smith to carry on with her agenda. Or whether they will cast her aside like so many previous Alberta conservative leaders, including her immediate predecessor, Jason Kenney.
As The Globe’s Carrie Tait reported this week, 77 per cent support in the review is a bit of a “psychological marker” for Alberta conservatives. While Kenney got just 51 per cent support before he was removed as leader, Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford received 77 per cent of member votes, but they too were ousted.
Smith has spent months leaning in to her right-wing bona fides, trying to shore up support. But Alberta politics felt like a mad dash this week as the province and the UCP barrelled toward the leadership vote.
Monday was the introduction of the Alberta Bill of Rights Amendment Act, which touched on three big areas: to reinforce the right for people to decide whether to receive a vaccination or other medical procedures, to fortify the right to acquire and own firearms, and to expand property rights.
“Our province is founded and grounded on individual freedom and personal responsibility. These amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights are not just legal changes, they are a reaffirmation of the values that make Alberta one of the freest jurisdictions on Earth,” she said.
On Tuesday, Smith announced that her government is asking the Federal Court to declare the three-year carbon levy exemption for home heating oil (which overwhelmingly benefits some provinces, particularly in Atlantic Canada) both unconstitutional and unlawful in hopes of seeing the unpopular tax axed altogether.
By Wednesday, the federal government of course pushed back, calling it a “political stunt.”
Then on Thursday, the government introduced legislation to limit gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth, ban transgender participation in women’s and girls’ sports divisions, and require parental consent for name and pronoun changes in school.
“All three pieces of legislation have been developed, drafted and tabled with the express purpose of striking the right balance for the health, safety and well-being of all children and youth in our province,” the Premier said. “We’re also upholding the rights of parents to care for, teach and protect their children.”
There are also changes that would require parents to opt-in for their children to receive instruction related to gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality. As The Globe’s Caroline Alphonso reported a few weeks ago, the current practice in Alberta and elsewhere in the country is the opposite, where families can opt out of sex education.
So while the UCP hit several reliable conservative checkpoints this week as they built toward the crescendo that is Saturday’s leadership review, it again, all comes down to an inordinately powerful group of 6,000 Albertans. That relatively small group – about the number of people that call Stettler or Bonnyville home – holds a tremendous amount of responsibility for the lives of the other 4.9 million or so Albertans this weekend.
They hold the fate of the Premier, the party and the province in their hands.
No pressure.
And remember, all episodes of the second season of The Globe podcast In Her Defence are available now. Reporter Jana G. Pruden investigates the death of Amber Tuccaro, a young woman who was killed more than a decade ago just outside Edmonton and whose final words, caught on tape, have haunted her family and investigators ever since.
Where to listen:
This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.