Alberta Conservatives face a simple choice heading into the next provincial election: stay united, or hand the province to the NDP. Thus, Erika Barootes, founding party president of the United Conservative Party and long-time party insider.On tonight’s Hannaford show, she argues that continued pressure from sore losers in last month’s referendum on Alberta independence risks the very outcome Conservatives claim they most want to avoid..“Premier Smith has been consistently delivering red meat to the Conservative base. So she's kind of trying to juggle that. And after a referendum, I sit here and I'm thinking, ‘OK, you've done what you said you were going to do. Let's move on and start talking about governing for the best interests of Albertans to win an election.’ Which is what I'm always focused on.”.Barootes points to the recent British Columbia election as the clearest proof of what works.“Less than a month ago, a previously scattered group of people who called themselves conservatives – more 'spray-and-pray' than an organized movement – got together behind the BC Conservative Party. And now they’re government.”The lesson says Barootes, is straightforward: when conservatives unite around core values and accepts that no leader can deliver every preference, they can win. When they divide over secondary grievances, the alternative wins instead..She applies the same logic to Alberta. Option 2 (a future referendum on independence) was defeated by a clear majority. Continuing to treat that result as unfinished business or allowing factions – whether sore-loser separatists or those who never wanted the vote held – to dominate the upcoming annual general meeting, is literally self-defeating.“The party can’t be everything for everyone and people need to accept that. Option 2 was defeated significantly by a majority and I think we need to move on from that.”The AGM itself, she notes, is less about dramatic policy showdowns than about electing a provincial board willing to work with the leader, rather than against her. A united board that looks out for members while supporting the Premier is, in her view, the practical definition of success coming out of the meeting to be held later this month..Party President Rob Smith has already stated there will be no leadership review before the election; Barootes, speaking from her own experience in the role, agrees that is the correct call and warns against anyone overstepping the board’s proper authority on nominations and appeals.Beyond the AGM, she recommends a deliberate shift in emphasis for both Premier Smith and the party. Smith has already delivered substantial “red meat” to the base – standing up to Ottawa, reforming health care, building the Heritage Fund, and responding to the referendum petition.Barootes argues it is now time for Smith to be judged primarily as Premier rather than as UCP leader: on whether the health-care reforms actually produce more family doctors and faster surgeries, on whether fiscal discipline and smaller government take priority over further symbolic fights, and on whether the government can show ordinary Albertans that their lives are getting easier. She supports measures such as ending DEI in government hiring but questions the timing of new wedge policies a year before an election..“The broader appeal,” she says, “lies in traditional conservative priorities – tax relief, free enterprise, cutting red tape, and letting people run their own lives – rather than an endless menu of contentious social issues.”People who demand smaller government until the moment it affects their own health care or their grandchildren’s classroom sizes are, she notes, a permanent feature of politics; the response is results, not more spending that simply recreates the old Alberta Health Services bureaucracy.In short, Barootes’ recommended course is unity first, governing second. Move past the referendum, lock in a supportive board, focus on measurable improvements in health care and fiscal restraint, and refuse to split the vote over issues that cannot all be satisfied at once.The alternative, she makes clear, is not a purer conservatism. It is an NDP government.The Hannaford Show is uploaded at seven o’clock.
