Flipping the Line: MLAs ignored us. Now Danielle Smith is premier

From the day she left radio, Danielle began to listen. Not just to her guests and callers, but to everyone.

The Line welcomes angry rebuttals and responses to our work. The best will be featured in our ongoing series, Flipping the Line. Today, Laura Pentlebury replies to The Line’s numerous critiques of Danielle Smith.

In a column for The Globe and Mail, The Line’s own Jen Gerson mused about her observations in the waning days of Danielle Smith’s ballot collection tour of Alberta. It felt less like a political rally and more like a therapy session.

Throughout September, UCP members showed up to community halls, civic centre multi-purpose rooms and hotel meeting facilities in more than 70 locations with their ballots. When they arrived, Danielle Smith — her notebook in hand, leaned in and listened. For 45 minutes to an hour, Danielle would ask each person what was on their mind. For larger events, the audience would be polled for questions, and then a photo lineup would be set up, giving voters the opportunity for a quiet 30-60 seconds with the woman who is now premier of Alberta.

What isn’t well known is that Danielle has been doing this for nearly two years.

I know this because I was by her side. I worked with Danielle prior to her re-entering politics, helping her to produce her podcast for the Alberta Enterprise Group. When she decided to run for premier, I stayed on as her scheduler and assistant.

During my time with her, I saw first hand how people were harmed by COVID restrictions — and I saw how people were fighting those restrictions behind the scenes.

From the day she left radio, Danielle began to listen. Not just to her guests and callers, but to everyone.

It’s easy to pass Danielle Smith’s success as a rebellion of the “unvaccinated.” Indeed, backlash to COVID restrictions are certainly part of the tale. But the unwritten story of the situation in Alberta has many parts — woven together by one underlying ugly truth: the government, and their representatives, did not listen to the electorate.

It’s true that Alberta’s COVID restrictions were lax compared to other parts of the country. However, what rules were imposed were viciously enforced — to a degree that proved alienating for much of my province, one that prides itself on respecting its citizens enough to allow them to make their own choices.

That Alberta became the place of jailed pastors and takedowns of teenage hockey players by cops on community ice rinks is no accident.

I have sat in on Zoom calls with crying gym owners speaking about how AHS Public Health officials came into their gyms backed by armed cops to check for “exertion levels.” People have already forgotten this, but when gyms were allowed to operate, they were drastically reduced in scope.

People were not allowed to run on treadmills. Only walk. And you could only get in a pool if you walked lengths with a mask on. Yes, a mask in a pool.

I heard stories of restaurants reported for allegedly violating restrictions by vindictive former customers, exes or family members. Once targeted, they were subject to daily check-ins by geeks with clipboards, holding their very livelihoods in their pens.

I’ve heard stories of salons micromanaged by health authorities who would nitpick the labelling on their sanitizer bottles. Of employees at care homes moving mountains to convince AHS to allow their residents even a 15-minute window to walk the halls of their home, alone. I’ve seen the emails from family members incensed that their elderly relatives were tested, without warning or consent, with swabs shoved up frail nostrils, amounting to assault, over and over again.

The hard truth is, the members of this government watched as Public Health in Alberta terrorized small businesses and long-term care facilities into compliance. The “lax” restrictions came at a terrible price to the mental well being of many Albertans.

We also know the MLAs knew. Desperate attempts at contact were often made. And almost always ignored.

In came Danielle Smith.

It came to a head in September 2021, when the Alberta government announced the vaccine mandate. In her weekly newsletter, Danielle asked her followers for their stories. How they had coped. To invite her in to talk.

The floodgates opened.

Meeting after meeting, coffee party after coffee party — we sat in rooms in Calgary and surrounds, listening to moms and dads, grandmas, and kids, business owners and workers, spill their guts about how hard it had all been. We’d have a little cry, drink a little tea, and eat too many cookies.

And then we sold them memberships.

That, my friends, is why Danielle Smith is premier.

And why she will be great.

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The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com