Was Danielle Smith undermining WRP by-election campaigns while negotiating with Prentice?
Two and a half years ago, Beacon News was blackballed by the Wildrose Party for a story about leader Danielle Smith on the campaign trail.
Beacon reporter Christopher Walsh interviews Danielle Smith.
The piece, by Christopher Walsh, was a throw back to Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism style of the 1970s. Walsh described the “retarded, hokey accent” Smith affected to fit in with her rural constituents and called her a “crafty, smiling skeleton who believes very earnestly that talking down to Albertans and playing up the whole cowboy routine will get her elected.”
Given the events of yesterday, when Smith and eight other Wildrose MLAs crossed the floor to join the Progressive Conservative caucus, Walsh’s words seem downright prescient.
Danielle Smith may be the most reviled politician in Canada this morning, with good reason. She now exemplifies the very worst sort of politician: Two-faced and hypocritical, conniving, self-interested, opportunistic, and dishonest.
Many Albertans are reeling at the gob-smacking hubris on display during Wednesday’s press conference.
Alberta Premier Jim Prentice.
Smith admitted “discussions have been going on for months” between the Wildrose and PCAA caucuses. They appear to have started in May, when word that an “emissary” from the Prentice camp had approached Wildrose about switching allegiances was leaked to media. Denials were quickly issued, but a reasonable person can assume talks started shortly afterward.
Here’s some of what Smith was doing as leader of her party while she was considering joining her political opponents:
Preparing to fight four by-elections. The Wildrose lost all of them. Did Smith actively undermine the campaigns, thinking she might soon be a member of the other side? Were those campaigns compromised in any way by her (apparently) divided loyalties? What does Smith have to say to volunteers who donated time and money to those campaigns? What does she have to say to the candidates?
Kerry Towle is the MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake. Photo: Handout.
Raining hellfire and brimstone on WRP MLAs Kerry Towle and Ian Donovan for crossing the floor in late November to the PCs during the very time Prentice says talks between the caucuses were heating up. Two days later Smith promised there would be no more defections from the WRP – while she was negotiating her own defection! Has there ever been a more outrageous lie told by a Canadian politician?
Supposedly holding the Prentice Government to account in the legislature. How could Smith possibly have done her job properly when she or her lieutenants were meeting with the very same people to arrange the terms of surrender?
Here’s what Beacon readers think about Smith and her former WRP colleagues:
“What we witnessed yesterday was nothing but an opportunistic lack of integrity and hypocrisy on an epic level. Democracy? Not in Alberta.” – Benjamin Kendrick, Calgary.
“Of all the bad examples we have had of political leaders in recent years, this is the most spectacular leadership failure I’ve ever seen. A leader does not do this. If, as some say, she’s been entertaining this motion since May, her conduct is even more reprehensible. She chose to hang on, tank the party’s financing, lose four by-elections and then gut the party on her way out.” – Danielle Klooster, Penhold.
Former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith.
“It is not a good example of what a leader is. A leader does not sell out to preserve their career. Many WRP supporters that I have spoke with feel duped and betrayed and feel like their donations were not used for what they were intended for.” – Beth Anthony.
“Democracy has suffered. Who will now hold the Conservatives accountable? The media?There is no opposition in Alberta. I liked Danielle as opposition leader. Don’t get me wrong – Prentice is the right man to be Premier but absolute power….” Mike Havery – Calgary.
Walsh concluded his 2012 story with a comment about Albertans forgiving Wildrose mistakes and blunders – specifically the infamous homophobic “Lake of Fire” controversy – and a quote from the WRP leader that “the Alberta way is to accept it, to forgive and to move on, rather than to pursue the politics of division.”
I don’t think Alberta will forgive Danielle Smith any time soon. Her betrayal of her party and Alberta democracy is of an epic scale, unprecedented in Canadian history.
Not only should they not forget, they should ask questions. The Wildrose Party executive should ask questions, perhaps by its lawyers. And PCAA members should question the judgement of their leader, who cast his own principles aside to welcome politicians who had disgraced public office – which is quite a feat these days.
No one escapes this debacle with their integrity intact, Danielle Smith least of all.