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Smith doesn't regret crossing floor

Highwood’s former MLA acknowledges she will have unfinished business, both on the local and provincial levels and several achievements as she leaves public office.
Former Highwood MLA Danielle Smith says she doesn’t regret leaving the Wildrose Party. She said she plans to write a book about her time in office.
Former Highwood MLA Danielle Smith says she doesn’t regret leaving the Wildrose Party. She said she plans to write a book about her time in office.

Highwood’s former MLA acknowledges she will have unfinished business, both on the local and provincial levels and several achievements as she leaves public office.

However, as she exists the legislature Danielle Smith said she does not regret her fateful decision to cross the floor to join the Progressive Conservative government in December.

“I did not want to be Wildrose leader anymore so I don’t regret leaving the role of Wildrose leader,” she said. “I don’t regret leaving the role of official opposition.”

The May 5 provincial election marks the end of Smith’s time in office as Highwood MLA.

Smith – a former school board trustee and journalist – entered provincial politics when she became leader of the fledgling Wildrose Party in 2009. She was elected to the legislature as Highwood MLA in the 2012 provincial election and looked set to become premier as the Wildrose Party lead in the polls ahead of the vote. However, the Wildrose fell short and ended up winning 17 seats, compared to 61 seats won by the PCs. Smith went on to lead a ferocious opposition before leaving the Wildrose to join the PCs in December.

Smith said she is proud of what she was able to accomplish within the Highwood.

She said her biggest success was being a voice for residents during the largest natural disaster in Canadian history during the floods of 2013. As well, she said getting Premier Prentice to go to High River in January to make changes to the DRP program was also a success.

“I think people will see it actually did work to clear the backlog with a June 1 deadline to resolve those files,” she said. “When I talk to the staff they’re very confident we’ll be able to do it. We not have an appeals process working.”

Smith said she is also pleased the Province is on the road to having a flood mitigation plan to protect High River, while not building a costly, large-scale diversion project.

However, she is disappointed she was not able to secure funding for a water pipeline for Okotoks. She said it’s the biggest issue the new Highwood MLA will have to deal with.

Smith said she was not able to see as much change as she hoped on broader issues that drew her into politics in the first place.

“Generally speaking, the reason I entered into politics was to see the budget balanced and keep Alberta debt free, that didn’t happen,” she said. “I wanted to see our laws regarding property rights remedied to ensure compensation and a proper process in the courts, that’s only partially successful. I wanted to see health care decentralized so we had more local decision-making and better performance. That is in process, but still unfinished business.”

The recent provincial budget was also a disappointment and Smith said Premier Jim Prentice missed an opportunity to take a more fiscally responsible direction. She said she never supported going into debt, but she was ultimately in the minority on the issue.

“There was a concerted effort over the last five years from those who wanted to go into debt to convince the public that it would be okay,” she said. “I never bought into it. I thought Alberta was different.”

Smith said the province has lost its window of opportunity to get the provincial government’s finances under control. She said it will likely take a new generation of leaders and many years to get a control on the provincial debt.

“We’re looking at billions of dollars in deficits and debt for the foreseeable future and I think all of the parties, to some extent, are relying on oil and gas revenues to recover and bail us out,” she said. “I’m just not optimistic that that’s going to happen this time.”

Smith said Albertans won’t know just how high the provincial debt will end up being for a few years. She said she believes Albertans will call for actions once interest charges start eating into public finances.

“By 2019 there’ll be $1.8 billion in interest charges… think of how much you could do with $1.8 billion if it wasn’t being used for finance charges,” she said.

When she left the Wildrose Party, Smith called for it to merge with the PCs.

She believes it may still be possible for the two to cooperate and eventually join together, particularly in the event of a minority government, or else one party will need to beat the other “into oblivion.”

Smith said she sees a growth in support for left-leaning, progressive parties and it’s crucial for conservative parties to join together to hold onto government.

However, she also said Alberta’s conservatives need to reinvent themselves and not continue to be “derailed” over social issues such as gay rights and abortion, which she said have been resolved in the public’s mind. Smith said conservatives need to a new vision to deal with issues like health care, education and care for vulnerable members of society.

“That is I think what is missing in conservative politics, the membership that joined conservative parties has been so obsessed with moral issues they’re missing creating a bigger vision,” she said.

As she leaves politics, Smith said she is planning on writing a book about her time in office. She said she wants to explain why she made the decisions she did.

“I have to own some of my mistakes, but I think people want to understand some of the factors that went into the decisions that I made, as well as some of the things that they would not have known about,” she said.

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