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Don Martin: An Alberta storm is brewing as Danielle Smith is set to become premier

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The next premier of Alberta could well make Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre look like a right-wing lightweight.

Meet Danielle Smith, the disgraced former Wild Rose party leader now poised to become Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fiercest provincial antagonist as leader of the United Conservative Party.

After a campaign born out of vaccine mandate opposition amid festering Alberta alienation on multiple fronts, , which comes with the Alberta premier title.

It’s another miracle on the Prairies of sorts, given how Smith’s tolerance for extreme views from a pair of her MLAs cost her a 2012 election she could’ve won. Matters worsened when she led a disastrous Wildrose defection to the Progressive Conservatives before suffering the indignity of being denied a PC nomination to seek re-election.

RESURRECTED AS REBEL LEADER

Given up for politically dead just seven short years ago, she’s being resurrected as rebel leader of the provincial resistance, a premier vowing to build jurisdictional firewalls around her province against any federal institutions, decisions, laws or insulting policies that offend Alberta-First sensibilities.

Couple her probable victory with Poilievre’s current honeymoon and Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s triumphant re-election Monday and Trudeau’s got to be questioning why he’d want to be stuck in the middle with all these clowns to the left and jokers to the right. Sorry, the is on a playback loop in my head.

Now before Trudeau gets all wobbly-kneed at the thought of Smith roaring to the attack against his government, the new premier will have a daunting challenge to win over her fellow Albertans first.

After all, her probable victory will come from within a pool of 123,000 UCP memberships, this in a provincial population of 4.3 million. In other words, she likely has deep support in a very shallow base of true-blue believers.

And those believers seem out of synch with severely normal Albertans, according to the polls.

They consistently show Smith’s abrasive positions are more of a general voter concern than real or imagined snubs from Ottawa. Voter concerns are orbiting around inflation, health care, affordable housing and grocery bills, not Smith’s priority of delivering an Ottawa smackdown by introducing the controversial Alberta Sovereignty Act on her first day as leader in the legislature.

And lest we forget, the next election is only eight months away. That’s precious little time for a fledgling premier to turn her low personal and party fortunes around, particularly when the UCP is heading for a wipeout in Edmonton and will likely struggle with difficulty to hold its seats in Calgary.

Common sense suggests Smith should replicate the soft pivot Poilievre is doing now which, in the federal Conservative leader’s case, simply means no longer mentioning his most controversial positions.

HARD-RIGHT BELIEFS CEMENTED INTO HER DNA

But having covered or worked with Smith since her days as a combative public school trustee and Calgary Herald editorial writer, I believe hard-right beliefs are cemented into her DNA with pile drivers and not easily dislodged just because political opportunity knocks.

So backing away from the constitutionally ridiculous Alberta Sovereignty Act, a nation within a nation proposal enabling the legislature to refuse enforcement of federal laws or policies it deems a provincial infringement, is almost unimaginable at this stage.

Then there are those silly notions to create an Alberta Pension Plan, a bureaucratic headache for those moving in or out of the province, and a provincial police force to replace the RCMP.

“Basically her position is that we want whatever Quebec has, whether it makes sense or not,†a former cabinet minister confided.

But don’t entirely underestimate Smith’s political revival. While brows will furrow to recall a signature Smith accomplishment so far, her passion for the provincial rights cause backed by her articulate charisma will undoubtedly deliver a political bump in the polls.

Along with Pierre Poilievre, Danielle Smith will unleash a formidable one-two punch against Trudeau as she ignites the wrath of Albertans who loath their preachy polarizing prime minister and, rightly or wrongly, blame his government for their province’s swinging fortunes.

It won’t be much fun for Justin Trudeau being stuck in the middle of angry finger-jabbing from all sides. Especially if the clowns and jokers have the last laugh.

That’s the bottom line…

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