Taxpayers’ Group Calls On Alberta Premier to Shrink Cabinet Size Following UCP Re-Election

UCP Leader Danielle Smith delivers her victory speech in Calgary on May 29, 2023. Alberta's United Conservative Party rode a wave of rural support to win a renewed majority in the provincial election, but not before the NDP took a big bite out of its support. (The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh)

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to form a smaller cabinet to demonstrate fiscal responsibility after her United Conservative Party (UCP) government won re-election on May 29.

In a June 1 news release, Kris Sims, Alberta director of the CTF, suggests that if Smith selects a smaller cabinet, she will “make her government more efficient and save taxpayers’ money.”

In the pre-election legislature, the UCP government had 25 cabinet ministers each earning $181,404 per year.

The CTF, a non-partisan organization that acts as a watchdog on government spending, notes that the UCP had a larger cabinet than former premier Rachel Notley’s 22 cabinet members at the time she lost the 2019 election.

“Albertans don’t need a big, bloated cabinet to run things out of Edmonton,” said Sims. “Smith should take a page out of former premier Ralph Klein’s book and cut the size of cabinet.”

When former premier Ralph Klein came to power in 1992, replacing previous premier Don Getty, he promptly dropped the size of his provincial cabinet from 26 to 17 ministers, according to a 2002 report by the CTF.

In 2001, Klein unveiled six new ministries and eliminated two associate minister positions, increasing the cabinet from 20 to 24 ministers, stating that Albertans demanded new priorities from the recent election campaign and thus required a larger cabinet structure.

CTF maintains that the UCP government “can save taxpayers’ money and put together a smaller cabinet than the NDP,” said Sims. “Albertans are hardworking and frugal and it would be good to see those qualities reflected in a leaner cabinet.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at a press conference after members of her cabinet were sworn in, in Edmonton on Oct. 24, 2022. She has not yet announced her new cabinet since her May 29 re-election. (The Canadian Press/Jason Franson)

Better Focus

Marco Navarro-Génie, a senior fellow at the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy and founding president of the Haultain Research Institute, told the The Epoch Times on May 30 that a smaller cabinet will mean Smith has “less loose cannons to manage.”

He said conservatives in Alberta have “a tendency to air their differences in public and draw blood at the first heated argument.”

A smaller caucus will focus the UCP against the opposition, he suggests, and more importantly, “a small caucus is easier to manage. There are less people outside of cabinet making trouble because they didn’t get any goodies.”

“A small cabinet will help her consolidate her power inside the caucus,” Navarro-Génie added.

He predicts that the size of Smith’s cabinet will give Albertans a clear signal of how the next four years of governance will unfold, noting that “20 to 25 cabinet members is too big and it means she’s getting pressured. If it’s 15, then she has lots of control. Part of the exercise of her power is to distribute power.”

Navarro-Génie said former premier Klein’s “genius” was giving ministers their portfolios and saying, “You are the face and voice of this ministry and it rises and falls on your back.”

“They were given an enormous amount of prominence and became adept politicians and good ministers,” he said.

Cabinet ministers were very well-known and made a name for themselves under Klein, he added.

“Most people who lived in that era can rattle off a number of the ministers in that particular cabinet. Ask people if they can tell you who was in in cabinet during Ed Stelmach, or Allison Redford, nobody remembers that,” says Navarro-Génie.

Smith’s office was contacted for comment but did not immediately reply.