Wildrose ‘soul-searching’ to re-examine divisive issues
Danielle Smith said she will lead the Wildrose into the 2016 election, but believes her party must unflinchingly re-examine its stance on three divisive issues: climate change, conscience rights and “firewall” items such as a provincial pension plan.
A day after a provincial election defeat that saw the Wildrose almost shut out of major cities and northern Alberta — despite polls showing her party was the front-runner — Smith acknowledged “we have some soul-searching to do as a party.”
“We’d be tone deaf if we didn’t,” she said. “Those became lightning-rod issues that were clearly divisive issues.”
Dissecting her party’s loss to the Tories, Smith said so- called “conscience rights” — a controversial means of allowing health-care professionals and marriage commissioners to decline to provide services based on their beliefs — is one issue the party may have to re-address.
Last year, Smith said it was Wildrose policy.
Scrutiny of the party’s stance on social issues was amplified when two wildrose candidates came under fire for remarks about race and homosexuality. Also generating controversy, the Wildrose policy book calls for the creation of an Alberta Pension Plan.
That change would see the province withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan — echoing the famous firewall letter that set out the “Alberta Agenda” a decade ago.
That too, the Wildrose leader said, must be reconsidered.
Smith believes the party should also rethink its policy that “there is obviously still healthy scientific debate” about the extent of climate change.
Smith said she won’t know where her party members stand until an AGM in October or November, but she’s heard a clear message from voters during the election campaign.
“There are certainly some things that Albertans are not interested in entertaining a conversation about,” Smith said.
“Albertans aren’t interested in having a conversation about conscience rights. Albertans aren’t interested in having a conversation about the Alberta Agenda. I think they want to have a clearer statement from us on issues of climate change and greenhouse gases.”
It’s a slightly different tone than Smith struck Monday night in High River, a couple of hours after learning her party would not go on to form government.
When the issue of the socially conservative views of some of her candidates came up, Smith told reporters she wouldn’t have made any changes to the campaign.
“I still believe you have to allow people to be able to exercise their faith in their own way. So, I’m not the kind of leader that’s going to throw my people under the bus at the first sign of trouble.”
Lethbridge College political scientist Faron Ellis said the Wildrose is going through an evolution many right-wing populist parties do, including the Harper federal Conservatives that began as Reformers.
Ellis said right-wing parties shouldn’t abandon social conservatives, but they should be clearly told they won’t get everything they want.
“If you have dissenters, let them go.”
Joe Anglin, the newly elected Wildrose MLA for Rimbey-rocky Mountain House-sundre, said he agrees with Smith.
“One of the things that really did not work for us was the image of fear and intolerance. And that’s what the PC party put upon us and we weren’t able to shake that,” Anglin said. “We need to look at that.”
Smith vowed to learn lessons from the past 28-day campaign.
“We know that we made some mistakes,” Smith said Tuesday. “But we’re prepared to play the role of opposition and we’re going to do it well.”
Smith, who leads a caucus of 17 members, said she’s had initial discussions with advisers about who will take on which roles in a shadow cabinet. However, she said she won’t release her list until Premier Alison Redford unveils her new cabinet and ministry structure.