It’s been quite a year for Premier Danielle Smith. From defending carbon dioxide to stifling public debate and access to information around important issues and meddling in municipal affairs, Smith has defined herself as a politician willing to pull whatever government levers she can to push her anti-federal and pro-corporate agenda. So, as we round up 2024, we’ll let you decide whether or not she’s been naughty or nice. First, let’s take a whirlwind trip along Smith’s journey into politics.
The Political Shaping of Premier Smith
1971- Born in Calgary
Late 1980s – After high school graduation, she moves to Vancouver to try her hand at acting.
1988 – Enrolls at the University of Calgary, earning degrees in English (1993) and economics (1995.) Serves as president of the Progressive Conservative Campus Club while at U of C.
1996 – A year-long internship at the Fraser Institute Right has her contributing to reports criticizing media and social movements for spreading alarmist misinformation about the environment and climate change.
1997 – Becomes managing director of the Canadian Property Rights Research Institute, a group founded by Albertan ranchers promoting private property rights and opposing endangered species laws and municipal anti-smoking bylaws.
1998 – Dips her big toe into politics for the first time as a Calgary Board of Education trustee, where she earns a reputation for supporting school closures.
1999 – Hires on as a columnist with the Calgary Herald, quickly proving to be a sharp and popular pundit promoting conservative values and politics. While working at the Herald, she took a gig with Global Sunday for two years, then left TV for radio, hosting Standing Ground and Health Frontiers on AM 1060.
2009 – Becomes leader of the Wildrose Party (her father Doug served a stint as a Wildrose Party board member.)
2012 – Earns a seat in the legislature representing Highwood.
Smith makes several claims about her ancestry that are later discredited. She claims to have Cherokee roots from her great-great-great-grandmother, but an investigation by APTN National News finds no record to back up the claim.
She also claims that her great-grandfather Philipus Kolodnicki left Ukraine after World War I to escape communism. She also wrote that her political beliefs were shaped by a distrust of “the socialism from which my great-grandfather fled.” However, immigration records reviewed by the Toronto Star blow holes in Smith’s story, showing that Kolodnicki arrived in Canada in 1913 from Austria before the First World War.
2015 – The Wildrose Party is stumbling, and Smith crosses the floor to the Progressive Conservatives after chastising fellow Wildrose members for doing the same thing a year earlier.
2017 – Wildrose and PCs merge to form the United Conservative Party, with Jason Kenney as leader.
2022 – Kenney resigns, and Smith wins UCP leadership in October, becoming Alberta’s 19th Premier. Later that month, a sitting UCP member steps aside, and Smith wins the seat in a by-election.
Premier Smith’s 2024 Highlight Reel
Below are just a few highlights of Premier Smith’s very active 2024. We limited our summary to a few stories we have covered here at TheRockies.Life, because if we listed everything Danielle Smith did in 2024, we would need an encyclopedic-sized tome. No one can accuse Smith of a lack of ambition!
Coal Chaos
To be fair, Smith inherited a dog’s breakfast from her predecessor, Jason Kenney.
In 2021, Kenney cancelled the forward-thinking 1976 Coal Development Policy for Alberta, triggering an avalanche of coal development and exploration applications for sensitive watersheds in the Rocky Mountain front ranges. A public backlash forced Kenney to reinstate the coal policy a year later.
Under Smith’s leadership, the handling of the coal file still leaves much to be desired. This past year, an Alberta judge accused the UCP of secrecy and quashing public debate around coal mining. Now, the Municipal District of Ranchland has gone to Alberta’s highest court to appeal a dubious government decision to once again consider open pit coal mining on Grassy Mountain in the Oldman River headwaters.
Plundering the Trust Fund
Last summer, Premier Smith unveiled a doozy at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce chin wag when she suggested dipping into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund to prop up dubious oil ventures that are so risky that nobody else will invest in them.
That’s a far cry from the fund’s common sense intent back in 1976 when it was established: to invest in projects that would improve life in Alberta, provide a financial return, strengthen and diversify the Alberta economy, and save money for the future when non-renewable resources had been depleted.
So much for that. We haven’t seen something as fiscally FUBAR since an inebriated Ralph Klein berated homeless people at an Edmonton shelter in 2001, told them to get jobs, threw money on the floor, then stormed out.
Bill 18, “Stay Out of My Backyard”
Last April, the UCP introduced Bill 18. Smith called it the “stay out of my backyard bill.”
The legislation would require municipalities, post-secondary institutions, and health authorities to get approval from the province before making deals or receiving funds from the feds.
She followed that up with Bill 20, a proposed law that allows the cabinet to fire mayors and councillors and overturn any by-laws they don’t like. If that’s not heavy-handed enough, it will also introduce party politics to municipal elections and give Smith’s cabinet the power to postpone elections at will.
This double middle finger to the feds and local governments looks like a power grab to seize control of every backyard in the province.
Small Government Fan or Big Brother?
Way back, when Smith was campaigning for the Wildrose party leadership, she called herself a “small government conservative.”
Talk is cheap.
Since becoming leader of the governing UCP, she’s formed two cabinets. Both are bigger than any cabinet held by Kenney and Rachel Notley. Her big government is also pushing through some big brother policies.
This past fall, Smith and the UCP took out the big black marker and changed freedom of information rules that allow for more exemptions.
Merry Christmas, Alberta.
You can expect to unwrap even more heavily redacted documents if you request information about how the province decides public spending and resources.
Mutiny on Wing Night
When Calgary restricted single-use items, like switching from offering plastic bags to reusable ones and providing plastic cutlery or napkins by request only, city officials got an earful – from Premier Smith. Local governments are responsible for managing waste. Residents help determine how their community’s waste is collected and minimized.
But for Smith, Calgary’s restriction on disposable napkins was a bridge too far. Never one to shy away from meddling in municipal affairs, Smith asked one of her ministers to investigate.
“We have had to step in when we think that municipalities are going a step too far on certain issues. And I’ve asked my Minister if he thinks that this is one of those areas,” Smith said. “I’ve heard that there was a near mutiny on wing night in some restaurants because you have to ask whether or not people want napkins.”
Senior government officials should be focused on essential things like housing, forcing tax-evading oil companies to pay their property taxes, economic diversification into renewables, and protecting front range watersheds. But no, Smith decided to take aim at a city’s efforts to throw out less landfill-clogging stuff.
Bah humbug, Premier.
