When Prentice began defeating the Wildrose in a series of byelections and appeared to have recaptured momentum, Smith led a mass floor crossing of most of her Wildrose caucus to Prentice’s PCs. Two years later, the PCs had turfed Redford amid scandals and replaced her with Jim Prentice. Under her leadership, the Wildrose was poised to defeat Premier Alison Redford’s PCs in 2012, but a late polling lead evaporated after Smith refused to remove candidates for intolerant remarks and questioned the validity of climate change. Smith helped foment the split on the right when she became Wildrose party leader in 2009. Polls suggest they are now poised for a narrow win or a bigger seat share in 2023. “Even though she did win the agreement of farmers on what the policy actually wound up being, that image of farmers driving their tractors in protest, the sense that she wasn’t listening to rural Alberta, was a point of huge sensitivity in rural Alberta,” said Williams of Mount Royal University in Calgary.īy 2015, the New Democrats under Notley won government for the first time in provincial history, then captured more than one-quarter of the legislature’s seats in their 2019 loss. Williams said Notley also has to cope with residual discontent from her time as premier in 2015, when her government passed a bill to regulate employment and safety rules on farms, prompting protests on the steps of the legislature. Notley had to quell a messy internal party fight last year over accusations of verbal abuse of party volunteers, not to mention former caucus member Thomas Dang, who is not seeking re-election, being charged with hacking into a government website. Smith is shouldering multiple controversies, including an ongoing ethics investigation tied to her phone call offering to help a street preacher with his criminal trial. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.

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