So last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith used the notwithstanding clause to force Alberta teachers back to work.

It’s the first time the notwithstanding clause has ever been used in this kind of a manner to end a labour action. And that’s led to some softening of support for Danielle Smith.

But here’s the truth. The latest polls show that if an election were held today, Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party would still easily come out on top.

Why is that? How is Smith’s appeal so resilient? And why the hell can’t Naheed Nenshi and the Alberta NDP get their s**t together?

Well, luckily for us, Jeremy Appel from The Orchard is here to answer those questions and many more.

A few months ago we had a great discussion with Jen Gerson about the unique political figure that is Danielle Smith and her relationship with Alberta’s nascent sovereignty movement. You can think of this conversation with Jeremy as a bit of a sequel to that one.

We talk about some of the underlying reasons behind the teacher’s strike, Smith’s continued flirtation with separatism, how she holds her coalition together with culture wars, the return of pipeline politics and of course, the many failures of Alberta’s NDP.

Now just for context, this was recorded before Smith invoked the notwithstanding clause, but the discussion is still just as relevant today.

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Music: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque

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