Danielle Smith, journalist and former leader of Alberta’s Wildrose Party, has announced her return to Alberta politics, with possible plans to seek the United Conservative Party’s (UCP) leadership.
In an interview with Postmedia on Thursday, Smith announced that she would be running for her former seat in Alberta’s legislature and made clear that if Jason Kenney fails his upcoming leadership review, Smith will seek the position.
Motivating Smith to re-enter the political scene was the UCP changing the leadership review from an Apr. 9 in-person party convention to a mail-in-ballot, with results expected by May 18.
Smith said she was also angered by Kenney calling individuals who disagreed with him on COVID restrictions “lunatics” and bigots.
Additionally, Smith said she believes that Kenney’s way of governing has been “(m)ore of an Ottawa style” and that the UCP should focus on including individual MLAs in important matters of public policy.
“The individual MLAs have been almost completely taken out of the picture and that’s not giving good governance to the people in my constituency,” said Smith.
Smith’s return to Alberta politics may come as a surprise, given how unceremoniously she departed the scene in 2015.
After growing disillusioned with the direction of the Wildrose Party, she and eight other Wildrose MLAs crossed the floor in 2014 to join the then-governing Progressive Conservatives (PC).
However, this plan to ‘unite-the-right’ would backfire in the 2015 election, which saw the NDP come to power in Alberta for the first time in history. Prior to this, however, Smith had failed to secure the PC nomination for Highwood, and was not on the ballot. The PCs lost their first election in 43 years, failing even to form the official opposition.
After losing her seat, Smith returned to media and became a talk radio host for six years on Corus Radio.
“I’ve had lots of people approach me saying when are you gonna get back into politics, and specifically asking me if I’d put my name forward here, and so I talked with my husband and we agreed, gonna give it one more try,” said Smith.
Smith is now the second former Wildrose leader to declare interest in the UCP’s top spot. Smith’s successor Brian Jean – who was re-elected in a by-election on Mar. 15 – openly campaigned on removing Kenney from leadership.
While she plans on running for leadership if Kenney is ousted, Smith also made it known that she intends to make her voice heard from the backbench if Kenney stays.
“If me announcing allows people to think that I might be a leadership candidate, then fair enough, I’m in,” said Smith. “I will put my name forward for leadership as well. But that really is a decision that’s up to members.”
“If members choose to keep the current leader then I’m quite happy to make my voice heard from the backbench.”
This article was corrected on Apr. 4. An earlier version had reported that Danielle Smith had lost her seat as a PC candidate in the 2015 Alberta election to a Wildrose candidate. The revised article reflects the fact that Smith failed to secure the PC nomination for Highwood prior to this and was not on the ballot for the general election.
