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Photo Courtesy daniellesmith.ca

Danielle Smith announces return to Alberta politics

Apr 1, 2022 | 2:48 PM

Former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith is coming back to Alberta politics and says she will vote against Premier Jason Kenney at the upcoming United Conservative Party leadership review.

Smith says she decided to return after Kenney called his political opponents “lunatics” and after the party decided to alter the leadership review at the last minute, a move she says favours Kenney.

Smith says she plans to run for the UCP in the southwestern constituency of Livingstone-Macleod, a seat currently held by UCP backbencher Roger Reid.

The leadership review results will be announced May 18, and if the members fail to give Kenney majority support, a leadership race must be called.

Smith says Kenney needs a lot more than a bare majority to have a credible mandate to continue and says she will run if there is a leadership race.

Smith left politics shortly after she led a mass Wildrose floor-crossing to the Progressive Conservatives in 2014, a decision she now says she deeply regrets.