UCP candidate Danielle Smith enters Bonnyville, though controversy swirls

The UCP leadership race is well underway, with the chance to be the 19th Premier of Alberta on the line – until the next general election in spring 2023 that is. 

One of the frontrunners in the campaign, former Wildrose leader and talk show host Danielle Smith, spoke to an assembled crowd of just under 100 people at the Bonnyville Rodeo Grounds on Saturday night. 

Faced up against Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche MLA Brian Jean and former UCP finance minister Travis Toews at the top of the polls, Smith spoke about some of the policies she would look to introduce, including an Alberta Sovereignty Act that would “punch back against Ottawa.” 

However, after she spoke Saturday, many of her opponents latched onto a segment of an interview she had with a naturopath doctor days before, where her comment implied that cancer diagnoses before Stage 4 were “completely within your control.” 

She has rebuked those comments as being out of context, while NDP leader Rachel Notley and UCP hopeful Brian Jean have levied criticisms, calling it an “insensitive” remark. 

That was not the subject of Saturday’s rally, however. Instead, there was a focus of “Put Alberta First,” a theme that she hopes will garner enough support from the province’s conservative voters. 

“The federal government has used this opportunity at every turn to continue to impose economic sanctions against our province, and we haven’t punched back, so I want to punch back,” Smith told Lakeland Connect.  

“That’s why I want to pass an Alberta Sovereignty Act, which would simply state that we have constitutionally defined areas of provincial powers and the federal government has to stay out of those.

“Quebecers aren’t sitting and cowering worried that the federal government is going to come in and cancel their cement industry, or their aluminum industry, or put special taxes on their aerospace industry? Why are they doing this to us? They shouldn’t, and they will continue to push us around, unless we push them back. And that’s what the Alberta Sovereignty Act is about.” 

Smith spent time promising that in the fall respiratory season that she would not impose lockdowns and fight away federal urges to do as well. 

When asked about how she would resolve rural health care issues, like those in Cold Lake with limited physician coverage overnight in ERs, she said health care needs a total rethink.

She advocates for full-service rural hospitals, and a new plan called the Health Spending Account, which would give Albertans a bit of money in the year to pursue other forms of health care, like physiotherapists or dieticians, for example. 

“It’ll make sure that people are managing their health conditions better. So we take more pressure off the hospitals. I think we need to have a total rethink of our health care system. And the other thing too, is to get back to local control and local decision making. We tried centralizing, and there’s some things it makes sense to centralize. But running a facility in a community requires community oversight, the ability to make sure that the services provided are what the community needs. And that’s what has been the missing piece for probably the last 15 years,” she said. 

Smith also addressed how she would use the surplus funds that are coming Alberta’s way. Rising oil prices left Alberta with a $3.9 Billion surplus in the previous year and a surplus upcoming has left questions on what’s the best way to use this extra money. 

“We have $16 billion worth of resource revenue this year, we only have a $4 billion surplus. So it means we’re spending $12 billion worth of resource revenue, and that’s not sustainable either. People expect that conservatives are going to have a debt repayment plan, that we’re going to have a savings plan,” said Smith. 

“What I would like to see is that starting to put significant amounts of dollars in savings so that we can grow our Heritage Savings Trust Fund to $500 billion, at which point it would be generating $25 billion a year and that would be enough to eliminate personal income tax and corporate income tax. That’s the kind of aspirational thing we should be talking about.” 

A Leger poll released on Sunday shows Smith has 22 per cent support, compared to 20 per cent for Brian Jean, and 15 per cent for Toews. Other candidates, former cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz and MLA Todd Loewen, each registered two per cent support. Former cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney had zero per cent support, while another former cabinet minister, Leela Aheer, did not register any support in the poll, which had 1,025 respondents. 

Conservatives can purchase a UCP membership until August 12 to be eligible to vote for the party leader on October 6. 

The first of two official party debates is tonight in Medicine Hat with another August 30 in Edmonton. 

Brian Jean is expected to make a visit to Bonnyville on August 3rd. 

The full interview with Danielle Smith can be seen above.