Dog and Tail: Conservatism’s Alberta problem
By Lethbridge Herald on February 25, 2026.
It was no surprise the federal Conservative party held its January convention in Calgary. The city is Pierre Poilievre’s hometown. More importantly, Alberta is the party’s most secure beachhead in any election battle.
How important is Alberta to the federal Conservatives? Conservative parties, under various names, have owned Alberta since the Diefenbaker years of the late 1950s. Of the 409 federal seats won in Alberta since 1980, only25 have gone to non-conservative candidates, less than one percent. It is often said that a dog running under the Conservative banner – even a dead dog – could win in Alberta. No other province is so solidly partisan.
As good as this may seem to conservatives, it is also a problem for the federal party. Consider the issue of Alberta separatism. Does Poilievre’s party oppose it? Maybe, but its guns are mainly centred on the federal Liberals who allegedly caused it – an assertion that separatists and Premier Danielle Smith are all too happy to echo.
The same is true of other issues. Does the federal party have anything to say about the United Conservative Party’s Bill 11 which critics argue threatens public health care policy across Canada? Nope. How about Alberta’s plan to leave the Canadian Pension Plan? No again. Has the party said anything about Danielle Smith’s recent attacks on judicial independence? Not a peep.
Why is the federal Conservative party mute about things going on in Alberta that clearly have national implications? Because it is afraid to do or say anything that may cause it to lose support in the province. It wants to keep its fingers clean, to portray itself as the province’s savior. Here is the reality: The federal Conservatives think they own Alberta, but it’s the other way around. Despite representing only one-tenth of Canada’s population, Alberta is the tail wagging the federal Conservative dog.
This imbalance finds its mirror at the provincial level where a hard right separatist fringe has an out-sized influence over Premier Smith’s UCP. This influence goes back to the merger between the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties. Despite its name, the party that emerged under Jason Kenney was far from united. What held its disparate parts together was fear that the NDP might return to power and anger at the Trudeau Liberals. Kenney resigned in 2022, driven out by what he termed a lunatic fringe. That group’s support was key to Danielle Smith subsequently winning the party leadership and the party going on to victory in the 2023 election. She owes her premiership to the separatist wing. They are in the driver’s seat and are rapidly driving Alberta towards a sovereignty referendum.
Smith experienced this wing’s power at the party’s convention last fall when she tepidly suggested she was finding common ground with Mark Carney. Convention delegates, it should be noted, are not a representative sample of the broad electorate or even UCP supporters. Nonetheless, the delegates’ collective response – unrelenting boos – drove Smith back to her foxhole. Lesson learned, she has since returned to making complaints, demands, and threats directed at the federal government. Smith rarely passes up the chance to disparage Canada.
But while the UCP’s separatist wing want independence, the vast majority of Albertans do not. Trying to keep her fragile coalition together, Smith has employed a high degree of calculated ambiguity around the independence question, saying she prefers a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. Contradictory and logically incoherent as the term is, it has allowed her thus far to avoid stating clearly where she stands while giving a wink and a nod to her separatist supporters.
But this highwire act may be coming to an end. A recent Angus Reid poll suggests 54 per cent of Albertans disapprove of how Smith has handled the separation issue, well behind Markw Carney, Jason Kenney, Thomas Lukaszuk, and Naheed Nenshi. Polls should always be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it suggests that at least some voters are getting tired of the separatist tail wagging the dog.
Trevor W. Harrison is a retired political sociologist at the University of Lethbridge. He is the author of several books, including two recent books of poetry, War and Other Inconvenien
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Another rant from the woke, Marxist academia of the U of L who push their socialism and other woke agendas on young minds, forgetting how socialism has destroyed countries and crushed people historically.
You fail to acknowledge what the NDP are now supporting, such as Heather McPherson and her pro-Palestinian support, her anti-semitic attacks, and other radical leaning.
Or the fact that the NDP mounted a campaign in the last 2 years focused on tearing down the democratically elected UCP government, using any means necessary, no matter the cost to the taxpayer or the leader of the NDP leader who is a Muslim, a friend of Heather McPherson and appears to use the same methods to gain power or remain in power as the Muslim leadership in Iran or Gaza or Lebanon, flooding media with disinformation to gain favour and sway the public.
So Trevor Harrison, you would prefer someone who collaborates, and emboldens unions, special interest groups and the universities to bring down a democratically elected government, so the NDP can gain power?
You comments in the media continually show your bias to the NDP and your anti-conservative beliefs, which is no surprise coming from yet another U of L academic!
The NDP backed recalls to bring down the UCP will cost the taxpayer over $300,000 per recall, costing millions just so the NDP insurrectionists can gain power! Why are they so desperate to rule?
You seem to also have a problem with a Premier standing up for our province and getting the respect and benefits Alberta deserves in Ottawa, but demanding we be treated better after being a major contributor to Canada’s GDP for decades. It is not too much to ask we be treated the same as Quebec after by far making more contributions to the GDP than Quebec!
You do not see the UCP spreading disinformation for political gain, in a desperate attempt to gain power!
To be very, very clear: Premier Danielle Smith is not a separatist and has continually stated she believes in a “sovereign Alberta within a united Canada”.
But all of you pro-NDP woke, Marxist, socialist academics who continually spew your anti-conservative comments on media who always seem to ask the same ant-conservative academics to comment, like you the other regulars from Calgary.
Why is the NDP so desperate to rule? They agree to cancel major projects that will pay for all of the services they demand, thinking money just falls from the sky! Perhaps it is from smoking too much of the drugs they seem to support!
They have no clue what is coming due to global insecurity! Perhaps from all the drugs they must be doing since they are pro-druggies!
I am not a separatist and separatists have the freedom to move to another province or another country! The NDP hype that we will separate is just another way to spread fear in Albertan’s, along with all the other areas they cause fear by using disinformation to attack the UCP and bring down the government!
It is not the Conservatives who have destroyed Canada! It is the woke, Marxists, and those who allowed foreign influences to go against what made this country one sought after international to reside, while those foreign influences have their own motives, motives that are detrimental to Canada’s unity! It is the woke, Marxists who have destroyed our country!
Most of you academics fail to understand the difference between having knowledge and been wise!
Wisdom appears to be missing at our universities in this era, or at least from those who love to have their faces in the media!
Exemplary response, Say What …
If anybody was wondering what a UCP supporter stands for, they need not go any further than this.
Ah yes . . . You mean being able to generate revenue to pay for the services needed? Or not plugging up the healthcare system with harm reduction policies that enable and encourage drug use instead of treatment? Or allowing the people of Alberta to speak at sessions respecting the time so everyone can comment and those comments considered in decisions? Or not building massive green energy projects in areas that take away from the beauty of the landscapes in those areas, when both wind and solar far exceed the carbon footprint of petroleum produced energy?
Or not support terrorist funded protesters who are pro-Palestinian, burn ing our flag, calling death to Canada, death to Jews and we are Hamas?
Or focus on getting the respect we deserve in Ottawa, and the same respect Quebec has in the Confederation? Or making sure that we have the support systems in place before flooding the province with refuges/immigrants so those services can be provided reasonably?
Or trying to find solutions to the retiring baby-boomers who have caused North America to work shortages in almost every job, instead of collaborating with unions to strike, creating more stress already on a system that is on the brink? The NDP has consistently stated disinformation to cause fear in Albertan’s for one reason, so they can rule like the socialists they are!
The NDP destroyed my retirement fund with their Supervised Drug Consumption Site and caused many of my fellow business owners to either sell or close their business!
Billions have been lost of taxpayer money in this provinces by the NDP’s harm reduction policies and the UCP is finally put in place programs which are dramatically reducing the fatal overdoses, far exceeding any other state or province in North America!
No thank you, we don’t need insurrectionist socialists in Alberta who lead a huge group of unions, special interest groups and radicals to bring down a democratically elected government using deceit!
What is the name of a group in the world who use fear to gain power called?