Danielle Smith isn't back – she never left

Alberta Premier-designate Danielle Smith and Andrew Lawton at the Canada Strong and Free Regional Networking Conference in Calgary, 2021.

The United Conservative Party has a new leader and, soon, Alberta will have a new premier.

On Tuesday, former Wildrose leader and Calgary broadcaster Danielle Smith will be sworn in as Alberta’s premier. She’ll replace Jason Kenney, who was elected in a landslide three-and-a-half years ago but failed to command a similar majority of his own party’s support five months ago.

I’ll break with journalistic convention here and refer to her as Danielle rather than Smith, because what I’m writing about here is what I’ve seen of the person and not the politician.

I’ve known Danielle for seven years, during which at some points we’ve been colleagues, co-hosts, panelists, and, for a brief period, rivals.

In 2015, 770 CHQR in Calgary was looking for a new afternoon talk radio host. There were two candidates for the job – Danielle and me. I hosted a daily talk show in a smaller market. Danielle was a former MLA, like the outgoing host, with media experience from before her political career. When I learned who I was up against, I knew I was screwed.

Even so, the station had committed to a weird summer-long audition-like process, so Danielle and I alternated two-week hosting stints until 770 made her the permanent host in the fall.

Danielle was always gracious, and I regularly guest hosted for her and other 770 hosts until I left the company a few years later. I regularly guest hosted the programme that immediately followed hers, which gave me a glimpse into the road she’s walked from pariah to premier.

770 invited listeners to text in their thoughts, meaning we hosts had a real time stream of people’s unfiltered and generally anonymous reactions to our topics, our guests, and, of course, ourselves.

The people most aggrieved by her ill-fated decision to lead a group of Wildrose MLAs across the floor – conservatives – were the prime talk radio demographic.

When I logged into the texting system I would see the messages Danielle had been fielding during her time slot. They were vicious. Profane, abusive, relentless. Threats to boycott the station (which become less believable when they’re sent every day), c-words and b-words, accusations of treason and treachery, and so on. I know she saw these as she hosted, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. If it fazed her personally, you didn’t hear it as a listener.

Danielle persisted. A few of the critics started to listen to her. They heard her as she talked about the importance of the oil and gas sector. They heard her as she talked about the importance of a sovereign – but not secessionist – Alberta. They heard her as she decried cancel culture (a topic that would prove prescient). They heard her as she talked about system-level healthcare reform. They also heard her dish about celebrity gossip too, though I’m not sure if that’ll be on her legislative agenda.

More than any of this though, they heard her hear them. She wanted the calls, emails, and texts. She engaged with her critics, and won them over.

Danielle went from being a woman reviled by conservative Albertans to one of their greatest champions as they grappled with a UCP government that had lost its way.

Her passionate libertarianism was a necessary part of the media landscape in the pandemic, although evidently incompatible with the values of the company for which she and I once worked. Even after leaving her radio show, she continued her advocacy – for free speech, for healthcare reform, for a fair deal for Alberta, for private sector solutions to environmental challenges. Virtually any time I was in Alberta for a political event, no matter now large or small, I’d run into Danielle. Often speaking, but more often listening.

She listened to people teetering on the edge of wanting separation because they didn’t feel the Alberta government was making the province’s case in Ottawa. She listened to people excluded from civil society because of their vaccination status. She listened to people whose religious beliefs – which she didn’t share – were under attack by Covid restrictions.

It’s worth noting she was doing this all as a private citizen with various gigs in the business and media space, not as a prospective politician.

Danielle believes the grassroots members need to be the drivers of politics, and she’s spent the last seven years engaging with those very people. They rewarded her last night.

“I’m back,” Danielle said as she took the stage after winning the UCP leadership. The truth is, she never left.

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