Juno News - October 31, 2022An authentic politician in Canada？
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Summary
Danielle Smith is the new premier of Alberta, and I think there's one very noteworthy takeaway about her rise to power, and that is her consistency. It's incredibly rare in Canadian politics, and it's quite refreshing to see it from her.
Transcript
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I think there's one very noteworthy takeaway about Danielle Smith's rise to power as the new
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Premier of Alberta, and that is her consistency. It's incredibly rare, unfortunately, in Canadian
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politics, and it's quite refreshing to see it from her. Allow me to explain. So back when the UCP
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leadership race first commenced, Smith was a guest on my former podcast, and I asked her right out of
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the gate, okay, why are you running to be Premier of Alberta? She said there were two things, two
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driving things that was motivating her to run. One was she wanted to make sure that she could be in
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office so there would be somebody to say, no more COVID restrictions at all. Over. It's done. And
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number two, she wanted to make sure Alberta got a fair shake in its dealings with the federal government
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because it wasn't happening, and she would be the one to stand there and say, no more. Well, guess
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what? She said that at the very beginning of the race. She kept saying it throughout the race. She
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won. She became the Premier. She gets into office, and so much of what she has done has actually been
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consistent with those two themes. So much of it has circled around those. She has said that we're not
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going to be accepting from the federal government any edicts that are not consistent with Alberta's
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best interests. She has apologized to the unvaccinated for all of the various restrictions
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that they face. She said controversially that the unvaccinated were the most discriminated in
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recent history. I'm not sure why it was that controversial. I appreciate that made people
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unhappy, uncomfortable, but factually speaking, it's just kind of like a correct statement.
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These things, though, leading themes, she stuck with them from beginning to end. And you're saying,
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okay, Fury, how is this particularly noteworthy? It's noteworthy because think about it. It's
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exceedingly rare. That's actually not how Canadian politics operates at all. Grassroots activists know
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they have been so burned because they have someone who runs for office, runs into leadership, says,
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I'm going to be just like this. I'm going to stand for X, Y, Z. And then the months pass by,
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you get to the point where they're in office, they're in the position, and you're like, who is
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this person? This person is not at all like what I thought I was getting. A lot of people say that
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about Ontario Premier Doug Ford. I think this is such an interesting, instructive pathway for
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conservative politicians in Canada, for politicians, I guess, of any political perspective,
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liberal NDP, the idea of being consistent, being authentic, and how maybe that's just the better
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pathway into electoral politics in the first place. Daniel Smith, an incredible breath of fresh air
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for saying, this is what I believe in, vote for me if you agree with me, gets into office,
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and actually follows through. Hats off to an authentic politician.