Lorne Gunter: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP should brace for separatist pushback

The Premier’s address to the province on Tuesday was solid. It hit a lot of the right notes, but I doubt she changed many separatists’ minds.

Given the overwhelming victory for Option 1 — stay in Canada — in Monday’s referendum, Smith pledged not to hold a formal referendum on whether to split from Canada during her remaining tenure as premier.

She reached out to separatists, acknowledging the half-million voters who backed the independence option and reassuring them that their voices had been heard. She credited them with helping shift Ottawa’s focus towards developing Canada resources and ending its assault of Alberta’s energy sector.

And Smith called on separatists and federalists alike to keep working together inside a united Canada. Yes, she said, it has been easy to be frustrated with federal policies but she again pointed to what she sees as a changing national outlook toward Alberta’s energy and resources.

It was just what Smith had to say to try to repair the fractures the referendum caused in Alberta politics and Alberta culture.

All of those remarks were also necessary if the United Conservatives are going to come together to fight a province election in a year’s time and keep the NDP and Naheed Nenshi from taking power.

Smith’s speech may convince some separatists to put the past seven months behind them and “move forward,” as she recommended. But I still suspect that separatism is such a fixation for the movement’s leadership and core members that they will exercise their anger against Smith for not having given them the referendum they wanted — a direct “Yes” or “No” question — and will still push for a coup at next month’s UCP convention in Calgary.

They will seek to force through extreme policy resolutions far away from the mainstream of Alberta conservatism. Also, as they have at every UCP convention since Smith was elected leader, they will elect a slate of party executives and directors who will oppose Smith at every turn.

The separatists may even try to force a leadership revue as retribution for what they see as Smith’s treacherousness.

Smith, her staff and supporters have to be organized enough to repel the separatist assault. She seemed to realize this Wednesday when she announced UCP members may personally have whatever views they want, but if they want to be party candidates, caucus members or senior party officials they have to support Alberta remaining Canada.

Such a break with those that brought them to the dance is not unprecedented in Alberta history.

When Ernest Manning succeeded “Bible Bill” Aberhart as premier in 1943, Manning’s Social Credit party was still largely buoyed by agrarian populists, Christian hardliners and funny-money theorists. Realizing this gaggle could not govern for long, Manning began the process of turning Social Credit into a mainstream, right-of-centre party.

This evolution helped Social Credit hold power for another 28 years.

Smith has to pull off a similar transformation. She has to jettison her hardcore malcontents and separatists and encourage a more moderate group to take over.

In a tweet Tuesday evening, former premier Jason Kenney (who has more than a little experience with the vultures now circling over Smith) posted “Alberta separatists should go back to their separatist micro parties, rather than trying to destabilize Alberta by infiltrating a party (the UCP) created and elected to support national unity.”

Kenney then pointed out that “Since they began running in 1980,” Alberta separatist parties have never won more than one per cent of the vote in a provincial election and only once (in a byelection at the height of the National Energy Program) elected a single MLA.

Two provincial constituencies voted by slim majorities to hold a binding independence referendum — Central Peace-Notley and Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre. There were a handful of other ridings where the margin in favour of remaining was under five or six per cent.

Separatists should start to organize their own party there. Stand on their own two feet rather the piggybacking on the UCP.

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