How Weird Will the Weekend’s UCP Gathering Be?

I’m heading down Highway 2 to Red Deer this weekend to cover the United Conservative Party annual general meeting. To prepare, I’ve gone through all 35 policy resolutions party members are scheduled to debate.

Some of them are standard UCP fare, reiterating policies the premier has already explicitly committed to, such as creating a new eight per cent income tax bracket and supporting federal Conservative efforts to nix the federal carbon tax.

But a substantial portion of them are ripped right from the American culture wars, and others are downright loony.

The premier is under no formal obligation to implement party policy. “I hold the pen,” former premier Jason Kenney proclaimed at the inaugural UCP convention in 2018 with characteristic pomposity.

But we all know what happened to him.

If Premier Danielle Smith wants to avoid his fate, she’ll have to at least gesture towards a substantial number of party policies.

I’ve picked out 10 of the most egregious resolutions set for debate next week, which range from broadening the premier’s assault on transgender rights to New World Order conspiracy theories. They are presented in order of their appearance.

1. Banning DEI from the public service

Notably, two of the three riding associations proposing this motion are in constituencies held by the NDP.

Banning diversity, equity and inclusion criteria from the public sector is a pet project of Christopher Rufo, the American far-right activist who spoke at the Canada Strong and Free Network’s regional conference in Red Deer last month.

The resolution calls for the government to ensure all hiring decisions in the civil service are “based solely on merit, competency and equality of all persons regardless of race, gender or creed,” and that all DEI training “be eliminated.”

It cites a report from the Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, which was founded by Fraser Institute and Canadian Energy Centre alumnus Mark Milke.

The report denies that systemic racism exists at all, because Asians generally outperform white people on educational attainment, income, occupational outcomes and public school test scores, blaming DEI training itself for “implanting” racial biases in participants.

“DEI training has been built out of an ideology with no concrete evidence to demonstrate that it is effective. In fact, it is likely to make things worse rather than better,” the resolution’s rationale reads.

2. Prohibiting union (but not corporate) donations

Among the sweeping changes to municipal politics outlined in the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, or Bill 20, is the return of corporate and union donations to civic elections.

But the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency association wants to prohibit unions from donating money to political parties in provincial elections.

“Unions have extra-ordinary [sic] power to influence the results of an Alberta election with their ability to donate monies without restraint or limit,” the resolution’s rationale reads.

This is simply false. Literally the first thing the NDP did when it came to power in 2015 was ban union and corporate donations to political parties, a move that was supported by the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose opposition parties.

The NDP expanded this ban to civic elections in 2018, which the UCP reversed this year with Bill 20. But the UCP hasn’t reversed the ban at the provincial level... yet.

I emailed Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul MLA Scott Cyr’s office to inquire, in addition to whether he supports the resolution, if he’s informed his constituency association that union donations to provincial political parties have been outlawed for almost a decade.

Cyr, who acknowledged union donations to political parties have long been banned, said he still supports the effort “to enshrine this resolution within the UCP’s policy.”

“The intent is to reaffirm that these donations are unacceptable and to provide further deterrence, ensuring that future governments are not tempted to amend or weaken these laws,” Cyr added.

3. Expanding the anti-trans crusade to all female spaces

The resolution comes from the Calgary-Lougheed constituency association, Kenney’s old riding that was taken over by Take Back Alberta loyalists after he left politics, although it’s hard to imagine a diehard traditionalist conservative like Kenney wouldn’t be fully on board with Smith’s anti-trans policies.

This resolution calls on Smith to go further than her already stated plans to ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers for kids 15 and under, and prevent trans women from participating in female sports.

The Calgary-Lougheed constituency association wants the government to ban trans women from “exclusively female spaces and categories” by restricting them solely to “biological females who were female at conception and their young children.”

This includes not just washrooms, change rooms, shelters, dormitories and sports, but also awards.

It’s not enough to prohibit trans children from coming out, which Smith is already doing, or ban trans women from female spaces, which Smith is doing strictly for athletics.

They don’t even want trans people to be publicly acknowledged.

4. Banning nudity in performances for children

Closely connected to the anti-trans moral panic is a mass hysteria about children being exposed to nudity.

The resolution from the Cardston-Siksika riding association in southern Alberta calls on the government to ensure “minors are protected from exposure to sexually explicit performances and events that receive public funding or are held in public venues.”

The policy’s rationale states that it has in mind “indecent exposure by topless women and bottomless men.” The resolution doesn’t specify where this is happening, but its authors likely have Pride parades in mind.

It adds, however, that this ban “should include events with sexually explicit attire and demeanour” — an apparent reference to drag performances for children, which have been targeted by protesters who mistakenly believe drag performances to be inherently sexual.

“Research and psychological studies suggest that early exposure to sexually explicit or inappropriate content can have adverse effects on young individuals’ mental and emotional well-being,” the rationale reads without citing any such studies.

The policy’s goal is to ensure “that minors are only exposed to content that is deemed suitable for their age group.”

Deemed by whom? The resolution doesn’t say, but evidently not the parents themselves, who are already fully capable of not taking children to events they consider age inappropriate.

Like Smith’s upcoming blanket ban on gender-affirming care for minors under 16, this proposed policy jettisons the party’s oft-stated commitment to “parental choice,” revealing tension between libertarian and moral conservatives.

5. Increasing CO2 emissions

This is one of the wackier resolutions scheduled for debate. It calls on the government to abandon any efforts to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions and remove CO2’s designation as a pollutant, because “CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”

“The earth needs more CO2 to support life and to increase plant yields, both of which will contribute to the Health and Prosperity of all Albertans,” the rationale says.

In an interview with CBC, University of Alberta environmental economist and law professor Andrew Leach likened the resolution’s reasoning to saying after the 2013 Calgary flood, “We all rely on water, it's essential.”

In order to bolster its argument that the Earth needs more CO2, not less, the resolution falsely states that atmospheric CO2 levels of 420 parts per million are “near the lowest level in over 1,000 years.”

In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CO2 levels haven’t exceeded 400 ppm since the Pliocene Epoch — about three million years ago.

On paper, the UCP government is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, but it also opposes every possible measure to reach that target, whether it’s carbon pricing, emissions caps or mandating a clean electricity grid by 2035, banking solely on unproven carbon capture, utilization and storage technology and small modular nuclear reactors.

6. Defunding gender-affirming care

The Leduc-Beaumont constituency association wants Smith to go further than restricting gender-affirming care for youth, defunding it for trans people of all ages.

The resolution calls for all gender-affirming “medications, treatments and surgeries” to be categorized “as elective cosmetic procedures costed solely to the requesting patient.”

The resolution rationale consists of exactly 17 words of circular logic: “These are in a realm of cosmetic surgery and costs should not be placed on all taxpayers.”

In other words: Why do we want to categorize gender reassignment treatment as cosmetic surgery? Because it’s cosmetic surgery, stupid.

Meanwhile, trans people in Canada are more than six times likelier to attempt suicide than the cisgender population.

7. Only two genders on government docs

This resolution calls on the government to recognize “that there are only two biological sexes and accordingly provide male or female as the exclusive options on all official government documents.”

In 2018, the NDP government gave people the option to put their gender as X, rather than M or F, on government documents, including birth certificates, death certificates and marriage licences.

Reversing this policy would guarantee, the Cardston-Siksika riding association insists, that all government documents are consistent with “scientific understanding rather than shifting social trends... ensuring that our policies are rooted in factual accuracy.”

“Clear and standardized categories for sex facilitate swift identification by law enforcement officers during critical situations such as traffic stops or emergencies,” the rationale continues.

If this one passes, it will be interesting to see how Smith responds, given her fondness for invoking her “non-binary family member” to insulate herself from charges of transphobia.

8. Some weird anti-Indigenous New World Order shit

This is, for my money, the wildest ride of any of the proposed policy measures.

The Banff-Kananaskis riding association wants to “protect Alberta Crown Lands from unlawful seizure by international or federal organizations through neocolonial interpretations of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons.”

The rationale is worth quoting in full. “Efforts at ideological colonialism are set up to seize lands and resources by international organizations. They are attempting to do this by transferring Crown lands to First Nations, and then revising international law to seize the land from the First Nations. The spirit and intent of the Treaties, and other agreements and initiatives, shall remain intact and only be revised through negotiation.”

Citation needed.

9. Busting the teachers’ union

This resolution calls for teachers’ membership in the Alberta Teachers’ Association to be made optional while guaranteeing “comparable supports, benefits and pension opportunities are available for those who opt out.”

Its rationale cites “many teachers whose beliefs and opinions do not align with the [ATA’s] current political agenda.”

“The ATA has been putting politics over pedagogy and supporting many controversial progressive ideologies that do not represent the values of many teachers who are forced to pay dues in order to maintain employment in this province,” the resolution reads.

It doesn’t say which “controversial political ideologies” the ATA supports, but given the general tenor of the resolutions slated for debate at the convention, this is almost certainly a reference to the union’s steadfast support for LGBTQ2S+ students.

Allowing teachers to opt out of ATA membership “will give teachers more individual control over funding advocacy and professional development and enable them to support causes and educational directives they do believe in,” the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake riding association claims.

The idea that workers ought to be able to opt out of paying union dues while receiving the same workplace benefits as their unionized colleagues has been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada.

10. Weakening language on campus free speech

A previous UCP policy resolution calls on all “publicly funded post-secondary institutions to implement a policy guaranteeing the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly of all students and staff on campus.”

The Lacombe-Ponoka constituency association’s proposed resolution replaces “on campus” with the caveat “that does not interfere with the functions of teaching, learning or access to the institution proper.”

Its rationale strongly suggests that the pro-Palestine encampments that were violently dismantled by police in Calgary and Edmonton, with the premier’s encouragement, have led party members to re-evaluate their prior campus free speech absolutism.

“The right to free speech and assembly does not give the right to disrupt other students’ access to learning or a post-secondary campus,” it says. “Recent events have seen students occupying post-secondary campuses and interfering with others’ rights to education and access to the campus. This policy clarifies that post-secondary institutions should guarantee the rights of all students to free speech and assembly and to learning and accessing the campus.”

The resolution doesn’t explain precisely how students and other community members pitching tents in a specific part of campus disrupts anyone’s ability to access campus.