Former Deputy Prime Minister Thomas Lukaszuk discusses the recent resumption of the legislative session and the upcoming annual general meeting of the United Conservative Party with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Maybe we’ll start with those amendments to the Bill of Rights. The government claims that these changes will modernize and strengthen human rights protection. How far do you think they go to achieve it?

Tomas Lukaszuk: They’re not going anywhere. Unfortunately, because although the human rights legislation and the Bill of Rights is largely symbolic as a piece of legislation, it was really to underscore the values ​​of Albertans and what we value in our society and our communities. I hate to be rude about it; Premier Smith has turned it into a kind of bathroom wall that you can write whatever you want on.

Alberta has no jurisdiction over the things it’s introducing, number one, so what’s the point of enshrining them in such an important law? And the other aspects are really contradictory. If we have autonomy over our own bodies, does this apply to women’s reproductive rights? Suddenly, no, not those. This is where the government will tell you what you can do. Does it apply to transgender children? No, this is where the government will intervene. If we have the right to decide what is best for our children, does this apply to parents who consent to a variety of medical treatments? No, this is where the government will intervene.

It also includes gun ownership knowing full well that it is a 100 percent exclusively federal jurisdiction. It is enshrined in the Criminal Code of Canada. If a province can’t do anything about it, why enshrine it in the Alberta Bill of Rights?

It really makes fun of something that was very important on a symbolic level and now it doesn’t really mean anything.

MH: Then you are likely to run into obstacles.

TL: There will surely be legal challenges. Danielle Smith is best known for telling Ottawa to stay out of Alberta’s jurisdiction over gun laws. She’s definitely 100 percent accessing federal jurisdiction, so she’s contradicting herself on this level as well.

But not only will there be legal challenges, which will cost us on both the provincial and federal sides (we paid for it twice), but it really turns a bill into a mockery. No one can trust this bill anymore as a critical piece of legislation that we can point to and say, “Look, this is my right. This is what we believe in as Albertans.”

MH: This is in response to your base, so that your rights and freedoms are respected. Isn’t that your prerogative?

TL: Of course it is, and that’s the sad thing, because she’s really politicizing this important piece of legislation. And let’s not forget that their base is no more than five or ten per cent of Alberta’s population. She is supposed to be the prime minister of all Albertans.

MH: However, it is a powerful base.

TL: Powerful with respect to her remaining premier or party leader, but not powerful within the reach of Alberta voters and I find it very unusual that she appears to be acting as if her leadership review, next weekend in Red Deer , be the end of everything. Forgetting that there will actually be an election in this province and that some of the ads, including the Bill of Rights, that he has been running for the last two or three months, are clearly aimed at that five or ten percent of his base, but he will lose a lot of votes from moderate conservatives who may have voted for her in the last election but will say, “Well, this is too much.”

MH: Let us then turn to the UCP Annual General Meeting this weekend and, as you point out, the importance of the leadership review. Jason Kenney stepped aside with 51 percent support. Allison Redford and Ed Stelmach during their time in government were shown the door with 77 percent. How defiant do you expect Danielle Smith to be this weekend?

TL: This leadership review is important because these are members of your party, these are people who paid $400 just to register for a convention, they travel, they pay for a hotel.

and if you can’t muster more than 70 per cent in that group, you have a problem with the rest of Alberta.

A leader should have a high score of 80 within her own environment, her own support base, but I see that she is very worried for some reason. So if she has internal polls in her party, because she is taking action again, introducing laws that will jeopardize her re-election, I think she is worried.

She is taking unusual steps by making promises to our Muslim community, busing large numbers of children to the convention, and really going off the deep end with her announcements, like the Bill of Rights, for example. Which really jeopardizes his re-election just to win this leadership race.

I personally think I would have approved because UCP supporters are motivated and will be at this particular convention and the number of people attending is quite high. But I think she is concerned and is taking unusual steps to overcome this hurdle, probably in the hope that Albertans will forget about it and she will start to moderate again after the leadership.

MH: Looking at the convention overall, what do you expect in terms of outcome? Perhaps beyond the leadership review itself, and what does that say about the way forward for this government?

TL: Well, the road ahead will be difficult because it started with Jason Kenney. Jason Kenney, in order to gain his leadership and combine the two parties, attracted some of the most radical members of the Wildrose Party, hoping that once he uses them for this vote, he will be able to free them and free himself from him. them.

It’s like that saying, once you sleep with dogs, you catch the fleas and it’s hard to get rid of the fleas. He never got rid of them and as he was leaving, he actually said that the crazy people had basically taken over the asylum.

Danielle Smith was part of that group that entered the UCP and was not only attracting more of them, but was also beginning to pander to them and adjust her policies to appease them, forgetting that the majority of UCP supporters are still Albertans looking a kind of balance.

So over the next two years she has two options: either she continues down that path to keep that small fringe group happy and, in doing so, jeopardizes her chance of being re-elected in a general election, or she starts to moderate and back off a little. more towards the center, but altering that ten percent because they will feel that they had them, that they were deceived.

It’s kind of like the analogy of dating two people at the same time. Valentine’s Day becomes a problem when both of you want to go on a date with you at the same time.

Danielle Smith will have the same problem on Election Day. She’ll have to decide who Danielle Smith is, and in doing so, she’ll upset one group or another.