The Lake of Fire consumed then-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith’s campaign in 2012. Now the identical problem — her failure to condemn intolerant and repugnant views — may do it again to the now UCP premier.
One irony is that extremist pastor Artur Pawlowski, the cause of her current troubles, condemned Smith in 2012. He said she was too tolerant.
Pawlowski spotted a photo of Smith at a Hindu ceremony, wearing traditional clothes and asking the gods for a blessing. This was standard campaign behaviour, but Pawlowski exploded.
He wouldn’t vote for Smith, he said, “because she crossed the line from being tolerant of other people and their beliefs to actively participating in their idolatrous practices.”
Now she takes a cheery call from that very pastor about his court charges. The same guy she once blasted for extremism.
Wildrose was coasting to victory for the first two weeks of that 2012 campaign. Voters annoyed at Alison Redford’s PCs beat them up furiously in the polls.
But when it seemed Wildrose might actually win, all eyes turned to Smith. And people saw a leader so stuck in her libertarianism that she would allow her candidates to say pretty much anything.
The most stunning example came from Allan Hunsperger, another pastor, who was an Edmonton Wildrose candidate.
In a video rooted out by PC scandal-seekers, he said gays “who live the way you were born, and die the way you were born, will suffer the rest of eternity in a lake of fire, hell, a place of eternal suffering.”
Lake of Fire — capitalized — instantly became part of Alberta’s political vocabulary.
Smith’s senior campaigners almost begged her to fire Hunsperger, and also Ron Leech, a Calgary candidate who had said he was best able to mediate among ethnic groups in his riding.
Smith’s senior campaigners almost begged her to fire Hunsperger, and also Ron Leech, a Calgary candidate who had said he was best able to mediate among ethnic groups in his riding.
Smith’s senior campaigners almost begged her to fire Hunsperger, and also Ron Leech, a Calgary candidate who had said he was best able to mediate among ethnic groups in his riding.
When then-interim PC leader Ric McIver participated in Pawlowski’s anti-gay March for Jesus, Smith condemned him in 2014.
“It’s beyond the pale,” she said. “It’s extreme. I think Albertans expect that political leaders will stand up against this intolerance.”
Pawlowski’s rhetoric was as vile then as it is now. He said LGBTQ+ people “openly proclaim and manifest that they are not ashamed to declare the name of their master (Satan)”
The great 2013 flood in Calgary and southern Alberta, he said, was caused by “Jesus weeping for the perversions of homosexuality, which includes the walking out the pride of their abominations in the streets of our cities.” He also blamed abortion.
Despite all this, and far more words and actions in Pawlowski’s history, the premier and the pastor chatted about the charges against him for his activities at the Coutts border crossing, and his desire to get them dropped.
The premier was sympathetic while saying she no longer believed she has the power to do anything.
Smith even said she had been aware of Pawlowski’s “advocacy” for years. She didn’t imply anything negative about it.
The political side of this may no longer be the claims that Smith talked to prosecutors, which she denies to the point of a lawsuit threat against the CBC.
Rather, it’s her chronic lack of judgment, now magnified by the fact that she is the premier.
Smith is ideologically stuck on her view that charges against protesters are unfair and illegitimate. She seems blinkered to the record of this person she considers a victim.
Since the video came out she hasn’t voiced a word about Pawlowski’s views, or said she should not have taken that call.
Artur Pawlowski could prove to be Lake of Fire 2.0. And once again, Danielle Smith wades right in.