Danielle Smith wins UCP leadership vote, will be Alberta’s next premier

“No longer will Alberta ask permission from Ottawa to be prosperous and free. We will not have our voices silenced and censored,” she said.

In a nod to anti-vaccine and anti-mandate supporters, Smith said, “we will not be told what we must put in our bodies in order to work or to travel.”

In her remarks Smith said a federal NDP-Liberal coalition is to blame for an inflation and affordability crisis and said the provincial NDP leader is not putting Alberta first. She called on Rachel Notley to urge federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to stop the carbon tax and called the Notley-Trudeau-Singh coalition a recipe for economic destruction.

“We will not have our resources landlocked or our energy phased out of existence by virtue-signalling prime ministers,” Smith said.

She also stressed unity among party members to avoid an NDP win in the spring general election and welcomed Todd Loewen back into the UCP caucus. No mention was made of Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes, who with Loewen was booted from caucus in May 2021 after repeated criticism of Premier Jason Kenney and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both have sat as Independents since.

Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, who lasted until the fifth ballot, and former ministers Rajan Sawhney Rebecca Schulz and Leela Aheer as well as Loewen also ran for the leadership.

Aheer was eliminated on the first ballot, followed by Sawhney, Loewen and Schulz.

Smith, who must win a byelection to get a seat in the legislature, said she will be officially sworn-in as premier next week.

Close to 124,000 party members were eligible to vote. Many voted by mail-in ballot, while others voted in-person this morning at one of five stations around the province.

The announcement was delayed more than two hours. The announcement was to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. Mid-afternoon the party said it was getting additional volunteers to count the close to 85,000 mail-in ballots received.

Smith was long-perceived as the frontrunner in the leadership campaign and drove the conversation around it with her Alberta-first stance.

“I’m back,” _{Smith said to start her speech}

Her proposed sovereignty act was created to be used to defend the province from what she calls continuous economic and constitutional attacks by the federal government. An overview released by Smith in September said the act would give affirm the province has the authority to refuse provincial enforcement of specific federal laws or policies that violate Alberta’s jurisdictional rights.

Other leadership candidates and constitutional law experts have criticized it as unconstitutional and Kenney called it “cockamamie.”

by Chris Brown

Danielle Smith wins UCP leadership vote, will be Alberta’s next premier

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