Who Is Danielle Smith and What Does She Want?
The new Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith has a less than illustrious political career. She was groomed by the Fraser Institute and has worked as a columnist and member of the editorial board of the Calgary Herald as well as in radio and TV.
In 2009 Smith became leader of the Wildrose Party. Pollsters declared she would win the 2012 provincial election, a wildly inaccurate prediction. Then in 2014 she led eight Wildrose MLAs to cross the floor and join the short-lived Progressive Conservative (PC) government of Jim Prentice. This infuriated both PC and Wildrose supporters, especially when it was revealed that although she had denounced two Wildrose MLAs who had crossed the floor several months earlier, she had been in talks with Prentice about joining the PCs at the time. Her decline was so spectacular that she failed to win the PC nomination for the 2015 provincial election, ending her political career until she emerged to run for leader of the UCP.
Earlier, during her first foray into elected office as a member of the Calgary School Board, she was credited with a major role in making the board so dysfunctional that its chair said it could no longer operate, leading to the firing of the board by the provincial government.
At a leadership debate organized by the separatist group Alberta Prosperity Project, she said she was "putting our civil service on notice, all 240,000 of them, that every single decision they make must be put through the lens of putting Alberta first." In fact, there are approximately 25,000 people directly employed by the Alberta government, of whom around 2,200 are excluded from the union because they are deemed to have some level of decision-making authority.
Smith also pledged to replace the entire board of Alberta Health Services (AHS), fire members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and conduct a "public investigation" of the Chief Medical Officer of Health. This is evidence that Smith will continue to concentrate power in the hands of the executive and rule by executive decree.
Smith
is notorious for her attacks on the right to conscience. In a
column
published in the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal in
2019, she
launched a diatribe against communism, the Soviet Union, and
"public
school social studies teachers [who] seem to lean toward
Marxism" and
then called
on school boards to start firing teachers whose methods she
decried.
Smith proposed and campaigned on an "Alberta Sovereignty Act" which, as advertised, was aimed at empowering the province to ignore any federal law it chooses on the basis of a "free vote" of the legislature and to defy any federal court ruling that goes against it. Companion legislation would replace the RCMP in favour of a provincial police force, establish an Alberta pension plan to replace the Canada Pension Plan, and mandate direct collection of provincial taxes by the provincial government from the province's businesses and public employees that they now send to the federal revenue agency. Smith accuses the Trudeau Liberals of wanting to exercise control over every aspect of people's lives, while saying she stands for "freedom."
Following Smith’s election, her chief advisor Rob Anderson issued a statement “clarifying” that the proposed "Alberta Sovereignty Act" would respect decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. In a news conference following her swearing-in, Smith said, "When the Supreme Court makes a decision we have to abide by that."
Five of the seven candidates in the UCP leadership race, plus the outgoing premier and leader of the UCP Jason Kenney, called the proposed act unconstitutional, a violation of the rule of law and separation of powers, and presented themselves as the defenders of the "democratic institutions." The Lieutenant-Governor even weighed in to say she might not sign such a law.
All
of it is to divide the people pro this and con that rather than working
together to modernize the electoral process and write a modern
constitution. A the constitutional crisis exists in Canada which the
people need to address to avert the disasters which lie ahead if the
people are divided or rendered passive because of their lack of a
movement which empowers them. The current constitutional order designed
to preserve the state permits the concentration of power in the
executive and the creation of governments of police powers. The
legislatures are made increasingly irrelevant, rule of law is trashed,
and Canada's human and natural assets are put in the service of the
rich and the U.S. imperialist war machine while even the most basic
needs of the people are not met.
Smith's zeal to get Alberta out of the Constitution is used by the media and pundits to spread disinformation about how matters stand in Alberta and federally. They even reimagine Kenney as a "moderate," a pillar of stability and decency and are now floating the proposal to have the NDP show it is capable of providing "stability" and "moderation." "Stability" and "moderation" mean that all the resources of Alberta are directed at paying the rich, serving the U.S. war machine with the energy resources it requires, and keeping the working class, Indigenous peoples and Métis in check.
In her acceptance speech in Calgary on October 6, Smith revealed a lot about her vision of Alberta. She described Albertans as "pioneers and farmers, entrepreneurs and innovators, communities and families." She did not recognize the existence of the working class or even acknowledge the Indigenous peoples and Métis. Later in the speech she further defined who she identifies as the "we" in Alberta. "We are entrepreneurs and business people," she said claiming that, nonetheless, the "we" would rule in a compassionate way.
The
fact is that the future lies in the fight of the working people
of
Alberta and the youth to uphold the rights of all. Alberta
teachers are
organizing and preparing for an important rally at the
Legislature on
October 22, calling on everyone to join in. Health care workers
and
their unions
are speaking out about their concerns and demands. Conviction is
palpable about the need to strengthen the resistance of the
working
class and people to governments of police powers. Increased
poverty,
inflation, the crisis in health care, violence against women,
minorities and Indigenous peoples,
the assault on the right to education, homelessness and much
more face
everyone every day.
The election of Danielle Smith reveals not the need to defend the "existing constitutional order," but that the people must provide modern definitions for the mass democracy needed in the 21st century. Such a democracy is based on activating the human factor/social consciousness to provide the problems the society faces with solutions. It gives rise to a constitutional order which vests sovereignty in the people and creates institutions that make sure the claims of the people are satisfied.
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 27 - October 12, 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmld2022/Articles/D520272.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca