Smith makes light of team’s door-knocking error

By COLLIN GALLANT on November 1, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Danielle Smith brushed off criticism that her campaign knocked on doors in the wrong riding last week when she addressed byelection supporters at a weekend rally.

The UCP leader and candidate in Brooks-Medicine Hat byelection joked with a crowd of supporters at the Medicine Hat Lodge event that the hotel was located in neighbouring riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat, represented by MLA Drew Barnes.

“I want everyone to know that I realize that I’m in Drew (MLA Barnes’s) riding, because (NDP Finance critic) Shannon Phillips was trolling us on Twitter, thinking that we didn’t know what riding we were in,” she said to open a 15-minute speech to 250 attendees, including Barnes on Sunday.

“We had a little mishap with (Health Minister) Jason Copping when he came down,” she continued. “We sent him in the wrong direction, so he did do a couple blocks worth of door knocking in the other riding. But, what the heck, it’s one big happy family. And I’m quite happy to represent all of Medicine Hat, too, even if the riding only contains a portion of it.”

Most city addresses south of the South Saskatchewan River are located in Cypress Medicine Hat, including the Aberdeen Street area, where some residents said they were canvassed by Smith’s team last week.

The News requested a comment on the issue last week, but did not receive a reply.

The New Democrats, who already criticized Smith for running locally while she lives in High River, seized on it to paint the United Conservative candidate leader as out of touch with the community.

“Our candidate Gwendoline Dirk is no tourist,” Phillips said in campaign ad posted on social media. “Medicine Hat is her home and she knows southern Alberta.”

Smith’s campaign office, at the corner of Division Avenue and Third Street, is located just inside the boundaries of the riding created for the 2019 general election when ridings were realigned to balance population levels.

Aberdeen is two blocks away, but in the other riding.

Brooks-Medicine Hat includes Newell County, Brooks, northern Cypress County and Medicine Hat voters in the north end, but also a portion of downtown, Harlow and the area surrounding the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.

That dividing line is the centre line of Third Street and Gershaw Drive from the CP Railway yard to the Trans-Canada Highway, and then the centre line of the highway back to the river.

The north-south dividing line in Cypress County is Township Road 132 and Highway 41A, east of city limits, and the South Saskatchewan river, west of the city limits.

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