The people who help Premier the most are also the ones who come up with her most controversial ideas
Premier Danielle Smith has been a big fan of RStar for a long time. RStar was a program that gave oil and gas companies financial incentives to clean up old wells, which was already the law.
She wroteabout it in glowing terms. Shelobbiedabout it with other politicians.
She used it in her campaign. She foundKris Kinnear, the program’s main supporter, as a “special project manager” in the office of her premier, and another personbig boosterMLA Peter Guthrie, as her energy minister.
Then, almost as soon as the government released the plan for this kind of incentive program with confidence at the beginning of February, Smith turned down the brightness of her twinkly, twinkly little star initiative.
In a statementThis week, the premier said that it would take “several months” to finish consultations on the $100 million program and that the “cabinet” would decide “what to do” after that.whether or how” (emphasis added) to take the idea forward.
The program won’t know what will happen until at least the fall, according to the Globe and Mail.
Starry or nebulou
When Jason Kenney was premier and Smith was a lobbyist, the program was turned down by the United Conservative Party government, but it seemed inevitable that this new premier would push for it to happen.
Then, everyone from the Alberta NDP and environmentalists to the unlikely critics atScotiabank, who also feared that the “polluter pays” principle of well remediation would be trampled on.
Now that an election is coming up, it has been sent to the island of long-term consultations. Smith’s team might not want to keep talking about the program, which is now called the “Liability Management Incentive Program” by Alberta Energy.
Is this the way it is now? Give a government program a less exciting name if you want to cool it down. RStar changes its name to the Liability Management Incentive Program, and Just Transition changes its name to the Sustainable Jobs Plan. What happens when, say, Travel Alberta is in the middle of a scandal?
In the same way, the Smith government changed the name of the Sovereignty Act to the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act in order to avoid criticism. Even though it was the focus of Smith’s UCP leadership campaign and her much-talked-about Bill 1 last fall, the premier doesn’t talk much about it anymore and doesn’t seem interested in ever using it against the federal government.
Smith has been honest about how much she likes thepolitical trial balloonThe idea of throwing different ideas into the air and not being too proud to see how other people change them or blow them away
Smith’s campaign for premier, on the other hand, didn’t talk about many specific policy ideas.
Check the checklis
Just get rid of the Alberta Health Services Board; that was easy. Sovereignty Act: a rough ride that seems to have landed in the middle of nowhere. See above for RStar.
This spring, each Albertan got a $300 health spending account through an app. It was more complicated than she thought it would be, so itwon’t come this spring.
During the campaign, these ideas didn’t just go up in the air like balloons. They were rockets that were made to take Alberta to new lands.
But when put to the test in real life and put through the government’s machinery, nothing seemed as easy, sure, or even possible.
This happens a lot when politicians make promises. Remember when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that 2015 would be the last time we’d vote using the first-past-the-post system? But the rate at which so many of Smith’s most important ideas are dropped or put off seems to be on a different level.
In theory, a better-thought-out idea on the campaign trail will be easier to turn into government policy. In theory, smart political advisers will also protect a candidate or prime minister from plans that aren’t ready for battle.
But what if her advisers are the ones who come up with these ideas? Kinnear was Smith’s campaign coordinator. He had spent years promoting RStar for a group of small oil and gas firms.
Rob Anderson, who was in charge of her campaign and is now the executive director of the premier’s office (Smith’s top aide), was also a co-author of the strategy plan that came up with the idea of the Sovereignty Act. At first, Anderson thought that the Sovereignty Act would let Alberta block out the federal carbon tax, no matter what the Supreme Court said.
In a sense, political advisers are gatekeepers, but almost no one is good at keeping their own ideas out. Having good idea screeners may be especially important to the success of a politician who is known for jumping on every idea and/or balloon with both feet.
If you put a bug in Danielle Smith’s ear, it might end up in her mouth soon.
Unpredictability is one of the scariest parts of politics, and these kinds of situations are full of it (as it has been recently in Alberta).
The best political advisers teach leaders discipline or tell them things they might not want to hear. And then there are the panels that politicians make to tell people exactly what they want to hear.
Putting a bug in her ea
David Yager used to be president of the Wildrose Party.writing on energySmith chose him to lead his new advisory group on Alberta’s energy future because he is always attacking “environmental radicals” and international climate plans.
Smith chose Preston Manning, the former leader of the Reform Party, to be the head of a panel that will look at how the province handles public health emergencies. This is because Preston Manning led the charge to start a “citizen’s inquiry” into Canada’s COVID response, which mostly attracted people who didn’t like it.
Along with John Major, who used to be a Supreme Court justice, the prime minister chose Dr. Martha Fulford to be the country’s only expert on infectious diseases. Fulfordadvocated for groupsthat criticized mask requirements and other restrictions. This made her agree with Smith’s long-held view on public health emergencies.
Politicians hear what they want, listen to who they want, and choose who they want as their staff and advisors. Smith also filled her premier’s office with key aides to Rajan Sawhney, Travis Toews, and Rebecca Schulz, who were running for the same job as her. This was a bit like Lincoln doing it in “Team of Rivals.” Someone in the government was able to stop Kinnear’s plans for RStar and Anderson’s hopes for what a Sovereignty Act could do.
Later this year, we’ll find out what Yager and Anderson suggest and how that fits with the real world. Or, if Albertans go to the polls, they might have very different ideas about who should lead them.