Can Danielle Smith See Her Party Slipping Away？ - Thoughts on Her Keynote Address
Episode Stats
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Summary
Danielle Smith's keynote address at the United Conservative Party Annual General Meeting in Edmonton got a lot of boos and jeers. I give my initial thoughts on what I saw from the speech and what I think about it.
Transcript
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Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel 132 in the afternoon. I hope you're having a great day
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today, Saturday, November the 29th. Hope you're having a good weekend as well. I've got my big
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blue mug of coffee with me and I just finished watching Danielle Smith's keynote address at
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the United Conservative Party annual general meeting in Edmonton. And my initial thoughts
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are this. It seems to me that there, I'm not there, but it seems to me there is a huge fracture
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within this party right now. And I'm not sure how the fracture breaks, what percentage is on
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one side or the other. Yesterday, I would have said after the Jeff Rath question regarding
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independence, maybe two thirds to three quarters of the people in the audience yesterday were
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interested in independence. But what I heard from Danielle Smith here was somebody who was
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kind of desperate to get some recognition for what she was saying, or at least some applause.
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It was almost like a comedian trying to milk the audience for a joke, but she was trying to milk
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the audience for acceptance. And she didn't get a lot of it when it came to specific things.
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I sent out a tweet today and this is what I said. It said, on Danielle Smith, the things she does well
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on are the things Alberta does independently or in spite of Ottawa. The things Danielle Smith does poor
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on are the things where we have to endure federal meddling. And I finished it up with independence
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versus meddling. What would you want? So let me go over a few of the things. I'm not going to get deep
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into these. I'm not going to play any video for you here. There was plenty of booing, which was surprising.
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I think overall, most people like Danielle Smith. I've said that here many times before. I'd like
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her very much. But I think we get to a point where every politician has a certain amount of
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political capital and it's only so long before it starts to run out. I would hope that Danielle
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Smith's political capital isn't weighing or running out in this province. But if you look back over history
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in Canada, you look at liberals in particular, when it comes to federal government, eventually
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Pierre Trudeau ran out of political capital. I think Jean Chrétien was around for 13 years. It
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happened to him as well. Justin Trudeau, Wonder Boy, 2015. He brought the Liberal Party back from the
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brink of total destruction and he ran out of political capital earlier this year. It happens
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provincially. It happens municipally as well. Danielle Smith hasn't been around very long as the premier,
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but she may be running out of some political capital when it comes to the province of Alberta
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and ruling here. She is slowly losing control of this party and she's going to have to come up with
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some kind of a solution real soon. So here's where she's strong. Okay. She spoke about all these
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things. I'm going to go through them quickly. It was a win on parental rights, a win on schooling.
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She says more schools, more teachers, a win on health system reforms, which is a provincial matter,
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but of course it's a federal thing. She talked about allowing some private care, dual practice
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legislation for doctors so they can do some private work and public work as well. An activity-based
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funding model as it is called. She was very strong in immigration, taking primary control of immigration
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for the province of Alberta, basically taking it away from Ottawa. Again, she does very well in the
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things where Alberta is acting independently. She talked about drug addiction care. She got
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a good response to that. She talked about free speech, getting rid of DEI, not losing your job
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for political beliefs known as the Peterson law. She talked about the social engineering of children.
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People applauded for that. They don't want to see that happen in schools. And at the same time,
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hammering the NDP for these things. No prosecution under federal gun seizure program. Another federal
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thing that she's standing up against here from an independent standpoint here in Alberta.
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We're going to allow people to defend themselves in their home. It's known as the castle law.
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She used the saying, if you don't want to get shot, don't break into someone's house. No prosecution
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from defending yourself against intruders. Very strong response to that. Banning of sexual images
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in books in school. Protection against the transing of children. All of these things she does very well
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on. And again, things that Alberta can do independently or in spite of Ottawa. Now, where she fails is when she
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talks about Canadian unity. I guess you could say where she fails is when she talks about Team Canada.
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A lot of the people in the audience there were booing her. Huge loss. Huge loss in this speech,
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where she talked at great length about this memorandum of understanding with Mark Carney
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and the federal government on oil pipelines. People do not believe what she's saying. And that's where
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she's losing people. It was a pretty mediocre speech. I mean, she comes across great. She's a terrific
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speaker. You know, she was a politician. She had to walk away from it for a number of years. She did
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radio and was very good at doing that. She's an excellent communicator. But I think this, overall,
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this speech was a pretty big fail. I'll put a link in the description below so you can watch it in this
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entirety. You'll hear the boos. You'll hear people yelling back at her. And again, I thought she was
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trying to milk the audience at times to try to get some satisfaction from something that couldn't have
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been too satisfying for the premier. Thanks for watching. If you liked the video, please give me
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a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell for notifications. I'll see you in the next one.