Bell: UCP members try to save Danielle Smith and the party from the separatists

There is a note. I have it right here.

It’s from a guy who has deep roots in the politics of this province.

Nobody could ever accuse the man of being anything but a rock-ribbed, dyed-in-the-wool Alberta conservative.

What does he want?

He’s asking people to register for the annual general meeting of the UCP taking place at the end of November in Calgary.

He says this UCP gabfest matters. It is a big deal.

The man wants to save the UCP from the separatists who are expected to be out in full force no matter how the referendum vote goes.

There are people who fear all hell will break loose.

I am told this individual is far from being a lone voice in the party led by Premier Danielle Smith.

He says the UCP need to elect a board of directors “that will keep the UCP as a mainstream party that can keep the support of Albertans.”

He says going to the UCP’s yearly shindig is important so people can vote “against single interest candidates who want to change the UCP into a separatist party.”

What to do about separatists in the UCP will be the biggest question Oct. 20, the day after the referendum.

There are conservative voices who want the separatists to stand down if they lose. Stand down and move on.

Many separatists tell them to go to hell because they are not standing down for anybody.

Meanwhile this week, former premier Jason Kenney advocates a purge of separatists from the UCP after the referendum vote because, as he puts it: “There clearly is a problem.”

Kenney says when talks were going on to create a united conservative party out of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives there was “one absolute red line.”

The party would be loyal to a united Canada.

Kenney, who led the party to a big victory over the NDP in 2019, said he weeded out separatists who applied to run as candidates.

Kenney doesn’t hide his contempt for hard-core separatist advocates he claims make up five per cent or less of Albertans.

He says these are the “hard populist MAGA-inspired right” who organized around COVID and “all sorts of conspiracy theories” and saw the trucker convoy “like being on the Selma bridge in Alabama in 1965.”

Selma was the famous civil rights march led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Kenney believes the separatists didn’t want to get their butts kicked running for a separatist party so they decided to turn the UCP into a separatist party.

Remember Kenney was forced out of office by many of the people now in the Alberta independence movement.

Here’s the hit.

Kenney says the UCP must decide if it is a party with a commitment to Canada.

If it is, then the separatists have to be “shown the door.”

If your primary goal is separation then you would have to pursue that goal in a separatist party.

You would be out. Gone. Hasta la vista, baby.

Smith told the separatists her goal is to keep conservatives together and not split apart, paving the way for the NDP to win next fall’s provincial election.

The premier warns of the damage the NDP could cause in power and asks separatists to accept the results of the referendum.

At the closed-door event, reported exclusively by this scribbler, Smith points to all the moves she’s made that the separatists should applaud.

The fight against woke ideology and cancel culture.

Women and girls competing against other women and girls and not competing against born male athletes.

Protecting children from being given life-altering drugs or surgeries to change their gender.

Ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring in the Alberta government.

Getting pornographic images off school library shelves.

This is only Smith’s partial list but when she mentions the above topics the separatists in the room do applaud.

Smith wants the UCP she leads to focus on where they agree.

That’s not Alberta independence. On that issue, the UCP is split in half.

As for the Alberta separatists, let us quote Mitch Sylvestre, the man behind the campaign to get independence on a ballot and the president of UCP members in the Bonnyville area.

“This is not finished,” he says.

“This is just the first step. A year and a half ago we were not even in the game.”

Guess Premier Smith has some work to do.

Will she lay down the law with the separatists in her party?

That’s next week’s story.