EDMONTON – Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith went on the attack Wednesday, painting rival Alison Redford as an anti-Alberta, globe-trotting social engineer oblivious to life outside government.
“I think Ms. Redford doesn’t like Alberta all that much,” Smith told reporters at a news conference near the legislature on the third day of the provincial election campaign.
“She doesn’t like who we are. She doesn’t like our character. She wants to change it.
“That is what people are going to have to ask in the next election: Do we need to be changed? Do we need Ms. Redford to change us? Do we have anything to be embarrassed about?
“The answer is going to be a resounding no.”
Smith’s comments were met with a swift rebuke from Redford.
“How can I even have a discussion about that? That is such a ridiculous comment to make. I just can’t think of anywhere better to live,” she told reporters in Fort McMurray.
“I love Alberta. I grew up here. When I found out that I was going to have my daughter, we moved back to Alberta.”
Smith was responding to comments Redford made Tuesday to an audience in Calgary. Redford was asked about her Progressive Conservatives.
“I don’t think it’s the status quo, and I don’t think it’s going back 15 or 20 years,” Redford told the crowd.
“I think it’s about the future, understanding that we’re a different community, that we’re a different society, that we have the opportunity to make some really wise and long-term decisions that will change the character of our province.”
Redford stood by that remark Wednesday.
“What I do believe and what I think Albertans know is that in the past 10 years, we’ve had a million people come to this province. We are going to continue to grow and we are going to continue to change,” she said.
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Smith’s remarks constituted her first direct attack on Redford since the premier dropped the writ Monday to launch the campaign, which will culminate in voting day on April 23.
Smith contrasted herself and Redford.
While both spent their formative years in Calgary, Smith said they’ve taken widely divergent paths in their professional lives.
“Because I’ve always worked outside of government – private institutions, private organizations, private non-profits – I have a great deal of faith in private individuals, businesses and communities to be able to make changes without the need to have the province interfering,” she said.
“Ms. Redford – who has only ever worked in government or for government, and spent many, many, many years outside of Alberta – has a great faith in what big government schemes can do.
“I don’t believe we need to have a pan-Canadian multi-jurisdictional government-led program on anything.
“The province consistently, especially over the last decade, has gotten in the way of (private) achievement … with an ever-growing mountain of bureaucracy, red tape, paperwork and excessive over-management and micro-management.
“She (Redford) is a big government liberal. I’m a small government conservative. That’s really what it comes down to.”
While this was Smith’s first direct attack on Redford, Redford’s team has been after Smith since the campaign began.
The Tories, reacting to a decision in Ontario striking down a law banning brothels, circulated a decade-old Smith newspaper editorial espousing a red-light district.
They suggested that Smith was so ideologically blinkered by the libertarian mantra of freedom of choice, she would sanction the legalized selling of women’s bodies.
NDP Leader Brian Mason said it’s a bad sign if the campaign debate has already sunk to the level of who loves Alberta more.
“I’m interested in talking about the issues that affect ordinary Albertans,” said Mason.
“I think much of the debate between Redford and Smith is pretty phoney.”
The two women are relative newcomers to provincial politics but have a lot of experience shaping public policy.
Smith, 40, was born in Calgary and studied politics at the University of Calgary. She ran property rights lobby groups and worked as a TV and print journalist before heading up the Alberta wing of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
She had supported the provincial Progressive Conservatives but jumped to the Wildrose, becoming party leader in 2009, after deciding the Tories had lost their way through top-down management and over-spending.
Redford, 47, was born in Kitimat, B.C., but spent her teen years in Calgary. After graduating with a law degree from the University of Saskatchewan, she worked for the federal Tories in Ottawa before embarking on years of service abroad.
Working for the United Nations and other government agencies, she helped plan and implement democratic and judicial reforms in some of the world’s most dangerous and desperate regions: Afghanistan, Namibia, Mozambique and elsewhere.
Redford has served one-term representing the riding of Calgary-Elbow. Smith is campaigning in Highwood, south of Calgary, to win her first seat in the legislature.
With the campaign now in full swing, recent polls suggest the Tories and Wildrose are fighting for the lead and that the 40-plus-year Tory dynasty is in jeopardy.
Both parties are promising no new taxes or tax hikes and don’t plan to tinker with oilsands royalties.
They differ on how to spend Alberta’s billions of dollars in petroleum wealth.
The Wildrose says government spending is out of control at more than $40 billion a year.
Smith says diverting more cash to the front lines in hospitals and schools along with killing failed pet projects like carbon capture and storage will put Alberta back in the black.
The Tories have run multibillion-dollar budget deficits for years but have used the cash in the rainy day Sustainability Fund to forestall long-term debt.
They promise to balance the books by next year but say they won’t ape the Wildrose savings plan because it would inevitably cut too deep into core services.
– with files from CFVR in Fort McMurray.
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