Danielle Smith can't win without Justin Trudeau

In Alberta, depending on which conservative politician you ask, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is everything from an authoritarian tyrant to an effete eastern elite. But if you asked Danielle Smith, and she was forced to tell the truth, she’d describe him in decidedly different terms. No, she may not like him — but right now she needs him more than anyone else in Canada.

That’s made abundantly clear in new polling from Janet Brown Opinion Research. It shows support for the governing UCP holding steady from the last election, while also indicating that a growing number of Albertans identify cost of living as one of their top concerns. Indeed, for the first time since she started asking this question in 2018, a majority of respondents (54 per cent) said it was “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult” to meet their monthly expenses. "What really struck me about this poll were the economic numbers," Brown told the CBC. "I don't usually see data change this dramatically year over year. This is not a flash in the pan. There has been a shift — an important shift — in the way people are feeling about the economy."

And yet, there hasn’t been a similarly negative shift in support for the UCP government. Why? In a word: Trudeau. Smith’s remarkable rise from the political ashes was driven, in large part, by her ability to take the province’s pre-existing animosity for Trudeau and turn it up to 11. Her so-called “Alberta Sovereignty Act” made it clear that she was willing to take the fight against Ottawa to places other conservative politicians, from Jason Kenney to former finance minister and leadership contender Travis Toews, simply weren’t. She’s been campaigning against Trudeau’s policies and priorities ever since, whether it was during the 2023 provincial election that she won or the year-plus that has followed.

So far, at least, it’s working. Despite increasing spending more quickly in her first two budgets than Rachel Notley did in all four of hers and doing decidedly un-conservative things like nationalizing companies and creating new crown corporations, Smith has avoided the internal schisms that divided her United Conservative Party in the past. And despite the cost of living rising more quickly in Alberta than anywhere else in Canada, she has similarly avoided the sort of blowback that Trudeau’s government is facing. Average hourly wages in Alberta are down 4.4 per cent since 2019 (by comparison, BC’s are up nearly 8 per cent) while inflation is now nearly a full percentage point higher than in the rest of the country.

This is a testament to the power of the reality distortion field Smith has created with Trudeau. On any and every issue, it draws the attention of her supporters away from her own missteps and mistakes and focuses it on him. He is seen as the sole architect of their misfortunes, even when you can draw a much shorter and straighter line between them and UCP policies. Never mind that UCP policies directly contributed to record-high electricity prices, soaring insurance costs and the influx of new residents from Toronto and Vancovuer that are driving up rents and real estate prices. For most conservative Albertans, it’s still all Justin’s fault.

But this only works as long as he’s occupying the prime minister’s office. If the next federal election produces a Pierre Poilivere government, that distortion field gets broken. Yes, there will be some people who continue to blame Trudeau for their woes, just as there are people who still blame his father for the troubles they experienced in the 1980s after he left office. But many more will re-examine whatever economic challenges they might be facing in a new light, one that directs far more of it towards Smith and her choices.

Helping people connect the dots between their cost of living challenges and UCP policies has to be the Alberta NDP’s top priority once it concludes its leadership race in June. Without a Trudeau in Ottawa to distract Alberta voters from their more immediate realities, the provincial government’s mishandling of a bunch of key files will suddenly become far more politically relevant. That’s why, although she’ll never actually admit it, Smith is probably rooting for Justin Trudeau in 2025 — and why the Alberta NDP is silently pulling for Pierre Poilievre. As far as political bedfellows go, they don’t get much stranger than that.