Voters in Alberta, Canada's oil-rich western province that is a bastion of conservatism in Canada, held their conservative government in power on Monday but significantly decreased the number of seats it holds in the legislature, according to data from Canada's national broadcaster.
While the result is a win for conservatives, it is likely to be seen as a rebuff of the politics of Danielle Smith, the hard-right leader of the United Conservative Party that has been Alberta's prime minister for seven months. Ms. Smith came to power after the party effectively rejected a less moderate conservative, Jason Kenney, as prime minister, for his commitment to end pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates.
This revolt, led by a socially conservative wing of the party, reflected the anger in Canada that also led to the formation of a truckers convoy that paralyzed Ottawa, the capital, for nearly a month.
The views of Ms. Smith, a former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist who has been leading another conservative party, are firmly aligned with that faction. She has said that the unvaccinated were the most discriminated-against group she'd seen in her lifetime and suggested that police officers who enforced pandemic measures had committed crimes. In May, a video of Hitler's likening of people who chose to be vaccinated to Germans came to support Hitler.