Ruling Conservative Party of Alberta Elects Sovereigntist Leader

Billboard in rural Alberta during Danielle Smith’s 2012 campaign (Wikimedia Commons).

Danielle Smith, who campaigned on “Alberta First” rhetoric, was chosen as leader of Alberta’s ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) on October 6. Her premiership is expected to increase tensions between growing right-wing populist movements and the federal government in Ottawa. 

As part of her campaign to prioritize Alberta, Smith has repeatedly promised to introduce a piece of legislation called the Alberta Sovereignty Act, a controversial law that would allow Edmonton to ignore certain federal legislation and regulations. 

Her promise, as well as her election, reflect the growing tensions between Canada's ruling Liberal Party and the nation’s conservative rural population. These tensions were heightened by outrage over pandemic-era public health policies and clean energy policies. As Canada’s leading oil and gas producing province, Alberta has often criticized federal regulations that limit fossil fuels amid the climate crisis.

Canada has a long history with sovereigntism, mostly focused on Quebec, Canada’s largest and only French-speaking province. Nevertheless, the Alberta Sovereignty Act would solidify periodic calls for independence in the Albertan public debate. 

The Act has multiple versions of varying severity, though many experts doubt that Smith will introduce the more dramatic versions which are very unlikely to pass the nation’s Supreme Court. The Free Alberta Strategy is one such version, but even the Free Alberta Strategy’s author Rob Anderson rejected the idea that Smith would call for Alberta to ignore Supreme Court decisions as his proposal did. 

Instead, the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which Smith is likely to introduce in the coming days,  would “authorize the province to refuse to enforce federal laws, and ignore the decisions of federal regulators, when they are viewed as not in Alberta’s interest or as violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” 

The motivations for rejecting national regulations hearken back to Canada’s COVID-19 policies, of which Smith was one of the greatest critics. Smith has been an active voice against vaccine mandates, using her former talk show “to host doctors and others whose pandemic views were branded as dangerous misinformation by public health leaders” and campaigning “to include the unvaccinated as a class protected from discrimination under the Alberta Human Rights Act.”

Another example of the growing global trend of right-wing populism, Smith’s premiership will define a new era of Alberta politics, one that could test the strength of Canadian federalism and act as precedent for future sovereigntist movements within its provinces.