Danielle Smith gets boisterous support as UCP members embark on leadership vote

One day before a vote on her leadership, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith received loud and boisterous applause from United Conservative Party members at the party’s annual general meeting in Red Deer Friday. 

Smith and members of her cabinet kicked off the two-day convention with a ‘bear pit’ question and answer session.

Smith received loud outbursts of applause from the crowd at several points. The party says about 6,000 members have registered to attend the Red Deer convention. 

Smith won the leadership of the party two years ago and led the party to a second consecutive majority government last year. According to party rules, she faces a vote on her record on Saturday. 

Cabinet ministers and party members were spotted wearing buttons supporting Smith’s continued leadership.

Not everyone happy as convention gets underway

But groups like Take Back Alberta and the 1905 Committee are unhappy Smith hasn’t implemented some of the promises made during the campaign and plan to vote against her. 

Take Back Alberta distributed a “UCP Report Card” on the convention floor Friday. The document gives Smith an overall grade of D on issues like seeking accountability from the previous provincial leaders for implementing vaccine mandates and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and not implementing the warnings they feel are required before allowing children to receive vaccines. 

WATCH | A closer look at Take Back Alberta before last year’s convention: 

Meet the group that’s pushing to have a big impact at the United Conservative Party’s Annual General Meeting this weekend. CBC Calgary’s Rob Brown dives into who’s behind Take Back Alberta and what they want.

Marco van Huigenbos, a former Smith supporter, plans to vote against her leadership on Saturday.  He is unhappy Smith hasn’t met the promises she made on pandemic accountability.

While the UCP government introduced bills in the legislature to add vaccine refusal to the Alberta Bill of Rights and restrict gender-affirming care for minors, Van Huigenbos says a sizeable portion of party members are disillusioned because Smith’s measures don’t go far enough. 

“What will this party do to ensure that the demographic that is being abandoned, that is looking for accountability, that’s looking for government to come clean with certain aspects of how they handled the province and the ministries during that time,” he said. 

“How will they connect with these Albertans? Because if they don’t, it’s only a matter of time before we see a legitimate new party challenge the current establishment.”

‘A wonderful job,’ says supporter

Other party members think Smith is doing a great job. Bill Crawford, a UCP member from Crossfield, came to Red Deer to vote in favour of her leadership. 

“She’s had a few bumps in the road but other than that she’s doing a wonderful job so I really want to support her,” he said. 

Crawford is not impressed with the groups trying to push her out. He said a premier needs to govern for the entire province, not just a small part of the UCP membership.

“It seems like the conservatives that like to eat their own,” he said. 

“And I say, no, no, no, she’s doing a great job. Who’s going to do better?”

Smith will make her pitch to the 6,000 party members who are in Red Deer on Saturday morning. Members will also discuss policy resolutions on Saturday.

They include measures like restricting “exclusively female spaces” like washrooms and change rooms to “biological female who were female at conception” and designating gender-affirming procedures like top and bottom surgery as “elective cosmetic procedures” that are not covered by Alberta medicare.

WATCH | Take a look back at past leadership reviews: 

As Danielle Smith’s UCP membership does a gut-check on their leader, the CBC’s Jason Markusoff takes you through the bell curve of leadership reviews of years gone by.