A CTV headline that “high-profile conservatives” were voting for the NDP was too bizarre not to click on..As they say, “dog bites man” is not news, but “man bites dog” — now that’s news..What were these people thinking?.In staged footage, former PC deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk was shown driving in a lawn sign for Morinville-St Albert candidate Karen Shaw. Next, CTV showed a brief clip of his Twitter video that endorsed Joan Chand’oiseau in Calgary-West..So an Edmontonian is endorsing a Calgary New Democrat... is that supposed to carry some kind of weight or something?.And what kind of conservative is Lukaszuk? He only came to cabinet after “two-minute tories” helped make Ed Stelmach the unlikely PC party leader, and the more strident conservative vote could not coalesce among rival contenders Ted Morton and Jim Dinning. Later, Alison Redford went after the union vote to become PC leader, and made Lukaszuk the education minister and deputy premier..Lukaszuk told CTV he didn’t like Smith’s leadership, but a look back shows us real conservatism is probably not the biggest reason. Smith defected from the PCs to the Wildrose when Stelmach was premier and Lukaszuk was in cabinet. “This government is beyond redemption. It’s out of control,” she said at the time..Lukasuk said in his May 2 Twitter video, “The stakes are too high” to support the UCP. Therefore, he was endorsing Chand’oiseau as someone Albertans “can trust with a proven community leadership record.” That rings hollow, given her community is 300 kilometres from his, and his words seem like an NDP script..It’s a similar story with Doug Griffiths, another Redford cabinet minister in the CTV report. Griffiths, like Rachel Notley and Lukasuk, was a University of Alberta grad. He taught school, became a PC MLA, resigned in 2015, and is now an executive education instructor at the U of A..Griffiths, who once represented Battle River-Wainwright, also made an endorsement video for an NDP candidate who lives elsewhere, Vegreville hopeful Teneen Rudyck. It’s as if Griffiths went to Notley and said, “How can I help?”.The Sovereignty Act and the influence of the Take Back Alberta group leave Griffiths wary. “I don’t believe the UCP party is conservative anymore,” he said. “They are feeding anger.”.But Griffiths was MLA from 2002 to 2015, and Harper was in power for his final nine years. Alberta had no reason to be angry with Ottawa then, but has never had more reason than now, something any self-respecting Albertan conservative should understand..Besides, Griffith wrote “not being appealing to business” on his list of “13 ways to kill a community,” a book he co-authored in 2010. Whereas Smith has promised to keep business taxes low, Notley will crank up the business tax bill by 38%, a move hard to justify given the province is back to balanced budgets and can’t claim a revenue shortfall. Does he want the NDP to kill a whole province?.CTV also flashed two twitter posts of those with conservative backgrounds who are supporting Notley. One was David King, an Ontario-born U of A graduate who was a PC MLA for Edmonton-Highlands from 1979-1986. These days he is active with the Green Party of B.C. and was a provincial campaign co-chair for its 2013 election. His twitter post said he also supported Notley in 2015 and will again in 2023..Such is the “King” of conservatism..The other tweet, issued by former Peter Lougheed chief of staff and Conservative MP Lee Richardson, is closer to legitimacy. He endorsed his local NDP candidate in Calgary-Elbow, and described him in Policy Magazine as “a fantastic guy, highly qualified, named Samir Kayande, a successful engineer and energy consultant, Carnegie-Mellon MBA. A person of quality and character…”.But then came a subheading: “Policy: How many more Red Tories/centrist/moderate conservatives feel the same way?” Exactly. This is the spectrum of people that won’t unite behind the UCP..Strangely, Richardson recalled Smith positively for helping his federal campaign in 1993. “She was then bright, thoughtful, and driven,” he wrote, implying she no longer is..Question: how did Smith champion policies to become a political party leader twice the past 15 years if she didn’t remain “bright, thoughtful, and driven”?.“Her self-professed libertarianism gave way to grievance politics and tactical populism,” wrote Richardson. “Danielle’s Tucker Carlson-inspired radio talk show provided the vehicle for the resurgence of her political following while stoking division, hate and fear in listeners, with negative rhetoric, culture wars, and conspiracy theories.”.Such was the unfortunate characterization by the former Oxford University student and past board member of the Southminster United Church. This is the same man who resigned as MP just so he could be Alison Redford’s principal secretary during her premiership..“I am a Conservative, a Progressive Conservative in the Peter Lougheed tradition. Danielle is not a Conservative,” wrote Richardson. These sentences capture the self-contradicting argument of these Danielle detractors. They literally argue she is not a conservative because she is not a progressive, which makes no sense..One of the best things the United Conservative Party (and federal Conservative Party) did was remove “progressive” so they no longer had a party named for an oxymoron. If someone wants to vote progressive, there is another party that flies that flag, and it has enough consistency to not call itself conservative..Smith herself wrote in March of 2019 that people who thought Peter Lougheed, and not Ralph Klein, was the best premier of Alberta, were more likely to vote for Notley than Kenney. Richardson agrees and says that’s why he’s voting for Notley..If Smith isn’t surprised that these people won’t vote for her, perhaps we shouldn’t be either. We live in Orwellian times, where self-described conservative people call Smith unconservative for being further right than they are. We also live in polarized times, where the Smith UCP and the Notley NDP are clear opposites. The socially and fiscally conservative choice between these two is plainly apparent, and no one should convince us otherwise, no matter what they call themselves.
