Danielle Smith celebrates after being chosen as the new leader of the United Conservative Party and next Alberta premier in Calgary on Oct. 6.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Danielle Smith will be sworn in as Alberta’s 19th premier Tuesday, making her the third woman to hold the job as she prepares to tap into long-standing grievances in the province and ratchet up the fight against Ottawa.
Ms. Smith, who won the leadership of the United Conservative Party last week, will become Alberta’s seventh premier in nearly 16 years. She does not hold a seat in the provincial legislature but on Saturday said she would run in a by-election in Brooks-Medicine Hat, a rural riding friendly to the UCP east of her home in High River.
Recent Alberta premiers have not had long tenures, and Ms. Smith will quickly be tested. She is not planning a snap election, but the province’s fixed-election law calls for voters to go to the polls by the end of next May.
Proposals such as her sovereignty act, which Ms. Smith claims would give the province the ability to ignore certain federal laws, and legal changes to protect people who aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19 were popular with party members, but she will need to appeal to a broader electorate. At the same time, if she fails to satisfy the UCP base, she risks angering the same contingent of party members who ultimately pushed out Premier Jason Kenney.
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“It’s clear that Albertans care less about gender than others around the country might think, and more about electing someone who can get the job done,” said Samantha Peck, a former UCP staff member and communications chair for Rebecca Schulz, one of Ms. Smith’s leadership challengers.
“That said, Smith is now in the unenviable position of patching up our party’s fault lines. Electing a female premier is one thing; watching how the membership treats her when she inevitably makes a decision they disagree with will be another issue entirely and arguably more telling about our province’s acceptance of women in power.”
Ms. Smith will meet with Mr. Kenney’s outgoing cabinet members Tuesday. She will instruct them to refrain from ministerial business or public announcements during the transition period, according to a letter to caucus her team released after she won the leadership. The new premier plans to name a cabinet Oct. 21, ahead of the UCP’s annual meeting that weekend. Cabinet business will resume Oct. 24, the letter said.
Female political leaders “seem to have lost ground” across the country, according to Clare Beckton, an executive in residence at Carleton University and an expert in women’s leadership, equality and inclusion. Only two other jurisdictions in Canada are currently run by women – Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. Heather Stefanson became the first female premier of Manitoba when she won the Progressive Conservative leadership race there a year ago; and Caroline Cochrane is the premier of the Northwest Territories, where MLAs name their head of government by secret ballot. She is the second woman to lead the Northwest Territories.
Ms. Smith will be the 14th woman to serve as a premier of a Canadian province or territory. Rita Johnston became the first, when the governing Social Credit Party caucus in British Columbia selected her to serve as interim leader – and therefore premier – after Bill Vander Zalm, beset by scandal, resigned in 1991. Her tenure lasted just seven months, before the party was ousted in a general election.
Women occasionally come to power when voters are hungry for change, Ms. Beckton noted. This can put them in a precarious position.
“They are often judged more harshly than male politicians,” she said.
In the next election, Ms. Smith will face off against New Democratic Party Leader Rachel Notley, who was Alberta’s second female premier. Ms. Smith led the Wildrose Party when the Progressive Conservatives – under Alison Redford, Alberta’s first female premier – won the 2012 election.
UCP MLA Michaela Frey resigned on Friday, opening up the riding where Ms. Smith will run.
Four of the seven candidates to replace Mr. Kenney were women. The other three finished in fourth, sixth and seventh. Ms. Smith won on the sixth ballot, collecting 53.77 per cent of valid votes cast on the final ballot, compared with second-place finisher Travis Toews’s 46.23 per cent. She was the only candidate without a seat in the legislature.
Premiers and prime ministers who win the job after a change of party leadership but who don’t have seats in their respective legislatures are expected to run in a by-election at the earliest opportunity.
Mr. Kenney announced his resignation in May after receiving the support of just 51 per cent of UCP members who voted in a leadership review.
Ms. Notley served a complete term as premier after winning the 2015 election – the first premier to do so since Ralph Klein, who served from 1992 to 2006. Conservatives in Alberta have faced much more volatility from within their own ranks while serving as premier.
Sarah Elder-Chamanara, the founder of Madame Premier, a political and feminist fashion brand that advocates for the increased participation and election of women and marginalized people in politics, finds it troubling that Ms. Smith’s rise to the premier’s chair in Alberta is still noteworthy.
“I don’t want to still be celebrating the third woman as a premier in Alberta or anywhere else in Canada or in the world because electing women should be the norm – not an anomaly,” said the former staff member for the Liberals in British Columbia.