A companion to The Receipts

The contradictions.

A side-by-side accounting of what the United Conservative Party has said about itself, and what the public record shows it has done. The voice in the left column is, in each case, the same voice making the decision in the right column.

// Why this page exists

Ralph Klein eliminated the deficit. The "Alberta Advantage" was, briefly, a real thing.

Whatever else can be said about him, Klein's record is on the books: cost-cutting that genuinely closed the deficit, debt reduction that made the province a competitive place to start a business, a tax structure that, for a window in the 1990s and early 2000s, lived up to the marketing. You can disagree with the method; you cannot honestly dispute the result. Klein finished what he set out to do.

The point of this page is not that the UCP is failing to be Klein. It is that the UCP is failing to be conservative, by the definition the party itself uses every time it asks for your vote. The voice that promised to keep government out of the market is the same voice that bet $1.3 billion on a foreign politician's campaign promise. The voice that said it would defend taxpayers is the same voice presiding over $5 billion in corporate welfare. The voice that lectured Ottawa about transparency built a Crown corporation specifically engineered to evade Freedom of Information law.

Conservatism, as a fiscal philosophy, is not a brand. It is a discipline. The receipts on the front page are evidence that the discipline has not been kept.

What follows is thirteen pairings. In each one, the column on the left is the public position. The column on the right is the public record. The question for the conservative-leaning reader is not whether you agree with the right or the left. It is whether the people asking for your vote are the people they say they are.

I. The Kenney contradictions

2019—2022

Contradiction 01

The man who founded the "No More Boondoggles" campaign, presiding over $5 billion in boondoggles

// What he said

I would bring back legislation to keep the government out of the market.

Jason Kenney, in his campaign as head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, 1990s

Kenney's earliest political identity was built fighting business subsidies. The "No More Boondoggles" law was his signature initiative as CTF head.

// What he did

By the CTF's own count, the UCP government Kenney led announced 14 corporate-welfare programs totalling roughly $5 billion in its first term. The largest single component, a $950-million Petrochemical Diversification Program, was warned against by the province's own finance department as lacking economic merit.

The CTF, having endorsed many UCP tax cuts, called the same government's behaviour "playing investment banker with our tax dollars."

Contradiction 02

The free-market premier, betting $1.3 billion on a foreign politician's campaign promise

// What he said

I've always been skeptical about government intervention in the market.

Premier Jason Kenney, March 2020, announcing the Keystone XL investment

// What he did

Joe Biden — who served as Vice President under Obama, who twice rejected the project, and who publicly committed during his 2020 campaign to cancelling it — cancelled the permit on his first day in office. Alberta wrote off approximately $1.3 billion.

A market participant who placed this bet on this risk would be fired by a competent board. A premier placed it with public money. The "market failure" was not a market failure. It was a political bet that lost.

Contradiction 03

The transparency platform, building a Crown corporation engineered to evade Freedom of Information

// What was promised

The UCP's 2019 election platform promised to strengthen accountability of provincial agencies, boards, and commissions, and to make government more transparent to Albertans.

// What was done

The Canadian Energy Centre — the war room — was structured as a private corporation specifically so it would not be subject to Alberta's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Total spending over its life: $66 million-plus. Most of what is publicly known about how the money was spent comes from documents Alberta filed with the U.S. Foreign Agent Registry, because the United States has stronger disclosure rules than Alberta does.

Contradiction 04

"Arms-length" and "independent" pension management, with the lawsuits legislated away

// What was claimed

The independence of AIMCo from political interference was the entire premise of the institution. Bill 22 in 2019 had simultaneously forced public-sector pensions, including teachers' assets, to use AIMCo as their sole investment manager, against the explicit objections of the Alberta Teachers' Association.

In January 2025, Premier Smith announced the Heritage Fund Opportunities Corporation (HFOC) to grow the Heritage Fund to $250 billion by 2050, framed as a return to Lougheed's original vision and as an independent, arms-length Crown corporation.

// What was done

Nov 2024: Finance Minister Nate Horner fired the entire AIMCo board, the CEO, and four senior executives in a single day, without an investigation made public. Two weeks later, former PM Stephen Harper was named chair.

Jan 2025: The HFOC was created with an explicit mandate, in Horner's own words, to "invest that seed funding in a different way than AIMCo" — into "areas that matter to Albertans" including AI and water infrastructure.

Nov 2025: Bill 12 introduced — barring public-sector pensions from suing AIMCo for losses incurred before November 2024.

The captive pension funds cannot leave. The institution cannot be sued. A new vehicle has been created next to it to direct $250 billion toward government-favoured industries. The Fraser Institute — not a left-wing think tank by any definition — has now twice publicly warned that the HFOC appears to prioritise "political goals over investment returns." When the Fraser Institute is the witness for the prosecution, the case is being made by friendly voices.

II. The Smith contradictions

2022—Present

Contradiction 05

"Personal liberty" and "freedom from government," then the notwithstanding clause

// What she said

No longer will Alberta ask permission from Ottawa to be prosperous and free... We will not have our voices silenced and censored. We will not be told what we must put in our bodies.

Premier Danielle Smith, UCP leadership acceptance speech, October 2022

// What she did

The Smith government has invoked or threatened to invoke the notwithstanding clause — the constitutional override that suspends Charter rights — on multiple occasions, including the Back to School Act of October 2025 stripping 51,000 teachers of their right to strike, and legislation restricting the medical care of transgender minors.

The legal mechanism that suspends Charter rights is the most powerful tool a Canadian government has against the personal autonomy of its citizens. Using it is not a "freedom" position. You don't get to claim both.

Contradiction 06

Stripping 51,000 teachers of their rights, then boarding a Saudi private jet

// What she did first

On the afternoon of October 27, 2025, the Smith government tabled and passed Bill 2, the Back to School Act, ending a three-week strike by Alberta's 51,000 public, francophone and Catholic schoolteachers — the largest school walkout in provincial history. The bill invoked the notwithstanding clause to bar any court challenge for five years and imposed a contract that rank-and-file teachers had previously rejected by nearly 90 per cent.

// What she did next

Premier Smith was not in the Legislature when Bill 2 was tabled. She was not present when it passed. She had departed Calgary that afternoon for Saudi Arabia and the UAE on a private jet later confirmed to have been provided at the expense of the Saudi government.

I have a lot of thoughts about the fact that the premier of this province who invoked a bill to take away the rights of citizens of this province didn't even have the decency to be in the legislature. She should have looked in the eyes of the teachers who were in the galleries. — Jason Schilling, ATA president, October 28, 2025

The ATA called the absence "a fundamentally disgraceful thing." Amnesty International condemned the bill as a violation of teachers' rights to bargain collectively, to freedom of expression, and to freedom of association.

Contradiction 07

"AESO asked us to do a pause." The internal documents said the opposite.

// What she said

The Alberta Electric System Operator asked for us to do a pause to make sure that we could address issues of stability of the grid.

Premier Danielle Smith, August 14, 2023, defending the renewables moratorium

// What was true

Internal AESO emails obtained under FOI by The Narwhal showed the AESO's CEO was "not comfortable" with the moratorium and was directed by the board chair to "support the minister without reservation." The board chair wrote, in writing, that the request was coming from the government, not from AESO.

The Alberta Utilities Commission's own subsequent technical report concluded that renewables "pose little threat to Alberta's agriculture and environment." That report was withheld from the public for weeks after Smith announced the new restrictions.

Contradiction 08

"Agriculture first" against renewables, no equivalent rule for pump-jacks, coal mines, or gravel pits

// What she said

We need to ensure we're not sacrificing our future agricultural yields, or tourism dollars, or breathtaking viewscapes to rush renewable developments through.

Premier Danielle Smith, February 28, 2024

// What was true

Even if Alberta built enough solar to supply 100 percent of provincial electricity demand, it would use approximately one-tenth of one percent of agricultural land. Sheep grazing under solar arrays is common practice. Pembina's analysis: applied across southern Alberta, the 35-km "viewscape" buffer covers approximately 76 percent of the regional landscape.

Oil and gas pump-jacks, coal mines, gravel pits, and feedlots face no equivalent restrictions. The reclamation security renewables developers must post up-front does not apply to oil and gas, which has accumulated $30 billion in unfunded reclamation liability.

Contradiction 09

The promised middle-class tax cut, replaced by an $80-million bottle of Tylenol

// What was promised

On the first day of her 2023 election campaign, Smith promised an income-tax cut delivering approximately $760 per year to anyone earning over $60,000. Estimated cost: $1 billion to the treasury. The promise was unconditional. No oil-price caveat. No staging language.

// What happened

The promised tax cut was deferred. While that promise was being deferred, her government spent $80 million on a panic-procurement of children's pain medication from Turkey. Of five million bottles ordered, fewer than 5,000 ever reached community pharmacies.

The contractor on that deal, MHCare Medical, is now the subject of an active RCMP criminal investigation. See the Conduct page.

Contradiction 10

"Make industry pay for its mess," then $30 billion in unpaid mess

// What was said

The Alberta Energy Regulator's stated principle: "the industry, rather than Alberta taxpayers, remain responsible for cleanup." The polluter-pay principle is a foundational conservative idea: if you make a mess on private property, you clean it up.

// What was done

The Regulator's own estimate of total cleanup liability for conventional oil and gas wells is at least $30 billion. It holds approximately $227 million in security — less than one cent on every dollar of liability. Alberta returned $137 million in unspent federal cleanup money to Ottawa in September 2024 because it could not put the funds to work fast enough.

Contradiction 11

"Rule of law" against blockades, personal phone calls to a man facing criminal charges

// What was said

Premier Kenney's standard line on pipeline-related civil disobedience was that "the rule of law" must be enforced. After the Teck Frontier withdrawal, Kenney announced new "critical infrastructure" legislation specifically to address protest-related interference. Smith inherited the rule-of-law framing for federal-provincial disputes.

// What was done

Premier Smith held telephone conversations with Pastor Artur Pawlowski while he was facing criminal charges related to the Coutts border blockade. CBC News obtained and published a recording of one such call, in which the Premier discussed his prosecution and case in detail.

In a Westminster system, the Premier does not pick up the phone and call accused persons about active prosecutions. That principle is not partisan. It is the boundary that separates a constitutional government from one that isn't.

Contradiction 12

"Government shouldn't pick winners," then picking winners on every page of this site

// The principle

The single most consistent line of Albertan conservative political identity, going back to Klein and arguably Lougheed, is that the government should not be in the business of choosing which industries succeed or fail. Markets allocate capital. Government enforces contracts and the rule of law.

// The pattern

The provincial government picks winners against $33 billion of private renewable-energy capital with the moratorium. It picked a winner on Keystone XL with $1.3 billion of public equity. It picked a winner with $5 billion in petrochemical and other corporate welfare. It picked DynaLIFE as a winner over public lab services and absorbed $109 million when it failed. It is in the process of picking the Alberta Provincial Police as a winner over the RCMP, against the wishes of 80 percent of Albertans.

That is not free-market policy. It is industrial policy with a free-market vocabulary.

Contradiction 13

"Ottawa is interfering in Alberta," while directing AHS, AIMCo, AESO, and the AUC

// The framing

The defining political theme of the UCP era is that Ottawa is interfering in Alberta's economic affairs. The Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, the 2026 referendum, and the Alberta Pension Plan proposal are all built on the premise that the federal government is overreaching into provincial jurisdiction.

// The practice

Within its own jurisdiction, the same government has fired the AHS board twice. It has dismissed the entire AIMCo board and four senior executives. It directed the AESO to write a letter the AESO's own CEO disagreed with. It withheld an Alberta Utilities Commission report on renewables until after the policy decision had been announced. It directed AHS to proceed with the DynaLIFE contract over the agency's own internal warnings.

The objection to Ottawa's interference is the entire political programme. The treatment of Alberta's own arms-length institutions is the practice. Both cannot be principled.

// What this page is asking you to consider

If you have read this far, you are not the audience the UCP relies on. You are the audience it relies on not noticing.

Every party governs imperfectly. Every politician falls short of their own rhetoric sometimes. The pattern this page documents is not imperfection — it is a systematic divergence between a stated philosophy and the actions taken under cover of it. The fiscal-conservative positioning of the United Conservative Party is, in the only way that matters — the public record — not what the United Conservative Party has practised in office.

You can hold conservative views on taxation, on the size of government, on the regulation of business, on the polluter-pay principle, on the rule of law, on the independence of arms-length institutions, on Westminster constitutional norms, and on the obligation of governments to keep their election promises. If you do, then by every one of those measures, the public record on the previous four pages does not describe a conservative government. It describes a government wearing the brand without keeping the discipline.

The receipts are on page one. The conduct is on page two. The contradictions are here. The transparency record is on page four. The manufactured-consent operation is on page five. None of this is hidden. None of it is in dispute. None of it requires you to vote for any other party. It only asks you to vote for the principles you say you hold.