Braid: Trump win tells UCP hard-liners they’re on the right track

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Leave the United Conservative Party. Take your single-issue passions elsewhere. Stop the chaos that has roiled the Alberta party since it was formed in 2017.

That’s the message to UCP members from Cynthia Moore, the immediate past president of the party board.

“Some people need to leave,” Moore said in an interview after this month’s huge convention in Red Deer.

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The delegates gave Premier Danielle Smith 91.5 per cent approval, but also passed many motions that go beyond her government’s policies.

“If they can’t get on board with a more moderate agenda, on governing for the whole province, they should go,” Moore says. “You can’t just be agitating all the time. You can’t stay in power if you’re constantly in chaos.”

Moore sees the leadership vote as proof that Smith is free to move toward the political centre. But her view is inflammatory in UCP ranks, especially since Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election.

“It’s phenomenal that the Republicans have come to power,” says UCP activist Marco Van Huigenbos.

He feels Trump’s alignment with many UCP issues shows the Alberta government is in the new conservative mainstream and should not tack to the centre.

Nadine Wellwood, chair of the right-wing pressure group 1905 Committee, says, “The Americans, just like the United Conservative Party, voted for a strong economy, good policies, being told the truth, being informed.”

She cites the convention focus on “bodily autonomy, property rights, protecting children, women in sport.” Trump is in sync with those issues, as well as the UCP’s deep hostility to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in hiring.

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“After the election, leaders like Danielle Smith should pay attention to what’s happening,” Wellwood says.

“I would rank Cynthia Moore as very elitist and disconnected from the true member base of the UCP. Not one person came to the convention with only one issue, unless it was to vote for Danielle. Most came with a long list of issues.”

Van Huigenbos says that if Smith becomes too moderate, many people in rural Alberta could leave the UCP to form another conservative opposition party on the right. But Moore has a point when she says some UCP activists will never be satisfied.

The Medicine Hat “Black Hatters” human rights bill was forced through by the party board. That set a bizarre precedent. The board isn’t supposed to recommend policy.

Smith said she might make further changes to the human rights bill she introduced specifically to please delegates. But there’s no way she will adopt this entire alternate document with its 21 sections.

One resolution that passed could literally defeat the government. It decrees that no matter what UCP candidates or nomination-seekers say, they cannot be criticized or penalized in any way by the premier, or any MLA or party official.

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Under this rule, Lacombe-Ponoka MLA Jennifer Johnson could not have been kept out of the UCP caucus after she compared transgender kids in classrooms to feces in cookie dough.

The premier would be condemned to silence. Under the motion, no candidate could ever be removed by the leader or the party unless the comments were clearly criminal in nature. These free speech lovers passed a policy that would deny free speech to others in their own party.

There’s no chance Smith will abide by this resolution. To the government these membership motions are suggestions, not orders.

Jason Kenney once said that on policy, “I hold the pen.” Smith is too shrewd to say that but it’s how the government will behave. Despite all this, Moore feels the party is growing up.

“The UCP is more mature now,” she says. “We’ve been through the horrible dysfunction of turning against a leader, and I don’t believe we’re going to do that again.”

This is the Alberta UCP. We shall see.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.

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