Brad Patton retweetledi
Majority of UCP voters support independence: poll
She says she is a federalist. She is not campaigning for Alberta to leave Canada — she's been clear about that. But she is also not turning around and attacking the people who are talking about it.
That is not an accident. One look at the numbers and you'll understand why Premier Danielle Smith is walking this line the way she is.
According to exclusive polling commissioned by Act For Alberta, and full disclosure, I am the point of contact for that third party advertiser, roughly 60% of United Conservative Party voters say they would vote to leave Canada.
Not think about it. Not flirt with it. They would vote to leave. That is not fringe. That is the base.
These are the people who built the party, who knocked on doors, who trusted conservative leadership to fight for Alberta.
And that brings us to disgraced former UCP premier Jason Kenney, Smith's predecessor.
Because he chose a very different path.
He calls separatists names. He mocks them as kooks and radicals and crazies, in vicious Trudeau-esque internet tirades.
He derided the very people who worked so hard to get him elected in the first place. People who gave him a chance to do it his way.
And what did that approach deliver? Nothing tangible. No meaningful reset with Ottawa. No shift in the relationship. No results that matched the promises.
So what happened? Those same voters started looking elsewhere.
Not because they suddenly changed who they were, not because they are no longer Conservatives, but because they felt ignored, dismissed, and taken for granted.
The old ways of strongly worded letters and lawsuits over jurisdiction have never worked. There are no pipelines, no control over immigration, no civil liberties the feds wouldn't crush if given a chance.
Smith is not making that mistake. She is reading the room, and when this many people are this frustrated, you do not lecture them. You do not insult them. You do not pretend they are a problem to be managed or berated.
You listen. You acknowledge where they are at, and you let the conversation happen.
This is bigger than separation. This is about trust. Trust that Alberta’s concerns are being taken seriously. Trust that political leaders are actually hearing the people who put them in power.
Smith holds her position. She says she believes Alberta is better off in Canada. But she is not trying to shut down the people who disagree.
She is not attacking her own base, because she understands something her predecessor did not.
You do not keep support by ridiculing the people who gave it to you. You respect them, let them speak, and you deal with reality as it is, not as you wish it would be.
REPORT by @SheilaGunnReid:
English
