Q&A: Premier Danielle Smith says she doesn’t need Alberta separatists’ support

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the matter of separatism is settled within her party and she doesn’t need the support of those who want the province to leave Canada.

Smith says she told members of her United Conservative Party on Wednesday that they should support the will of the majority of Albertans who have voted to stay in Canada, or leave the party.

But some prominent separatists like Mitch Slyvestre, the president of the UCP’s Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency association, have long argued that they helped oust former premier Jason Kenney and get Smith in as leader of the UCP. 

CBC Radio’s West of Centre host Kathleen Petty interviewed the premier on Friday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jared Wesley from the University of Alberta had observed “a referendum does not just reveal your strength — it can also reveal your weakness.” Did it here?

It showed to me that certainly on the constitutional questions, there just is not the appetite to pursue it. And I think there’s a couple of reasons for that. 

On constitutional change, I think people are still a little fatigued from all of the different realms that were unsuccessful in previous years. So I think it’s a question of how much success we could have on them. But they’re also not top of mind for people. 

I think what we saw is the immigration questions are certainly more important than the other ones. And so those will be the ones we’ll prioritize.

But not hugely more important, because that number is still pretty skinny. So what guidance do you believe that’s giving you for the legislation that you’re planning for this spring? 

Well, it seems to me people are very enthusiastic about the idea of having to show citizenship in order to be able to vote. So I think people need to be prepared that that is very likely going to be the first thing that we act on with enabling legislation. And our next provincial election is next October. 

We’re making it as easy as possible because we now have a citizenship marker on your driver’s licence. So you can go through and get all of that process done. So you can just have one piece of ID. 

When it comes to waiting periods for temporary workers or what the fees might be to access some of the programs, we’re going to have to take a bit more time with that.

But I think we can solve a lot of the problems by focusing our newcomer population on the jobs that are available. Because when somebody comes with a high-paying job, they probably don’t need to rely on social services. And when somebody makes a commitment to being a permanent taxpayer as a permanent resident, they’ll get the same programs as everyone else. 

So if we can fix that part, then I think it will reduce some of the stress on our health care and education and other systems.

Question 10, you say it’s settled — 75 per cent of Albertans said we want to stay in Canada. It seems it isn’t settled in your party though. So how do you deal with that?

Well, it is settled in my party.

How’s it settled?

I am the leader not only of government but also of my party. I’m the chief communicator for our party, and I have said that anyone who wants to run as a candidate for us, anyone who wants to be on our provincial board, has to align with what Albertans told us. 

If you’re going to be in a political party and show faithfully that you’re going to represent the people, then you have to listen to the message they gave you and the message that Albertans gave us — 75 per cent — that they’re proud Canadians and want to stay a part of Canada.

So how will you enforce it?

Right now, I am allowing people some time to reflect on what democracy means. 

And when they’re finished reflecting?

If you don’t want to agree to follow the will of the people, you don’t have to be a candidate for us. Don’t put your name forward. You don’t have to run for our provincial board.

And if they do, you don’t sign their nomination papers?

Well, I guess we’ll see whether or not people will rise to the occasion. I think most people do. 

Most people. But I’m curious about what you do with the people who don’t. 

They have lots of options to continue. They can be in advocacy groups. They can set up podcasts. They can continue to be involved in other political parties.

But in our political party, we respect democracy and we respect Albertans. If you had candidates running for you who said, “You know what, vote for me and I may or may not do what you ask me to do,” it’s not a very strong selling feature. I think for us to have the credibility with Albertans, that we’re going to listen to them and faithfully implement what they ask us to do, we have to sign that pledge.

UCP MLA Jason Stephan announced that he would not be running for re-election. Had you told him you would not sign his nomination papers, given that he publicly said he was voting for Option 2, which is to have another referendum?

He made his own decision. He had told me last year that he wasn’t sure whether or not he was going to run again, and he wanted to take some time to reflect on that. And so he obviously did that over the course of the last week or so, and he made the decision not to run again.

UCP MLA says he’s voted in favour of Alberta holding binding referendum on independence

So you didn’t influence that decision by saying anything?

He announced that, I believe, before the results came in. So he had made that decision. 

I’m curious how you feel about how separatists will continue with their advocacy, because they argue you won the leadership and the election, in part because of them. Can you keep your leadership and election without them?

[Laughs] Well, that’s not who was supporting me. 

The people who were supporting me were the ones who were really concerned about the COVID response. The people who were supporting me were the ones who were concerned about some of the DEI ideology that was in classrooms. They were the ones who were concerned about young children being transgender … behind their parents’ backs. Those are the people who voted for me. 

This new movement is actually brand new. I mean, some of the leaders of it just woke up one day in April of last year and decided to join the separatist movement.

But some of them you had relationships with. It’s not like you didn’t know them, like Mitch Sylvestre and David Parker.

But to be clear, you run your campaign on areas of common interest and common policies, and the areas of common interest and common policies were the ones I described — but also talking about autonomy within Canada. 

Our position as a party and my position in running was: let’s try to make Canada work by getting Canada to focus on its areas of jurisdiction so we can focus on ours. That’s always been my pitch. Others think that there’s another way, but that’s not been my position.