A new mandate issued by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith that those publicly representing her governing United Conservative Party (UCP) must not espouse separatist views is drawing early pushback from a prominent separatist leader.
Smith shared those expectations in a social media video Wednesday morning as well as in an email to party members.
She referenced the results of Question 10 from Monday night’s referendum which showed a widespread rejection of further pursuing separation. Votes continue to be counted into Wednesday evening, but preliminary, unofficial results show just above 75 per cent support for remaining in Canada.
In her video, Smith said the UCP must respect that result, adding that while party members remain free to say and believe what they want, party candidates as well as members of the party’s constituency associations and provincial board must all refrain from future discussion of separatism.
“A strong Alberta within a united Canada is the position of our party,” she said.
“Candidates running under our party banner need to be committed to, and support and abide by this position from the day they take out their nomination papers, throughout their candidacy, and for the duration of their time serving as MLAs in our caucus.”
Various polls have shown that between 50 and 60 per cent of UCP members support separatism.
That includes Mitch Sylvestre, the leader and co-founder of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), who has also chaired the party’s Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency association for the past four years.
In an interview with Postmedia Wednesday, he said he’s taking time to consider rnext steps, but added that telling candidates, board members and others how to act is not within her mandate.
“It’s not her call,” he said. “She doesn’t run the party, so she has to understand that.”
He said such decisions are made by the party’s board of which he estimates 40 to 50 per cent are also sympathetic to separatism.
He questioned why Smith was rejecting what he believes to the supermajority view of party members.
“I just don’t understand why the UCP took the opportunity to distance itself from the grassroots and didn’t have to.”
Sylvestre says he expects some “movement” from within the party ahead of its annual general meeting scheduled for the end of next month in Calgary.
“There’s going to be a lot of UCP people not happy, even the ones that are on the progressive side are not going to like this,” he said.
“What are they going to see? They’ve got to see the same things as me. They’re not going to win the next election without us.”
He said he believes an independence party made up of former separatist UCP members could “win a bunch of seats” in the next election.
APP lawyer Jeffrey Rath has called for constituency associations to prompt a review of Smith’s leadership, but has so far not gathered support from the 22 associations needed to do so.
UCP MLAs had been reluctant to share how they intended to vote on Question 10 in the months leading up to the election, with Postmedia sending repeated emails to all government MLAs, but receiving statements in support of Option 1 from cabinet ministers, but also no replies from backbench MLAs.
One of those MLAs, Red Deer-South member Jason Stephan, has told media that he voted in support of Option 2 but also announced less than an hour before most polls closed Monday that he would not be seeking re-election.
‘Respectfully invite them to join a different party’
Of dissenters, Smith said in her Wednesday video that she would “respectfully invite them to join a different party.”
“The United Conservative Party is not an independence party,” she said.
“I’m simply not prepared to watch a few individuals tear apart the incredible conservative movement we’ve built together.”
In announcing those expectations, Smith pointed in her video to the coming provincial election, scheduled for just under a year from now on Oct. 18, 2027, and the spectre of a divided conservative movement leading to electoral defeat.
“Our party and our province is at a crossroads,” she said. “We must be unified. If we aren’t, our party will split, and Alberta will suffer terribly as a result.”