Danielle Smith Campaign Cries “Cancel Culture” After Liberal Ideological Ties Are Exposed

A couple of days ago, The National Telegraph (TNT) released an article exposing the fact that former Wildrose Party leader and current UCP leadership race candidate, Danielle Smith, had Mike Butler, a multiple-time political candidate, organizer, and supporter of the NDP and Liberal parties, staffing her campaign as deputy campaign manager for Alberta North. 

Nothing within the article was disputed, and the opinion that bookend the article; which is that no UCP members should be surprised Danielle Smith is employing someone like Butler seeing as she herself has strong Liberal tendencies, seemed only a logical conclusion to draw from observing how Smith operates. 

In response to the article, as well as the video that Alberta political commentator Ambrose Ralph made on his show Alberta To The Point, Smith and her campaign launched a chaotic defense strategy. They acted as if Ambrose and TNT had personally attacked Butler, likely because they know Smith is the real subject matter of both of the reports. 

Danielle Smith, Mike Butler, and other Smith campaign staff like her campaign manager Matthew Althiem deployed the strategy of saying that people like Ambrose and myself were engaging in “cancel culture,” or attempting to “harass” or “dox” members of her campaign staff. 

Smith’s newfound passion for backing Butler comes off as disingenuous (at least to me), seeing as she pretended not to know who Butler was when asked her about his presence on her campaign a day before the article was released, despite how ridiculous it is to not be well aware of who your own campaign managers are. 

At the same time when TNT mentioned Butler’s left-wing background, Smith did not defend him by saying he had some dramatic conversion to conservatism, rather she said “we are trying to build a big tent party here,” which heavily implies she knows he is ideologically Liberal. 

The Western Standard publish an op-ed by Mike Butler only a day after my article and Ambrose’s video went live, which seemed to be crafted in order to make sure nobody who read it had much of a clue about what The National Telegraph or Ambrose Ralph reported about Danielle Smith or her campaign.

The closest Butler gets to actually saying anything about his Liberal background is the following:

Once upon a time I got sucked in by the Justin Trudeau illusion. I assumed “sunny ways” was a real thing. 

For a period of time, like many Canadians, I even publicly supported the COVID-19 response taken by Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, Jason Kenney, and the like. 

Butler neglects to mention he was actually a Liberal/NDP candidate multiple times before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showed up on the scene, supported him explicitly in both the 2015 and 2019 campaigns, as well as the provincial NDP in 2019, and was still referring to himself as “obviously a strong federal Liberal” in February of 2021. 

Butler goes on to say that “I also had a look deep down into my political soul and realized civil freedoms are of the utmost importance to a healthy democracy,” before saying that he refused to be vaccinated and “immediately felt isolated and locked down in my own country,” which any pro-freedom conservative would sympathize with.

It truly is harrowing to be targeted by anti-liberty government policies, especially when it is coming from your own side. At the same time you cannot help but point out that Butler had remained a “strong federal Liberal” throughout the years when Trudeau was cracking down on firearms owner rights, hiking taxes and spending, infringing on Alberta’s provincial autonomy, undermining the oil and gas industry, attempting to pass anti-free speech legislation, etc, etc, etc

Of course, we at TNT welcome people to adopt conservative political principles, but there is no evidence Butler is an actual conservative. 

Danielle Smith and the other top-level managers of her campaign should be smarter than to raise someone who more than likely still holds Liberal positions on various issues to the rank of a deputy campaign manager. That’s of course unless Butler’s lack of belief in ideological conservatism is exactly why he was seen as an attractive addition to the campaign.  

And this is the point of the original article that seems to be really bothering Danielle Smith and her campaign. 

Danielle Smith is by no means a strong Conservative, which is why she saw zero problems with hiring a lifelong Liberal like Butler because she probably has a lot in common with someone like him.

Daniel Smith:

• Is aggressively in favour of legal abortion

• Believes that in some instances men can compete in women’s sports

• Flip flops on whether or not the Alberta government should raise taxes

• Says that a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is “inevitable”

• Promotes GSAs in schools 

• Wants to achieve net-zero emissions targets (which she once said was unrealistic)

• Wanted to take conscience rights out of the Wildrose Party platform.

• Blamed the Wildrose Party’s 2012 election loss partly on its platform opposing climate alarmism.

Smith is not at all principled conservative on social issues, and flabby on fiscal issues, which is exactly why she has, for the most part, stuck to talking about provincial autonomy issues.  

She can claim she will pass underdeveloped policies like the Sovereignty Act in order to bring in the principled conservative base, while never actually having to make strong commitments on other conservative issues, thus allowing her the ability to pivot left if she wins the UCP leadership race, since she technically promised very little conservative policy, and if the autonomy stuff fails she can just blame Justin Trudeau.

 To reiterate. Mike Butler is not the issue on Danielle Smith’s campaign, and neither The National Telegraph nor Ambrose Ralph has any personal issues with him.

Danielle Smith is the issue on her campaign, and the presence of Butler is just an indication of the ideological position she would like to move towards if she wins the UCP leadership and becomes the next Premier of Alberta. 

UPDATE:

Since this article was released, photos surfaced showing that Mike Butler was doing work for the very pro-vaccine mandate British Columbia NDP in July of 2022. This is a year after he claimed to have become a conservative, or at least moved towards conservatism.