The Alberta Teachers’ Association

November 3, 2009

Shelley Svidal, ATA News

“We have become a party of winners,” ­announced Danielle Smith, newly elected leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party, to the 450 Albertans assembled for the party’s leadership convention October 17, in Edmonton.

Smith, a former business lobbyist, journalist and school trustee, took on Mark Dyrholm, a chiropractor and former business lobbyist, for the leadership of the party, which formed from a merger of the Alberta Alliance Party and the Wildrose Party of Alberta just prior to the 2008 provincial general election.

The leadership race helped the fledgling party grow, signing up 11,670 members by the October 3 cut-off date for membership sales for the leadership vote. Smith garnered 6,295 votes to Dyrholm’s 1,905 votes. Voter turnout was 71 per cent.

In her acceptance speech, Smith suggested that the party’s spirit demonstrates it can win. Because the Wildrose Alliance Party needs to show Albertans that it is the best party to govern, it requires a new plan and vision, she said.

Identifying self-discipline, ­focus and accountability as the party’s and Albertans’ ­values, Smith noted that, unlike ­leaders of other political parties, the leader of the Wildrose ­Alliance Party is accountable to both ­caucus and members. She suggested that the Progressive Conservative government lacks accountability in its ­“waning years” and has become too big and intrusive for its own good. The goal of the Wildrose ­Alliance Party is to turn Alberta back into a democracy by fixing the health care system and entrenching property rights in law, among other things, she said. She stressed that the Alberta government must abandon the illusion that government spending makes citizens prosperous and develop a new relationship with its federal and provincial counterparts that respects the Constitution while leaving Alberta free to chart its own course.

Smith emphasized that change is coming. That change will recognize that elected officials are servants of the people rather than their masters, she said. Citing the 1935 provincial general election, she suggested that, throughout the province’s history, new governments have not had a lot of experience. She also suggested that Albertans tend to switch governments when incumbent governments become more interested in protecting their jobs than in doing the job they were elected to do.

Smith told the convention that, while the Wildrose ­Alliance Party had been viewed as a protest movement a few months earlier, it is now a government in waiting. She vowed the party would embark immediately upon a grassroots policy process, with one policy forum contemplated for November 2009 and three for January 2010. A grassroots party that stands for commonsense ideas that represent the views of average Albertans, the Wildrose Alliance Party seeks the highest literacy rates, the best universal health care and fair pay for MLAs, she said. She concluded by suggesting that Premier Ed Stelmach cannot imagine what is about to hit him.

In a question-and-answer session before the results of the leadership vote were announced, Smith expressed skepticism that Alberta would require $15 billion to $20 billion over the next decade to service its infrastructure debt. She called for an honest accounting of that debt while pointing to the need to increase the use of public–private partnerships.

Smith also called for the elimination of bonuses for senior government managers. Noting that the government has approximately one manager for every five employees, she pointed out that, when government cuts, it tends to cut frontline staff, such as teachers and teachers’ assistants, rather than senior managers.


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