APRIL 1st, 2023 | RYAN TYLER

Danielle Smith Did Nothing Wrong

In a video leaked to the NDP, the Alberta premier admits she can't help drop charges.

Update: The video in question has since been removed by the publisher. The full audio, however, is embedded in this cbc article.

As would be expected, only a small portion of Danielle Smith's conversation with Artur Pawlowski was shared online by NDP supporters in Alberta. The part in which the premier says, "I have asked them almost weekly", was used by opponents as proof of wrongdoing. For those who have watched the full 11 minute video, the leaked phone conversation tells a much different story. 

Before I go further, here is the full video (removed by user, audio here). It will also be embedded at the end of this page. 

You'd be hard pressed to find the full video anywhere online, but that's intentional. Those spreading it have an agenda. They want to re-open a fake scandal that was manufactured by Rachel Notley and her NDP, in which Danielle Smith tried to interfere in ongoing legal cases against those who had broken pandemic measures. Artur Pawlowski, an infamous Calgary street preacher, was one of the people seeking amnesty.

The parts NDP supporters don't want you to hear are the parts where Danielle Smith admits she can't deliver the "amnesty" she had promised people like Pawlowski. One part, in particular, has Danielle Smith admitting that the justice system doesn't have a mechanism for her to be able to do anything about the charges. 

"There isn't really a mechanism for me to order them to drop cases. It's complicated that way, it's just the way our legal system works."

That part can be heard at the start of the 2:25 frame of the audio.

The premier then shoots down Pawlowski's claim that Alberta's justice minister had anything to do with pushing charges, since "these crown prosecutors seem to be very independent". Later in the video, Smith reiterates the SNC-Lavalin scandal, when Justin Trudeau tried to pressure his justice minister to drop charges against the mega Quebec corporation. 

"The problem is that, that's how the prime minister got himself in such hot water, is because he was in a position where he asked the same questions that I did. And then his attorney general said, 'actually it is in the public interest and we are going to prosecute'." Smith continued, "He kept trying to push her to make a different decision."

"I am trying to stay within the lines asking them the appropriate questions," Smith finally says.  

Overall, the video plays out as a politician trying to keep a loud street preacher happy by promising she will try to help him in any way she can, but that her powers as premier have legal limits. Smith makes it clear throughout the whole discussion that her options are limited. 

The truth is, Smith promised to help those who had been unfairly prosecuted during the pandemic. When she took office, it became clear that she wouldn't be able to keep that promise. Her phone call to Pawlowski was an attempt to stay engaged and to appease one of the loudest mouthpieces of Alberta's anti-lockdown movement. 

It's that simple.

In her efforts, Danielle Smith did nothing wrong. She did not admit wrongdoing, because there was no wrongdoing. If anything, the video proves it. 

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