Premier Danielle Smith pushed a message of unity within the United Conservative Party at its Annual General Meeting in Red Deer.
Nearly 6,100 party members gathered at Westerner Park for the UCP AGM on Friday and Saturday. Smith delivered a keynote speech to a crowd of fellow party members inside Exhibition Hall on the event's second day.
"Let us remain united as a party and as a movement. Advocate loudly through our part policy process and our constituency associations, and hold accountable our MLAs, most especially me, to keep us on track," said Smith.
"But let us not sink to the level of our opponents by attacking and vilifying one another, or breaking into factions. ... We are a family — we are a loud and raucous and opinionated family, but we are a great family nonetheless."
Smith received a dominating 91.5 per cent vote of support from her United Conservative Party members in a scheduled leadership review vote later in the day. Prior to the vote, Smith told reporters she was hoping to get more than about 54 per cent support, which is the level of support she received when she won the party leadership election in 2022.
"You can't get 100 per cent of support of 100 per cent of members, 100 per cent of the time," Smith said.
Smith touted Alberta as a "job-creating economic juggernaut" during her keynote address.
"We are an energy and agriculture superpower with sights set on becoming giants in technology, finance, tourism and much more," Smith said.
"Over the past year we have helped create over 100,000 new jobs, mostly in the private sector, and Alberta workers are earning more on average than anyone else in the country. That means Alberta families are earning healthy pay cheques they can use to buy groceries, fill up their gas tanks, buy their kids hockey equipment or save for the future."
Ahead of the UCP AGM, the government introduced a trio of bills focusing on transgender people and students using preferred pronouns. Many 2SLGBTQ+ organizations have spoken out against these bills.
"Some on the left accuse us of doing this for political purposes, but that's not true. We're doing this because permanently altering one's body and changing one's gender is a serious adult decision," Smith said.
"Our children deserve the time and freedom to mature and understand the consequences of such decisions before they make them. I won't apologize for that. Just like I won't give our women and girls a safe and fair opportunity to compete in the sports that they love."
Smith also discussed the Alberta Bill of Rights amendments during her keynote address.
The amended Bill of Rights "expressly forbids any future Alberta government from implementing and vaccine mandates ever again," Smith said to thunderous applause.
"We all learned a lot of hard lessons during the pandemic. One of the things we learned is this: a person's right to bodily autonomy is sacred. Governments around the world should never be allowed to circumvent that right and in Alberta they won't be allowed to do so."
—With files from The Canadian Press
