Registrations for the United Conservative Party of Alberta’s AGM in Red Deer are just shy of 6,000 delegates. It will be the largest political convention in Canadian history.

For fans of grassroots political participation, this is a fantastic development. Having that many engaged members taking the time to come out and take part in a convention between elections indicates members feel they can make an impact on the direction of the party. The question now is whether the impact will be a positive one.

Internal squabbles and division are hallmarks of conservative movements. When partisans aren’t going to battle with opponents in other parties, they have a habit of turning their guns and firing at each other. Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, and Jason Kenney all left the premiership due to a collapse of support within their own parties. Only Rachel Notley and Jim Prentice left the roles due to electoral losses. The threat to conservative party leaders from within is very real.

Is Premier Danielle Smith facing an ouster this weekend as she faces the members though?

I doubt it.

There are factions making noise and trying to fan the flames of internal dissent. They are trying to create an impression Smith faces a real threat of losing or getting a low level of support at the leadership review. None of those factions have the interests of the UCP at heart. They don’t think they are aiding the party by pushing Smith from the leadership. In fact, they are hoping if the leadership is destabilized, the party will become weaker.

Disgruntled and politically unemployed leftists like Thomas Lukaszuk have been trying to create issues by buying memberships in the party and playing victim when finding themselves declined. They have no interest in supporting the party and never did. There is little benefit in allowing these trolls to enter and work to disrupt things from within the organization. Parties are private entities and can limit membership to whomever they choose. Yes, they should embrace as many members as reasonably possible in being grassroots focused. Bringing in people like Lukaszuk is just foolish when he has telegraphed quite clearly that his only intention is to cause damage. If somebody told you they plan to purposely plug your toilet, would you still let them use your bathroom?

The Lukaszuks out there are vocal but are few and far between. While folks are spreading rumours of organized groups of leftists flooding the convention floor to unseat Smith, there's little evidence of real organization and they won’t have a measurable impact on the review. If anything, it’s inspiring supporters of Smith to get out and attend the meeting.

Legacy media is working its hardest to give the impression that a rebellion is forming within the UCP. Some of that is inspired by the hard left tilt most legacy outlets have embraced since becoming beholden to Trudeau’s subsidies to pay their bills. Another reason for fostering division is to try and build excitement and draw readers and viewers. Blowouts are boring in both sports and politics. It’s only the close races that make for excitement.

The next group trying to stir things up are of the conservative faction I call the chronic malcontents. They exist to oppose and nothing any leader can do will keep them happy for long. They join parties while purporting to support them, then draw lines in the sand and create policy hills for themselves to die upon. As soon as the party leader crosses one of those lines, the mercurial malcontents shift into opposition mode and put all their efforts into deposing the leader. If you have been in conservative politics long enough, you will notice that it’s the same names that keep showing up and trying to tear things down.

Grumpy conservative members can be organized and galvanized to take down leaders. We have seen it many times and the work by Take Back Alberta to remove Jason Kenney from the party leadership was effective and striking. Take Back Alberta is little more than a shell of what it was though and the atmosphere of discontent isn’t in the air as it was a couple years ago.

New groups have emerged with policy demands and threats to unseat the leader if they don’t get their way.

Those groups have every right to do so and working to influence policies while at AGMs is how the democratic game works.

The threat to Smith’s leadership is hollow though.

With nearly 6,000 members dedicating hundreds of dollars and crossing the province to take part in the AGM, it would take a very visible and well-organized machine to swing a significant number of those people to vote against the leader in her second year in the role.

The AGM is going to be an interesting event but the battles to watch will be over the proposed policy amendments, not the leadership review.

I am making my prediction now that Smith will garner over 85% support from the members.

It would be foolish to try and tear the leader from the helm of the party right now and I suspect the members of the UCP feel the same.

I could eat crow on that guess. Politics are a crazy business. I am confident on this one though.

See you at the AGM.

‘She has a wider message than Alberta’

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