'We need to control the party': a look inside Take Back Alberta's UCP insurgency
Pro-Danielle Smith grassroots group's ambitions extend well beyond election
The head of Take Back Alberta had become aware of a little checkmark box on his group's event registration page, asking permission to give supporters' personal information to their local United Conservative Party campaign coordinator.
"We can't be collecting people's information and giving it to campaigns or anything like that," Parker told TBA's other top organizers.
"Right now we've just violated election law. So I'm going to have to report that to Elections Alberta now."
There are some apparent grey zones in rules limiting how registered third-party advertisers like Take Back Alberta can interact with political parties. This was not one.
Elections Alberta prohibits parties and third-party groups from sharing Albertans' personal information.
Benita Pedersen, the group's Edmonton-area director, chimed in. "We'll say it was an error on the Cognito form and we haven't shared anyone's information." "Exactly," colleague Jarrad McCoy agreed.
This was a Zoom video exchange recorded in mid-April and posted on the video-sharing site Rumble. It was chatter between Take Back's leaders before Parker and his team switched to the Zoom event that was intended for a wider audience: a weekly seminar training people how to persuade friends, neighbours and strangers to vote conservative.
Pressure points
The admission of apparent rule-breaking, just as Take Back Alberta was set to give its UCP-friendly advice to activists, highlights the delicate dance this group is bidding to engage in as Alberta's election gets underway. The evident modus operandi: do what you can to re-elect Danielle Smith's UCP government, but don't imperil this group's third-party privileges and ability to engage in the political game as a major pressure organization.
After all, this is no ordinary third-party group in Alberta. It's one that claims to have uniquely set Alberta politics, and especially the UCP, on the path that Parker's group prefers.
David Parker, a longtime political operative and leader of Take Back Alberta. (Submitted)
Parker and his Take Back group take credit for ditching Jason Kenney as UCP leader and premier, helping elect the more libertarian Danielle Smith as his successor, putting half the governing party's board in the group's "control," and mobilizing new party members to nominate TBA-friendly and more activist UCP candidates.
He's built such an affinity with UCP leader Danielle Smith that the premier attended Parker's small March wedding in the Rockies, the Globe and Mail recently reported. Smith downplayed it, saying: "I've got lots of friends."
But it's clear that between Parker's boasts and the private concerns of more moderate UCP organizers, Take Back is a force with deep influence throughout the party.
And it's intent on preserving and expanding that power, beyond the May 29 election.
'Shoot your way out'
Parker, the son of a rural Alberta preacher, has spoken at likely hundreds of events, mainly in rural Alberta. He's implored thousands of conservative-minded voters to be active in party politics and local affairs.
He also speaks of the stakes in dire terms. It's not just conservatives versus progressives, he told a seminar of more than 100 adherents in Grande Prairie.
"This is a war between the pro-humans and anti-humans," he said. Parker referred to abortion, and modern urban women's impulse to delay having children for their careers' sake.
He also argues that NDP and progressives want to depopulate society for the sake of the environment. "You are the carbon they are trying to reduce."
Albertans have no option but to stop the NDP, he told the Grande Prairie crowd.
"You can vote your way into socialism," Parker said. "You almost always have to shoot your way out."
Canadian history contradicts this violent claim. Alberta and five other provinces have elected NDP governments before, and all have removed them peacefully, through the ballot box.
Asked last week about this "shooting" remark, Parker said he was talking about totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union. The Alberta NDP isn't there, but "they're definitely headed in that direction."
Parker, 34, has been a conservative activist since his teens, when he got involved on a central Alberta MP's constituency board. In his spiel to various TBA meetings this year, he explains that he's served in former prime minister Stephen Harper's regional office, the 2012 election war room of then-Wildrose Party leader Smith and former federal Conservative Erin O'Toole's leadership campaign.
He also says he helped campaign to bring down Andrew Scheer as federal leader, and organized for the UCP's Kenney — until COVID and his Alberta crackdown on restriction-violating pastors: then, Parker said at one event, "I declared war on Jason Kenney, and I said I would not rest until he was defeated."
He formed Take Back Alberta last year and registered the group as a third-party advertiser, but never engaged in much advertising on billboards or websites like most registered third parties do. He was mobilizing grassroots activists within the UCP coalition that Kenney had formed, to take the leader down.
Parker and his group, motivated heavily by their resistance to COVID vaccine mandates and public health rules, encouraged thousands to enlist as UCP members to reject Kenney in his leadership review. He succeeded, when Kenney last May got support levels too anemic from his own party to stay on.
The organization boasts as its CFO Marco Van Huigenbos, the Fort Macleod town councillor who is charged with mischief for his role in organizing the Coutts trucker blockade. Take Back has also rallied in support of those charged with offenses at Coutts.
Anti-mandate
demonstrators gather as a truck convoy blocks the highway to the busy
U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alta., on Jan. 31, 2022. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
Take Back didn't quit its political mission when it had pushed out Kenney. It kept holding rallies, and even offered to collect UCP leadership ballots at some of its events around Alberta to deliver votes to the central party.
Parker expressed great veneration for Smith, who herself had firmly opposed vaccine mandates and the mainstream public health wisdom on COVID. "Probably almost nobody in this room works harder than her for your freedom. She deserves your thanks," he said at one of Smith's UCP leadership campaign events in Three Hills.
Friends in high places
The UCP leader and Parker spoke with each other "fairly regularly" throughout last year about politics, ideas and philosophy, the Take Back leader told CBC News in an interview. The conversations have become less frequent and non-political since January, to keep in line with rules that constrain interactions between party and third-party figures, he added.
In Grande Prairie, Parker lauded her for firing the Alberta Health Services board and top public health doctor Deena Hinshaw. "She has taken so much flack that, guess what? One out of three people at doors in Calgary say Danielle Smith is crazy," Parker told the group. "Why do they say that? Because she stood up for you."
However, leadership has not been Take Back's sole fixation. Parker's group has worked to mobilize its believers to flood United Conservative party events and take the majority of posts on riding boards.
They've taken the same approach with the contests to nominate UCP candidates, throughout Take Back's rural base and in cities.
On
the group's Telegram social media channel, they call UCP candidates
like Eric Bouchard in Calgary–Lougheed "our guy." He's said online that
the closure of his restaurant during COVID motivated him to get
political.
Parker lauded Chelsae Petrovic in Livingstone–Macleod as "another freedom fighter!"
However, Take Back's biggest organizational feat was sending hundreds of believers to the UCP annual meeting last fall, all bent on electing TBA-supported directors to the party's provincial board.
The group swept all nine seats, to control half the party's influential board.
Half plus half equals...
"That is a job that is only half done," Parker said months later in Grande Prairie. He explained that at the 2023 United Conservative AGM in Calgary, the other half of the provincial party board gets elected.
"So start saving up your money. We've got to go to Calgary and we have to finish this job."
He explained the rationale: "Leaders come and go, folks. We need to control the party. We need to control the party that's in power."
A board can reject candidates it's worried about, Parker explained (the UCP has done so with ones it fears controversial). It can even remove the party membership of any member, "including the leader."
This power is seldom wielded, but the current UCP leader did so this spring to punish a Take Back organizer.
Tim Hoven, whom the board blocked from challenging the UCP nomination of former cabinet minister Jason Nixon in Rimbey–Rocky Mountain House, has launched a run against him as an independent. And the board recently revoked his UCP membership, Hoven confirmed this week.
"It's pretty simple: if you're the one in the room making the decisions, you're the one in control," Parker said in an interview. He added that electing Take Back supporters to the rest of the board would help, because current UCP president Cynthia Moore "is very hostile to us, actively going around spouting NDP talking points" about the group.
Moore and several other UCP provincial directors joined the board under Kenney; tensions between them and the new faction have stayed largely private, until now.
Told of Parker's remark, Moore praised the professionalism of the UCP. "I'm proud of the efforts of our board and our staff," she said in a text message.
Third party, governing party
Parker registered Take Back Alberta as a third-party advertiser with Elections Alberta to ensure his group could legally advocate in provincial politics, and collect both individual and corporate donations to do so. But that right comes with strict rules about affiliating with a party.
A third-party group is restricted from sharing its key officers with a party like the UCP, and activists it helped vault onto the party's provincial board have stepped back from roles with Take Back.
Election finance laws also prevent third-party groups from selling party memberships, being part of a party or candidate's administrative activity, and sharing voter data with parties and candidates.
It's that last rule that Parker acknowledges could have been contravened when Take Back asked supporters if it could share data at that event in April.
The group had been requesting to share supporters' registration data with UCP for at least several weeks, between late March and that videotaped discussion in mid-April.
"Are you willing to let us pass your name on to the local campaign coordinator?" co-organizer Benita Pederson asked the crowd at the March 21 rally in Grande Prairie, referencing the "little boxes" on forms.
Parker said that question on Take Back's forms was a volunteer's error, and data was never handed over to UCP campaigns. He made those reassurances to Elections Alberta as proactive disclosure, he said.
Elections Alberta does not publicly discuss potential rule violations until investigations have concluded.
The UCP has not received any lists from third parties, would not accept them, and have instructed local candidates not to either, a party spokesman wrote in an email.
When asked about Take Back's level of influence, Smith said anyone's welcome to participate in the UCP's one-member, one-vote system. "We've got, I think, a diversity of views on our boards as well as among our candidates, and I welcome that."
NDP Leader Rachel Notley calls Take Back an "extreme group with very, very extreme fringe ideas" with key posts on the UCP executive — shifting that party more to the edges than in Kenney's days in charge. "The UCP now consists of different people with different ideas than what was initially intended," Notley said.
Parker's group is aware of the risk it becomes a liability for the UCP. A message on Take Back's Telegram channel asked all supporters to avoid wearing TBA shirts to UCP events, or discussing the group when interacting with UCP supporters or potential supporters, because "not everybody is friendly to TBA."
On
April 29, days before Alberta's election campaign began, a Take Back
Alberta organizer warned supporters in a messaging app not to wear the
group's logos or bring up Take Back with others during the campaign,
given some controversies around it. (Telegram/Take Back Alberta)
Despite the way Take Back has infiltrated senior positions in the party, there is no indication any of its supporters work in the UCP's campaign headquarters or war room, or travel with the leader as she tours — even if Smith was Parker's wedding guest.
There is wariness among party veterans of this group's growing influence, and how they will continue to mobilize and expand this activist wing within the party after the election, win or lose. After all, Take Back has helped push out one party leader before.
Despite her friendship with Parker, Smith would know that he was once a Kenney ally too, and that Take Back may not be afraid of challenging a UCP leader again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"You can vote your way into socialism. You almost always have to shoot your way out."
-- David Parker
How is this not a threat of insurrection? How is this call evading police & justice action?
Benita Pederson Pat King
However, Smith is one person in a party of thousands. It does not follow that a vote for the UCP is opening the door to a far-right takeover, far from it. Most constituency boards and the UCP are well aware of Mr Parker’s group and their ambitions. Boards are supported in their work to thwart a takeover by TBA by the executive, who are similarly opposed to seeing this faction gain control of the party.
The fact is, TBA could just as easily infiltrate NDP constituency associations and try a takeover there. These goings-on happen all the time, it’s why parties have procedures to withdraw memberships.
Sadly, CBC choose not to explain this or offer any meaningful analysis. Instead they simply regurgitate an article in The Tyee from April, which was itself dictated almost in its entirety by Notley’s office. Just search Tyee Danielle Smith David Parker to find it. If you don’t land on that article, you’ll almost certainly see another from PressProgress that is again almost identical.
In resurfaced video, Danielle Smith said the vaccinated fell for 'charms of a tyrant' referencing Adolf Hitler
Refers to episode of Netflix series How to Become a Tyrant, focused on Adolf Hitler
Danielle Smith, Alberta's UCP leader, is apologizing for past comments on talk radio and podcasts after a video resurfaced Sunday on social media in which she suggests the 75 per cent of the public who received a vaccine fell for the "charms of a tyrant," specifically referencing Adolf Hitler.
The clip came from a podcast published on Nov. 10, 2021, before Smith became premier, with the Calgary-based Integrated Wealth Management and its founder, Andrew Ruhland.
The podcast is more than 90 minutes long and the relevant section is found near the end, where the conversation turns to the subject of scientific and medical consensus.
Ruhland, who said he is the son of Dutch immigrants who survived World War II, claimed Canadians' personal liberties were being violated by public health rules. He was not wearing a poppy during the podcast, recorded a day before Remembrance Day, which Smith noticed.
"They ruined it for me this year," Smith said of poppies. "The political leaders, standing on their soapbox, pretending that they care about all the things you just talked about.
"Pretending they understand the sacrifice, and not understanding that their actions are exactly the actions that our brave men and women in uniform are standing against."
WATCH | Smith in a podcast ties vaccinated Albertans to those who fall for tyrants:
Smith then mentions the Netflix series How to Become a Tyrant, specifically referencing the episode featuring Adolf Hitler.
Smith recalled an academic saying that so many people would say that they would not succumb to the charms of a tyrant or somebody telling them they have all the answers.
"And he says, 'I guarantee you would,'" Smith said.
"That's the test here, is we've seen it. We have 75 per cent of the public who say not only hit me, but hit me harder, and keep me away from those dirty unvaxxed."
Apology for 'any offensive language' in past career
The NDP quickly seized on the video Monday. Speaking at a campaign event focused on seniors, NDP Leader Rachel Notley called Smith's comments "utterly horrifying."
She said Smith was referencing the 75 per cent of Albertans who followed scientific advice, as well as requests made by public health officials, "to protect themselves, their neighbours and Alberta's most vulnerable citizens and everybody who needed our hospitals."
"She's comparing those Albertans, 75 per cent of them, to the architects of an antisemitic genocide," Notley said.
Speaking at a campaign event for seniors on Monday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley called Smith's comments 'utterly horrifying.' (CBC)
Dave Prisco, director of communications with the United Conservative Party, sent a statement to CBC News on Monday, attributed to Smith.
"As everyone knows, I was against the use of vaccine mandates during COVID," Smith writes. "However, the horrors of the Holocaust are without precedent, and no one should make any modern-day comparisons that minimize the experience of the Holocaust and suffering under Hitler, nor the sacrifice of our veterans.
"I have always been and remain a friend to the Jewish community, Israel and our veterans, and I apologize for any offensive language used regarding this issue made while on talk radio or podcasts during my previous career."
Bernie Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said Smith was either "wilfully ignorant or is in dire need of participating in our workshops on understanding the roots of antisemitism."
"No, premier, those who followed science were not like Hitler and other tyrants," he wrote on Twitter. "Claiming such is to minimize and distort the Holocaust. Six million Jews, amongst them 1.5 million children, were mass murdered by Hitler and his ideology. Millions of other innocents were also murdered, premier."
In a statement, the Alberta-N.W.T. Command of the Royal Canadian Legion said the poppy has 'no place in politics.' (CBC)
In a statement, a spokesperson with the Alberta-Northwest Territories Command of the Royal Canadian Legion said the poppy is a symbol of remembrance of those who have served Canada and made the "supreme sacrifice in the name of democracy."
"It has no place in politics," reads the statement. "The sacrifices made by those, whom the poppy represents, have safeguarded the rights and freedoms that Canadians enjoy today."
Smith previously wrote about Nuremberg Code
In response to a request for comment, the Calgary Jewish Federation said it was important that "our community is not used as a wedge between political parties."
However, the federation did note it made clear comments about such comparisons in 2021, including in a March 2021 Calgary Herald opinion article.
At that time, the organization was responding to another Calgary Herald opinion article, in which Smith wrote that a "national discussion" was taking place surrounding whether people should be forced to take mRNA vaccines.
Smith suggested that would fly in the face of the Nuremberg Code. The Nuremberg Code is a set of principles established after the Second World War stipulating that people must choose if they want to receive experimental medical treatment.
"The medical trials that Smith alluded to were performed without the consent of the victims, who suffered indescribable pain, mutilation, permanent disability or even death as a result," wrote Lisa Libin, vice-president of the Calgary Jewish Federation, in response.
"They were sadistic procedures, often with torture as the primary objective. Invoking the horrors perpetrated by Josef Mengele to one's reservations about the vaccine rollout is not only appalling but completely insulting to our community and others who suffered at the hands of the Nazis."
Last fall, the UCP board disqualified a potential candidate who had compared vaccine passports to policies enacted by Hitler and the Nazi regime.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Lily Dupuis and Kelsea Arnett
Alberta’s new premier shocks Trudeau with her FREEDOM CONVOY 2.0 plans
The January 2022 Freedom Convoy protests still haunt Justin Trudeau like a spooky dog haunts a cat.
But Alberta’s new nationalist Premier Danielle Smith is now planning something that can scare the living daylights of Justin Trudeau.
She has shocked the Canadian Prime Minister with the plans of organizing another Freedom Convoy-like protest across Canada.
In January this year, when disgruntled Canadian truckers kickstarted the Freedom Convoy protests, hardly had Trudeau realized it will scar his political career for the whole of his life. Truckers rammed over Trudeau’s dictatorship and stood for freedom which caught Ottawa and the liberals of Canada off guard.
Trudeau resorted to using extreme emergency measures to avert a massive spontaneous civil uprising. Not only did he declare the convoy anti-national but also stripped them of all privileges that all Canadians are entitled to. But eventually, the liberal cabal managed to choke their funding, malign them and crush everyone who seemed to be standing with the Truckers.
But what Alberta’s new premier Danielle Smith has planned for Trudeau is definitely going to put him in a tight spot. She has decided to reopen Trudeau’s old wounds, inflicted on him by the Freedom Convoy.
Essentially, she is planning a Freedom Convoy 2.0, which is expected to be not only scarier (for Trudeau) but also more powerful than the previous one. For Trudeau, this is like his worst nightmare coming true. This version of the Truckers’ protest will be called the Alberta Convoy.
Leading the charge is Danielle Smith’s close aide Benita Pedersen. As per CTV News, a ‘Trudeau must go’ rally is being held at Acheson, Alta, from where the Alberta truckers’ convoy is expected to begin its journey. The organizer of the convoy Benita Pedersen said, “Some of the participants in the convoy will be finding a place to park near the legislature grounds so they can participate in the rally there, which is called Truck Trudeau.”
Source: iHeartRadio
As per the plans, Truckers will keep driving around the city with flags in protest of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who Pedersen believes went overboard in imposing COVID-19 restrictions.
Even Police in Alberta has extended tacit support to the Convoy. The Edmonton Police Service in a statement said, “As with all public demonstrations, the EPS supports all citizens to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and all participants are welcome to express their views and actions within the law.”
As per Pedersen, “The freedom movement is gaining momentum and there’s a reason for that. It’s because the freedom movement resonates with Canadians.”
So, Alberta is all set to give Trudeau sleepless nights. The province has set the bar high for other conservative states as well, who are following Alberta’s suit to rid their governance of the federal government’s interventions.
Smith’s FREE ALBERTA campaign has already put the Trudeau government on thin ice. Her message to her countrymen, and also the Truckers is loud and clear, you are free to express yourself in Alberta, and that’s where Trudeau’s political grave will be dug with all pomp and glory.
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