At last, a vision ordinary people can love. And not just in Alberta but across Canada.Alberta, the shining city on the hill.Alberta, the national leader that Canada needs.Alberta, to whom ‘millions across our great nation look to our province to protect and foster the principles of freedom, civil rights, free enterprise and economic prosperity.’Thus said Premier Danielle Smith, in her keynote speech to the United Conservative Party convention in Calgary today.“They (Canadians) look to us to demonstrate the power of compassionate conservatism and show why creating a powerhouse job-creating economy like ours is crucial to delivering the health care, education, public safety and social support programs our citizens need without mortgaging our children’s futures with crushing debt and high taxes.”In Canada we’ve been so busy self-flagellating over what the left says are our national sins, that we haven’t heard that sort of talk for years. But today, Smith went out on a long limb and said what Albertans — and indeed, all Canadians — needed to hear, that Alberta is a good place of high performance and higher aspirations and that what Albertans do for themselves is good for the entire country.And the world.“The entire world is looking to us right now to demonstrate that reducing emissions and developing our natural energy resources are not in conflict with each other...in fact the only way the world will ever meaningfully reduce emissions while avoiding energy poverty for billions, is to develop our energy resources using the new and emerging technologies being funded by that very resource development," said Smith."History has shown time and again that economic growth and technology are the keys to solving global poverty and environmental challenges.”It's true. A clean environment, however you define it, costs money. If you want to see a devastated landscape, go to a poor country.Yet as Smith said, it is the eco-extreme dogmas of people such as federal Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault, things such as limiting economic growth, generating energy scarcity and centralized control of people’s activities, that lead to “extreme poverty, soaring crime and addiction, poor environmental outcomes and the loss of personal freedoms and civil rights.”Seriously, when did you last hear a significant Canadian elected leader warn about the loss of personal freedoms or talk about dealing with soaring crime rates in a way that didn’t imply that it might somehow be the fault of the victims?It was as though in the same week that AI delivered a new song in the style of the Beatles, it coaxed forth remarks in the style of Margaret Thatcher for Smith's speechwriter. (Probably Smith herself.) This was a message to encourage Alberta conservatives. It will be heard by conservatives across the country.There was of course, a little science fiction. It’s going to take more than AI to connect Banff, Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary by rail. Smith’s tacit admission that there’s still a lot of room for new hires in the health system, especially as Alberta grows will generate a lot of ‘I told you so’s’ from the opposition. And, now that she has planted herself firmly and uncompromisingly on the side of parental rights, she has opened herself up to pearl-clutching headlines from those who see the minds of children as theirs to mold. It will be up to those who demanded that of her, to now back her up.However, back to the shining city on the hill, with the pledge to cut income taxes by $750 a year, to direct revenues to the Heritage Fund and to tackle the housing crisis. It’s a bold agenda but Smith was not elected to mind the store.Above all, she was elected to defend Alberta: “But there are powerful forces on the left in our country, including in the federal Liberal/NDP coalition government, who believe our province is a problem — a threat to their power and world view. They believe that we must be forced to change our way of life without delay or concern for cost.”Unfortunately, there's no overstatement there. She has, I believe, bared her heart. And thank God there’s still a voice for the vision she presented to 3,500 fist-pumping, cheering, rock-ribbed conservatives in the capital city of Canada's West.
