{"id":446072,"date":"2026-01-31T23:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446072\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T23:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T23:06:08","slug":"premier-danielle-smith-endorses-poilievre-at-conservative-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/446072\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier Danielle Smith endorses Poilievre at Conservative convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Alberta Premier and United Conservative Party Leader Danielle Smith speaks at the Conservative Party of Canada national convention in Calgary on Saturday.Larry MacDougal\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith offered a ringing endorsement of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in an address at his party\u2019s convention on Saturday, less than 12 hours after an overwhelming majority of members voted in favour of his continued leadership.<\/p>\n

With Mr. Poilievre seated at the front of the room below the stage, Ms. Smith\u2019s 10-minute speech primarily looked back on former prime minister Justin Trudeau\u2019s decade in power. But she didn\u2019t mention the dominant current issues in Alberta, including her province\u2019s independence movement or the energy agreement she signed with Prime Minister Mark Carney in November.<\/p>\n

Poilievre wins 87.4% in leadership vote, cements hold over Conservative Party<\/a><\/p>\n

Opinion: A reconfirmed Poilievre, now with more hope and optimism<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Poilievre maintained his hold<\/a> on the party Friday night, with 87.4 per cent of delegates supporting his leadership, cementing control over the party whose leadership he won in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank all the delegates here for giving our leader such a strong mandate, because we are going to need Pierre strong to fight for our values and reverse the terrible policies of the last 10 years,\u201d said Ms. Smith, who briefly addressed the audience in French.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Smith at the Conservative Party convention. Her 10-minute speech primarily looked back on Trudeau\u2019s decade in power.Jennifer Gauthier\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Ms. Smith\u2019s relationship with Mr. Carney has been more cordial than with his predecessor. In November, she signed a memorandum of understanding with Mr. Carney that stripped many federal energy and environmental laws to pave the way for a new pipeline to the West Coast.<\/p>\n

She has used the agreement as early evidence that \u201cCanada can work,\u201d which has become a pressing issue in Alberta as a signature-collection campaign to force an independence referendum is continuing. Support for independence in Alberta has remained between 20 and 30 per cent through the past year, but changes by Ms. Smith\u2019s government to make it easier to force a referendum have given separatist leaders an opportunity to campaign toward a vote.<\/p>\n

Mr. Poilievre, in his Friday address, blamed separatist rumblings in Alberta and Quebec on Mr. Trudeau\u2019s treatment of provincial jurisdiction and validated the concerns of independence-minded residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can simply attack people who feel this way, or we can ask them, \u2018Why?\u2019\u201d Mr. Poilievre said.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Poilievre delivers his keynote address in Calgary on Friday.Larry MacDougal\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The Alberta Premier\u2019s hometown crowd welcomed her with a raucous ovation after being introduced by Damien Kurek, the former member of Parliament for the riding of Battle River-Crowfoot who stepped aside so Mr. Poilievre could regain a seat in the House of Commons after losing his Ottawa riding in last spring\u2019s election. <\/p>\n

Ms. Smith leaned on themes of provincial autonomy through her speech. She also referenced one of her government\u2019s more controversial policies to restrict transgender athletes over age 12 from competing in amateur female sports divisions, legislation which she protected from legal challenges<\/a> last year by invoking the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms\u2019 notwithstanding clause.<\/p>\n

\u201cPierre also believes in protecting our women and girls and upholding fairness and safety, something that we\u2019ve done here in Alberta because Pierre, myself and a majority of Canadians believe that biological men do not belong in women\u2019s sports,\u201d she said, which earned a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

Ms. Smith referred to Mr. Carney only once: \u201cI would love, as the Prime Minister said, for pipelines to be boring again. I would love to just get them built,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Alberta Premier and United Conservative Party Leader Danielle Smith speaks at the Conservative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":{"0":"post-446072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-ca","15":"tag-canada","16":"tag-canada-news","17":"tag-canada-sports","18":"tag-canada-sports-news","19":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","20":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","21":"tag-canadian-news","22":"tag-economy","23":"tag-education","24":"tag-environment","25":"tag-federal-government","26":"tag-foreign-news","27":"tag-globe-and-mail","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","29":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","30":"tag-government","31":"tag-life-news","32":"tag-lifestyle","33":"tag-local-news","34":"tag-manitoba","35":"tag-national-news","36":"tag-new-brunswick","37":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","38":"tag-news","39":"tag-northwest-territories","40":"tag-nova-scotia","41":"tag-nunavut","42":"tag-ontario","43":"tag-pei","44":"tag-photos","45":"tag-political-news","46":"tag-political-opinion","47":"tag-politics","48":"tag-politics-news","49":"tag-quebec","50":"tag-sports-news","51":"tag-technology","52":"tag-travel","53":"tag-trudeau","54":"tag-us-news","55":"tag-world-news","56":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}