Flowchart time!

We’re just three weeks away from the event that has been the sole focus of Alberta politics for what feels like forever: the UCP leadership review. Yet again, all eyes will be on Red Deer as the UCP membership gathers to decide on their leader’s fate.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a non-event. Danielle Smith won the last provincial election and is doing reasonably well in the polls. In just about any other Canadian political party, the leadership review would be a formality. A cakewalk, even.

Not in Alberta. The last conservative premier of Alberta to complete a term in office was Ralph Klein. Danielle Smith wants to be different, but it isn’t clear whether her party is behind her. And so, to help What Now?!? subscribers figure out what might happen, it’s flowchart time!

It’s difficult to predict the likely outcome of the leadership review vote. On one hand, it’s clear that the anti-vax, anti-tax, anti-trans wing of the party has been organizing to get their people out to Red Deer. But it’s possible that Smith has won them over with her extended tour of town hall meetings through the summer and early fall, her promises to amend the Alberta Bill of Rights, her promises to introduce “parental rights” legislation and measures targeting transgender Albertans, her willingness to allow MLA Jennifer Johnson into the UCP caucus, the departure of her Chief of Staff. This might have been enough.

That said, a party leader who is certain of her support probably doesn’t take the reputational risk of having her organizers arrange for busloads of private school kids and their families to attend the AGM.

So really, who knows?

I think it’s unlikely she’ll lose outright, and unlikely that she’ll win outright either. (Let’s call 80% or more a clear win).

More likely? An ambiguous outcome. Something in the 60s or 70s. Enough to allow her to continue, but not enough to allow her not to be anxiously checking in on her caucus and grassroots support.

What is more certain is that the party’s grassroots will once again feel empowered. They’ve been able to focus the Premier’s attention on their list of peripheral issues for months. They will find other issues where they would like to influence government. They can keep Smith on her toes.

And while the Premier and her staff try to devise inventive ways to address policy concerns grounded in conspiracies spread on social media, the actual business of government will continue to languish like a patient stuck in the ER for days.

But hey, I’m sure Alberta will build a mighty firewall to keep out the space-laser hurricanes!