A matter of time: Danielle Smith is putting in the hours to prevent UCP unrest

A decade ago this coming spring, Alison Redford resigned as Alberta premier, largely under the crushing weight of revelations of her profligate flight habits.

At the time, some commentary wondered why government-funded flying proved fatal to Redford but never seemed to dent former premier Ralph Klein, whose use of provincial aircraft prompted critics to dub the fleet Air Ralph. Was there some sort of gender double standard?

Sexism might always lurk in some form or another around our politics. But let's propose another factor into why high-flying felled one Tory premier and not another:

When the chips were down, Klein had a broad range of friends and allies in his caucus and party — while Redford had alienated her base and her MLA benches, and both had begun turning on her.

In fact, one of the Redford controversies centred on her tendency to take separate flights rather than travel with colleagues.

Why mention this drama in 2023? Because the opposition leader who watched that rapid collapse across the legislature aisle in 2014 is now Alberta's premier.

Years later, Danielle Smith was a radio host and pundit who watched Jason Kenney's rise and then his fall at the hands of hostile United Conservative Party members.

And by many indications, Smith has learned lessons from those predecessors' failures. She's investing serious time and energy to remain engaged with her caucus and party.

It could be a vital approach to help her keep one of Alberta's most precarious jobs — that of a conservative premier. Nobody's survived to fight a second election since Klein in 2004, so Smith's ability to keep her base content will be key to her bucking that trend.

Sitting in solidarity 

Some of that could be simply showing up.

When the legislature sits, Smith routinely sits through the full hour of question period. Premiers in Alberta and elsewhere typically stay for the first few headliner questions and then retreat down the hall to their office for meetings — as do opposition leaders.

Smith, however, hangs in to watch her ministers parry and backbenchers join the NDP in the daily heckle-a-thon. Her MLAs have noticed, and quietly appreciate her solidarity, even if there may be a zillion other demands on the premier's time.

She'll regularly get to caucus meetings early and/or stay after they end, to hear out UCP members' ideas or local concerns.

Smith also kept her inner circle expansive, putting more than half her caucus in cabinet — including past leadership rivals Brian Jean and Rajan Sawhney, who warned gravely about her Sovereignty Act. It's tempting for leaders to hold grudges or freeze out critics, but those frozen will hold feelings too, and perhaps let them surface at inopportune times in the future.

Grassroots care

When it comes to showing the UCP membership she's a leader who cares — and isn't like Kenney — the calculus becomes more complicated. Smith can ill afford to execute on all their policy wishes on transgender issues and health policy. Bending to many of them (like eliminating all diversity offices at universities and colleges) would rankle so many other Albertans.

In fact, this premier with her own personal convictions on LGBTQ issues intends to see what her caucus thinks of her party members' idea on parent notification of students' preferred pronouns — letting one circle of influence that she wants onside weigh in on what another circle wants.

And if she can't fulfil her party members' desire to be obeyed, she can fulfil their desire to be heard. Smith has made it a scheduling priority to join the monthly conference calls for presidents of the 87 UCP riding associations.

"She's there for often an hour. Frankly, if we got 15 minutes before [with Kenney] that was a long time," said Jack Redekop, a southwest Calgary riding leader, at a forum while he was running for the party's presidency.

"She'll ask questions. She wants to hear from the presidents that represent the members that are out in the constituencies across the province." 

Sure, there may come a point when being engaged and listening aren't enough to keep in her fellow partisans' good graces. She'll be pressured to actually deliver.

But proper care and feeding of the UCP grassroots can prolong the good-grace period.

Lines are open

Another aspect of Smith's approach could also help prolong her tenure in a turbulent job: her receptiveness.

At events, it's political custom for a leader to have their handlers quickly usher them through a room after their time speechifying, shake a few VIP hands, briefly chat with a few eager stakeholders, pose for a few selfies, and leave. That's how figures like Kenney would rifle through eight or far more events in a day, and in Stephen Harper's cabinet earn the nickname "minister for curry in a hurry."

But in the places where other politicians would have 30-second or one-minute conversations with people at functions, Smith is becoming known for keenly listening and engaging with people for five minutes or so (which is considerable).

It's a likely outcropping of her years spent on AM talk radio, engaged in interviews with various folks and open-line callers. Her tendency, too, is to take an open mind to even the far-fetched or unruly ideas people feed her, rather than shutting them out with more skepticism.

"When I was in politics, my staff said, 'Danielle, you have no crazy radar,'" Smith told a podcaster before she became premier. "Because I couldn't really tell when somebody wanted to approach me to talk about an issue if they might have been a little unhinged or a little conspiratorial."

While such openness may lead to unorthodox ideas entering her own mind, it can also mean that talking to her — especially as a fellow conservative she's predisposed to liking — holds much more potential than it does with a more conventional politician, who may be more likely have their mind made up on any given issue.

This can take someone like Smith in different directions. On one hand, it took her into mixing it up at an event hosted by the Pembina Institute, the environmental think tank that Kenney was fond of publicly denouncing as anti-oil.

On the other, Smith's desire to hear out unconventional voices put her on the phone last winter with now-convicted pastor Artur Pawlowski in a conversation about the charges he was facing, in a call set up by a key figure of a pro-Alberta-independence organization.

That call landed her in political trouble and drew criticism from the ethics commissioner, but she's survived it.

It's still barely one year into her UCP leadership, but there are no signs yet of the sort of disenchantment that shortened the careers of past conservative premiers in Alberta.

In 1993, Ralph Klein ran successfully on the slogan: "He listens. He cares."

Danielle Smith has often mused about taking pages from Klein, and it might be wiser for a leader to try embodying the slogans of a four-term premier rather than those who didn't last nearly as long.