Danielle Smith’s Populism Strengthens Corporate Power, Appel Says

Dark Phoenix author argues Alberta’s premier connects grassroots grievances with an agenda serving corporate interests.

Danielle Smith’s populism channels anger at political elites into a governing agenda that strengthens corporate power, Alberta journalist Jeremy Appel argues in an interview with Energi Media.

Discussing his new book, Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall, and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith, Appel says the premier’s career is better understood through her political adaptability and the interests she serves than through a consistent libertarian philosophy.

The book follows Smith’s trajectory through politics, journalism and corporate lobbying. Appel says his research challenged the idea that a single overarching ideology explains her decisions.

Instead, he identifies a recurring combination of provocation, spectacle and appeals to people who feel excluded from political power.

“But then it channels that anger into a project that is fundamentally about strengthening elite rule,” he says.

Appel’s criticism goes beyond the familiar debate about whether Smith favours smaller government. He argues that her approach combines dismantling public institutions with rebuilding them around a closer relationship between government and business.

“The first is called The Arsonist and the second is called The Authoritarian,” he says of the book’s final two chapters, which examine her premiership.

In his analysis, those titles describe connected processes: weakening institutions intended to advance the public good, then redirecting state power toward corporate interests, especially fossil fuel interests.

Corporate Power and Populist Anger

Appel describes Smith as a broker between corporate Calgary and a rural, socially conservative political constituency. Their priorities overlap, but they are not identical.

Business interests can clash with activists over workplace authority and other issues, he says. Smith’s ability to manage those tensions helps explain her political resilience.

He identifies support for oil and gas extraction, along with health care and education privatization, as areas of common ground. He also cautions against treating corporate Calgary as a single bloc, noting differences among businesses and their interests.

Pandemic politics helped bring parts of this coalition together, Appel argues. He points to Smith’s lobbying work with the Alberta Enterprise Group and describes opposition to pandemic restrictions as an area where some business priorities converged with grassroots protest.

He also sees continuity between the pandemic protest movement and Alberta separatism, with grievances about government restrictions connecting to hostility toward federal climate policy.

Separatism and Smith’s Political Future

Appel argues that oil extraction sits at the material centre of the separatist project, while cultural grievances help mobilize supporters. That does not mean every company supports separation, he stresses; some place greater value on stability.

Asked whether Smith’s political career is approaching another ending, Appel declines to make a firm prediction and warns against assuming her influence would disappear with an electoral defeat.

He also criticizes the Alberta NDP for failing, in his view, to offer an inspiring alternative, including on energy policy.

His broader warning concerns the durability of institutional change. Reversing the political legacy he describes would require more than replacing the premier and choosing new ministers.

“The mark she’ll have left on Alberta politics and Canadian politics will be hard to reverse,” Appel says, adding that undoing it would, at minimum, take considerable time.

Related Reading and Viewing

For more on the corporate interests, political grievances and separatist pressures discussed in this interview, explore this related Energi Media coverage.

From the Energi Media Website

• How Oil Became Alberta’s Identity, Power and Grievance — Bob Weber explores how the oil industry shapes Alberta’s political culture and public debate.
• Danielle Smith’s Claim That Ottawa Tried to “Kill” Alberta’s Oil Industry Disproved by Latest Data — Production and export data test the grievance narrative at the centre of Smith’s politics.

Watch on YouTube

• Stewart Prest on Foreign Support for Alberta Separatism — The political scientist discusses Canadian sovereignty, foreign involvement and Smith’s position between federalists and separatists.
• MAGA Premier Danielle Smith Won’t Criticize Trump or Side 100% With Canada — Duane Bratt examines Smith’s balancing act over Trump, Alberta separatism and national unity.

Read on Substack

• Danielle Smith Talks Like a Libertarian but Governs as an Authoritarian — Markham Hislop examines the gap between Smith’s language of freedom and her use of government power, drawing on an interview with Duane Bratt.
• Unleashing the Dogs of Alberta Separatism — An essay on whether Smith can retain control of the separatist forces she has helped legitimize.