UCP approves boundarysmithing maps

When I wrote about this earlier, I focused on the arguments Conservative influencers and staffers were making in favour of it because they were easier to contextualize than how I feel about the idea of redrawn boundaries making certain seats “unwinnable.”

Gerrymandering isn’t popular in Canada because we have rules against it. Hopefully “boundarysmithing” is short-lived, despite my affinity for the phrasing.

To be extremely clear, I do not support a government using its power to create advantages for itself or disadvantage my neighbours— wherever they may be.

My issue with which areas vote in certain ways and how political parties interact with them is more… let’s call it a “legitimate grievance.”

The thoughts I was already having about it were further strengthened by the incredible outcome of the U.S. midterms on Tuesday, which saw recently redrawn boundaries meant to solidify an advantage for incumbents (and disenfranchise voters) fail across the country. I’ll tackle that whole thing in another post. For this bit, I will stick to the underlying reason I’ve refrained from taking the more commonly held stance against boundary manipulation for partisan gain; for me, there’s a both sides problem.

Wave it away by calling it partisanship, or identity politics, or “communities of interest”— whatever you choose, I dislike that a party finds itself so far removed from voters, based on geography, that they cannot reach them.

I have railed against the idea that a party should “not waste their resources” in particular areas of the province. I understand it, from a party-focused, seat-centric, return-on-investment-strictly-about-the-numbers point of view; it just doesn’t serve the public interest.

I don’t like the idea that a political party or leader would consider Edmonton or Calgary-Buffalo unreachable. I don’t like the idea that a political party or leader would write off rural as unattainable. I also don’t think that’s a failure of the voter.

That’s what I (perhaps optimistically) took from the “Blunami” on Tuesday; people can and will unite to overcome unfair obstacles.

I prefer that explanation to the alternative, which is that people can be persuaded to switch their votes if the corruption reaches such outrageous levels that voters can no longer ignore… because that is simply not a future I look forward to.

The New Democrats said last week that they were prepared to launch a legal challenge of the boundarysmithing if the UCP passed the legislation.

Raging on with the culture wars

The UCP introduced their latest virtue signal for a minority of their supporters, this time declaring that post-secondary institutions should “stay in their lane” and ensure a safe space for “unpopular opinion.”

I do honestly struggle with how often this government has introduced legislation that does nothing useful.

We already have a right to free expression in the Canadian Charter, and the Alberta Bill of Rights, and then-Premier Jason Kenney already legislated all public post-secondary institutions to adopt the Chicago Principles to triple down on it in 2019.

So, Danielle Smith quadrupling down on this is just kind of… meh?

Especially when her government has shut down debate in the Legislature more than any other in the past 30 years.

The issue I tend to bring up is what I perceive to be a distinction between an “unpopular opinion” that there is little evidence to support and an opinion that is backed by evidence but is politically unfavourable. Take support for carbon taxes, for example. Adding a price to emissions signals to producers and consumers that there is an advantage available in reducing them. That is a well-researched, economically sound way to highlight that some decisions cost more than others and incentivize innovation to reduce emissions.

It is an unpopular opinion to support carbon taxes as a way to decrease emissions.

That is not the same as having an opinion that is not popular because it is unsupported by rigorous debate and testing; just ask a government that prefers not to allow the debate to do exactly that.

The second kind of “unpopular opinion” is rarer not because those opinions are “cancelled” or otherwise muted, rather, it’s because post-secondary education offers the freedom to test those opinions. It provides the tools to examine them. Sometimes, it even has access to answers that have been tested and re-tested so many times that we accept them as most likely true.

“Unpopular opinions” that fail when tested don't become more credible simply because someone insists they deserve to be heard.

That’s just the way actual education works.

Fiscal responsibility be damned

In an alternate universe where UCP MLAs are in opposition, they've already pored over the governing party's expenses, dubbed it the “Bourbon Boondoggle,” and claimed “big government” is trying to tell hard-working Alberta entrepreneurs how to do their jobs. Meanwhile, Danielle Smith rises in the Legislature to snivel and shed a few crocodile tears over affordability while pretending to give a damn about “out-of-touch” politicians literally riding high on the taxpayer's dime.

Of course, our reality is very different today.

Minister of Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally enjoyed some top-notch “cab rides” billed at more than $3000 and $2500 respectively during a recent work trip to Kentucky. Turns out, the “taxi” expenses were research of high-end “booze cruises” that the Premier says her government might want to bring to Alberta.

Or is it “Nashville North?”

I’m starting to lose track of whether we’re a distinct culture or a southern knock-off.

The Premier says the Government of Alberta has strict rules on what can be claimed for local transportation costs and they’ll definitely look into whether more than $5000 is an acceptable expense for two “rides.”

I can still hear the sniffles from that alternate universe.

The UCP also announced (a cherry-picked summation of) the findings from their million-dollar investigation into why Calgary’s water infrastructure failed twice in the past 18 months.

“Do Albertans really want someone that ignored critical infrastructure to run their province?” Anonymous social media accounts are asking on the local hellsite.

Despite the UCP doing its level best to discredit the former mayor, the report makes clear that City Administration did not share the report, or invite Council’s opinion on it more than a decade ago. Further, it explicitly says there’s no evidence to suggest that council or the mayor willfully ignored the report, or actively dissuaded City Administration from addressing its recommendations.

Which is definitely not what the UCP spent yet another million dollars to hear.

Is there no one who is willing to slap these people out of it before they commit millions trying to make “fetch” happen?

Would they like a volunteer?

Fak.

Semi-final thoughts

I’m paying attention to how the last 30 days have affected certain circles. It was one thing to see such a low level of support for even “sending Ottawa a message” in the UCP’s separatist question, but quite another to see Republicans and MAGA suffer such significant defeats in the U.S. midterms. There is, I think, a lot of crossover between that movement and those in Alberta who felt empowered by it, believing their time had come.

I also think, perhaps optimistically, that some who felt they could “regroup and start anew” have come up against a second wall of reality and will be contending with what that loss means to them as well.

This absolutely could change their calculations of how to move forward, and also impact the strength of a movement that was, perhaps, not all that independent to begin with. I do hope to have something on that soon.

Final thoughts!

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What exactly is gerrymandering? It’s the government redrawing electoral boundaries to improve their chances of winning. Also, as I said last week, to reduce the risk of being held accountable by voters. As Dr. Jared Wesley added, there’s another word for it: “cheating.”

Last week on West of Centre, Kathleen Petty asked the Premier why she thought that Conservative support was dissipating in urban centres. Her response was nonsensical but the point is that she understands it is happening and has no interest in meeting urban voters where they are.

On September 22, I attended an event where she was asked what her plan was to win against the NDP in 2027. She said it was just a fact that people living in urban centres will “eventually vote Liberal and NDP.” That’s it. Nothing a political party can do about it; just poor Danielle swimming against the overwhelming tide of orange and red waves.

It’s not an argument I would make, especially when there’s far more evidence to support a more sensible alternative: Canadian Conservatives are even managing to alienate Conservative commentators with their maga-style constant division and weird culture war garbage. I cannot imagine a scenario in which regular voters aren’t tired of it, too.

Even Lorne Gunter found it necessary to bring up the Premier’s constant admiration for the worst of the U.S. administration. This weekend, at the Rebel Live event (which I discovered I could have watched online for free instead of attending in person for $99), the Premier brought up a new Government of Alberta program called TRACE. She then likened it to the great work of Elon Musk's DOGE.

Yes, the incredibly destructive deletion of programs and spending they knew nothing about, which barely hit the country’s expense lines but has managed to make life more difficult for people living and working there… has Danielle Smith all googly-eyed at the possibility of emulating it here.

Of course, if Danielle Smith is right, we have to account for the fact that Mr. Gunter lives in an urban centre and perhaps the surrounding progressivism has just finally overtaken him.

Obviously, I kid. Probably.

What’s really going on in the UCP influencer circles is different. They're shifting responsibility away from themselves—as a political party, elected officials, and supporters—and onto a political environment they can change without having to earn more votes.

They won in 2019 with the most votes ever cast for a single party. Four years later, they barely secured a majority under the same electoral boundaries.

The boundaries haven’t changed since 2019.

But UCP leadership did.

The “popular vote” argument

Electoral Boundary Commissions are particularly concerned with two things: population and ensuring “communities of interest” stay together. If you’re a UCP-appointed commission, apparently you’re more concerned with preserving seats in rural because it doesn’t matter if the population is dwindling; it’s a seat that matters to your electoral success.

The real lack in his argument comes from the omission of the fact that the narrow majority the UCP did get was intentional; Danielle Smith openly said she only needed a few seats in Calgary to win and she wasn’t worried about trying to get more voters into her camp.

She’s also reiterated that during the event on the 22nd; she doesn’t know what priorities exist for voters in Calgary-Buffalo and doesn’t, apparently, care to find out.

While the New Democrats might have access to a few more seats, it would be especially folly to ignore the “Cabinet Member Protection Plan” that has been put in place to secure that bare minimum requirement.

Distractions, distractions.

In 2019, Andrew Scheer’s Conservative Party of Canada won “the popular vote” but lost the election. It didn’t take a tonne of work to find out that Mr. Scheer had managed to increase support primarily in areas where the CPC was already popular. Voter turnout increased in places like Alberta and Saskatchewan—where those additional votes couldn't deliver additional seats in ridings the Conservatives already held—but either remained unchanged or decreased in seat-rich urban areas.

This is what Danielle Smith alluded to but, like, totally doesn’t get why.

I don’t like the “losing the popular vote” argument because earning a large number of additional votes in ridings you’ve already secured doesn’t entitle you to seats elsewhere.

Making it seem as though there are “losers” in this process we call democracy is missing the point, and privilege, of serving entirely.

A “level the playing field” argument

I’m old enough to remember when Conservatives were able to win any riding in this province and certainly didn’t need to come up with excuses for why they were at risk of losing.

To the New Democrats.

When the premier’s chief of staff jumps into the fray to defend Dear Leader, the scent of fresh popcorn seems to magically follow. Rob Anderson, who also authored the Free Alberta Strategy, threw many words into the void that is X in response to a column from Postmedia’s Don Braid on the UCP’s gerrymandering. The most interesting part was this:

Further, last election the NDP lost the popular vote by almost 10 percent and still almost ended up winning the most seats. So obviously they don’t want any change whatsoever that could level the playing field.

Rob Anderson, Chief of Staff to Danielle Smith, on X, October 28, 2026

It’s an incredible take, from a partisan Conservative staffer in a Conservative Premier’s Office.

In Alberta.

It is basically the same argument that the Premier herself is making: the UCP aren’t going to try and govern in a way that will encourage more people to vote for them, so, they have to engineer a way to make the support they do have more useful.

With that being said, the Premier and her party have a year to distance themselves from their separation question and the more than $100 million they wasted on it.

They have more time to try to make Albertans believe that cutting off one of the separatist hydra’s heads and saying '“okay but this time for realsies— no separatist takeover! Pinky swear!” Will be enough.

It might work, too.

After all, Danielle Smith managed to convince a bare majority of voters that she would lead a completely average right-of-centre party as government in the 2023 election. And she only had six months of denying she’d be a total chaos monkey at the helm that time.

That is, unless voters decide they want a more stable and responsible government.

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Do you have any idea how much I annoy people by being even remotely charitable to the United Conservative Party? On second thought, if anyone else does, it’s probably you.

I was worried that the New Democrats were going “chicken little” yesterday when I saw that they were gearing up for a court challenge against the UCP for gerrymandering the electoral map.

In my defence, I was very tired when I said that we don’t know for sure they are going to gerrymander the map.

That’s the other difference between me and opposition parties— I can be wrong sometimes without worrying that either I or my inability to read the tea leaves will become the story.

The thing is that I did give the UCP a little benefit of the doubt; just because they could do it, doesn’t mean even they would think they should.

We won’t get access to the map until it is tabled in the Legislature, currently scheduled for November 2. All we have to go on is what was said in committee and carving up areas where the UCP might have to fight for votes is, apparently, what’s coming.

That was, of course, before they lost a by-election and couldn’t pull majority support for Danielle Smith’s vision to do something other than govern Alberta with her $100 million boondoggle of a referendum.

The by-election in Calgary-Shaw was both a surprise and a warning.

The referendum results told the UCP, in no uncertain terms, that they were in trouble.

And what they have thus far decided to do with that information is find a way to force Albertans to elect them anyway.

Much like they did by obliterating the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose, it wasn’t about trying to earn the trust or support of Albertans, it was about relieving them of putting in the effort it would take to work for either.

Jason Kenney’s plan, quite plainly, was that if Albertans wanted to support a Conservative party, then they could only support one.

That it was supported by members encouraged to join both parties doesn’t make it more noble. I’m no longer in a charitable mood. In plain English, the purpose was to remove competition.

Danielle Smith took it one step further and made it illegal for any other party to call themselves “Conservative.”

And if that isn’t a glaring insult, I don’t know what is.

The Premier said it was so that voters wouldn’t be “confused” by seeing two parties with the name “Conservative” and not being smart enough to figure out which one they wanted to vote for.

Sure, Danielle, do you really believe that Albertans are so dumb that they’re just voting for whichever party claims to be conservative?

…

Anyway, the people Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith relied upon to secure their own success have been paying very close attention.

Double, double, toil and trouble

The Premier’s creepy forced cackling when Kathleen Petty asked if she relied upon separatists to win the UCP leadership aside, she absolutely relied upon separatists to make her leader.

It’s why she and the other two candidates (who had no hope of ever becoming UCP leader) went to the Alberta Prosperity Project’s debate, and four candidates who didn’t want to empower the separatists declined.

Yet, after burying their dreams of creating a distinct society filled with untold oil riches by actually calling the question, and then tapping out her own victory dance upon the grave, they’re not happy.

You know what? I don’t really blame them, either.

Don’t get me wrong; some of these people’s brains are entirely cooked. I’m fully cognizant of that fact. However, some of them had their brains cooked by people like Danielle Smith who saw an opportunity to play to their fears and insecurities and did it— for personal gain.

Those four long years ago, she made the Alberta Prosperity Project membership feel heard, valued and, above all, powerful. Dennis Modry and the APP were, she said, the “or else” that could bring Ottawa to its knees and force them to admit how wrong they were and always have been.

Something like that, anyway.

It isn’t rhetoric that plays to me personally but I’ve been in those rooms and it definitely plays there.

It’s why the separatists are currently working on their own plans to take over the UCP.

Not just because they’re angry, feel like they’ve been used, and taken advantage of, but because it’s so much easier to pull a Jason Kenney than having to collect signatures to start a party, or build a brand, or trust, or, you know, work to either meet people where they are or convince them to support something else.

Bootstraps be damned when power is within reach, amirite?

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

…a governing party that is confident in its ability to keep winning over voters doesn’t need to gerrymander ridings.

Though there are certainly some supporters who are fully behind this move, it may be not yet far enough removed from the feeling Albertans had in the lead up to the 2015 election that they were being taken advantage of by their government and couldn’t get rid of them.

Which is why, of all the things the UCP has done under Danielle Smith’s leadership that may have lost them some negligible support from those paying attention, the idea that the United Conservative Party may be intentionally making it harder for Albertans to hold them accountable could be a giant leap too far.

It also might blow up in their faces.

Women of ABpoli, “UCP caucus votes to allow UCP caucus to gerrymander electoral districts,” April 22, 2026

That the New Democrats promised they would launch a challenge to gerrymandered ridings is a good thing.

It’s good for Albertans and it’s good for Conservatives for exactly the reasons I outlined months ago: the democratic process allows us the opportunity to hold governments accountable.

The gerrymander has no purpose other than to make that one promise impossibility.

It is the United Conservative Party giving up.

They have nothing left other than brute force.

That isn’t “strong and free,” it’s weak and grasping.

The idea that this is where the party finds itself, where the leadership is— and I mean every one of them still supporting it— is disrespectful to every Albertan who put their faith in them.

It’s an abuse of power.

It’s a violation of trust.

It’s an affront to democracy.

And it’s up to us to stand against it.

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As a connoisseur of political narratives, I have just one piece of advice for the New Democrats if they pick this rock up again: skip the details.

Maybe verb a noun.

Definitely ask questions.

Now that the Premier’s 100 million-dollar distraction from the AHS scandal is complete, we can get back to focusing on actual government business. Or at least the allegations of fraud in their business dealings.

Did you know that the investigation into the alleged fraud at AHS also includes money laundering?

I have so many questions.

I can’t answer them.

And neither should the opposition.

When the AHS procurement scandal first broke, there were so many moving parts and actors; the AHS CEO, the Premier, the Health Minister, Justice Minister… and the list kept growing. Not to mention the many necessarily careful placements of the word “allegedly.”

And none of the allegations have been tested in court; more than 21 months later.

I get the urge to to keep people in the loop— I’m here, aren’t I?

That’s my job, though.

The Official Opposition has a much different job.

They don’t need to provide answers about what the government is doing— their job is to force the government to respond.

Ideally, their questions become questions that everyone is asking.

We don’t know what went on.

We weren’t there.

The Premier was, though.

“Where’s the money?”

That’s a good question.

When the Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait dropped the AHS scandal into our laps in February of 2025, the allegations of fraud, corruption, deceit, and a full-blown government cover up kept many of us on the edge of our seats.

For months.

There were millions of dollars missing. There was, allegedly, a bad guy. Or more. Maybe some bad girls, too. There were people on the inside. Some allegedly helped.

It was a who’s who of whodunits.

Allegedly, it went straight up to the Premier’s Office.

Allegedly, it went deep inside the Premier’s circle.

It certainly went back further than the day we found out.

I couldn’t possibly say what was discussed between a prospective government leader and a Senior Procurement Officer from AHS and a guy who was paid more than half a billion dollars by AHS procurement…

… to procure things.

Which is weird.

How does $49 million disappear? Why would it take more than a year to act? How does someone who allegedly makes $49 million disappear keep getting more contracts? That are also suspect.

And it’s weird that during her campaign for UCP leader, Danielle Smith had a 30-minute Zoom call with the guy who allegedly signed the paperwork for a $70 million procurement deal and the guy who allegedly walked off with $49 million after not procuring the product.

And isn’t that an odd place to have been four months before it all went down?

I’d say so.

I wouldn’t say anything else though.

Because I wasn’t there.

Danielle Smith was, though.

“Why is healthcare more expensive now?”

That’s another good question.

When Danielle Smith fired the first AHS board, AHS had a maximum they would pay for certain surgeries. It was around $4,000.

Under Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, one provider— that the AHS CEO was looking into before she was fired— was being paid $8,500.

They said they didn’t make the decisions. That was a different UCP Health Minister.

So they renewed the contract that the AHS CEO was investigating.

Then, just a few months ago, someone increased the amount Alberta Health pays for surgeries; to match what they were paying on the contract the former AHS CEO was investigating.

I wouldn’t be surprised if people missed that.

Most of us were starting to pay more attention to the Premier’s ridiculously expensive public opinion poll.

The one that changed the channel from talking about alleged corruption, and fraud, and a cover up that allegedly went all the way up to the Premier’s Office.

It allegedly went deep inside the Premier’s circle.

We don’t know.

We weren’t there.

The Premier was, though.

Lest we forget…

Sure, the Health Minister eventually admitted she knew about the AHS CEO’s suspicions.

The Premier initially denied knowing anything about it but eventually admitted she was also in the loop.

Even before the Health Minister’s Deputy fired the AHS CEO.

Even before the Premier’s Chief of Staff “retired.”

Which happened before the Premier and Health Minister got approval from Cabinet to fire the AHS board.

Allegedly, they misled Cabinet about why that needed to happen.

I wasn’t there.

Alberta Tory leader Pete Guthrie was, though.

UCP House Leader Joseph Schow was pretty mad that Cabinet confidence was broken, too.

Not because the Premier and Health Minister allegedly lied— not that kind of broken confidence. No, he was mad that the Hon. Pete Guthrie didn’t keep it a secret.

Obviously.

And there were those other firings, and the judge-led inquiry…

These aren’t things the opposition needs to repeat. There’s many people who remember the details. They don’t need to get bogged down in them again.

In fact, I really hope they don’t.

The Official Opposition has questions.

They shouldn’t have answers.

Or even have speculations.

If media asks them to expand, they should be pointing the press to the Premier. And the Health Minister. And Cabinet, apparently.

They all know more about this than we do.

We weren’t there.

Premier Danielle Smith was, though.

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Back to the West of Centre interview

The Premier said that she is taking the slim margins of support as “proceed with caution.” A website called thebattleforalberta.ca has colour-coded the questions into each riding, which makes it very easy to see where support existed and where it does not.

She said she thinks that “a lot of the problems” can be solved “by focusing our newcomer population on the jobs that are available because when somebody comes with a high-paying job, they probably don’t need to rely on social services…”

“If we can fix that part, then I think it will reduce some of the stress on our healthcare and education and other systems.”

Is she saying that there should be income cutoffs for healthcare and education? She has long been a proponent of paying for “better” services that are the same as the ones offered to the public, but inaccessible to those who couldn’t afford to pay.

She says she gave a presentation to a business council yesterday and asked them if they think costs for education and healthcare should be shouldered by the worker or by the business. She added that “they can’t expect the general taxpayer to shoulder it if they’re making the argument that this is something that’s going to be good for the general public.”

I can’t even follow the logic of that statement.

I’ll say again that perhaps this is why no other province has rock-bottom business tax rates. Because businesses taxes… help cover publicly-funded services… for their staff…

The Premier says that this would all be better if these workers could become permanent residents and long term taxpayers.

Someone moving to Alberta from Saskatchewan doesn’t have to commit to staying in Alberta and neither do permanent residents. They can move freely from province to province, working, accessing health and education, and leaving.

“If you’re only here temporarily, are you really entitled to the same programs as somebody who is a lifelong taxpayer?” She asked.

No one is forced to be a “lifelong taxpayer.” Not someone born here, not someone who moves here from Ontario, not someone who becomes a permanent resident.

And one more time for the people in the back, business taxes help fund public education (and private and charter and separate, too) and healthcare (privately delivered at new and improved higher fees!). If temporary workers cost the public system an extra billion dollars more than Danielle Smith believes she’s getting from the businesses themselves, she already has the levers to fix that. Because she’s the Premier.

She then pivots to talking about how we need more labourers. Oil sands projects, data centres, factories— these are jobs that will require more workers than we currently have (apparently). She said she doesn’t want “immigrants” being brought in to work as frontline fast food workers, she says. She wants them to “fill the high-skilled, high-paying, good career option jobs.”

I don’t know if you remember Question 1, but this is the opposite of what she asked Albertans to give her a mandate for.

"Do you support the government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?"

Are we decreasing immigration or desperately seeking more people to fill jobs? Our unemployment rate is still over 6 per cent.

“Our work that we need to do, for our Alberta work permit, is to say ‘these are the 30 key professions that we know we’re going to have shortages’ and it will have a couple of benefits. It will not only tell Alberta kids what programs they should go into, it’ll tell our fellow Canadians what jobs it is that we’re looking for, but it will also allow us to recruit internationally when we have to.”

Like, we can already recruit internationally.

And if anyone wants to know which jobs we’re looking to fill, the ALIS (Alberta Learning and Information Services) website also has a labour market forecast. That’s an Alberta government resource. It existed before she spent more than $100 million on a referendum.

Of course not everyone knows about this site. One of my 27 previous jobs was with the Learning Clicks Program where we went into classrooms and talked to students about career and education planning. We introduced this site to them every time. Another job I had was career coaching adults. Also used this site. I’m just saying that this information is already available and Danielle Smith didn’t need to go after temporary workers or blow almost as much as they supposedly pay in taxes over a full year on these questions.

But I digress.

Rural urban divide

On what the referendum questions say about where Danielle Smith and the UCP’s priorities are in relation to those of the two biggest cities, she responded that the jobs she’s talking about aren’t happening in those cities but in rural. Where she has more support for targeting temporary workers.

As if that’s somehow… better?

“I’d say it’s just not the same priority as it is maybe, because if it was a strong priority, they might have voted differently. In Calgary and Edmonton, I hear about traffic. Affordability. I hear about hospitals and kids in crowded classrooms,” she said.

“But when it comes to the boom and where the jobs are going to be, that’s the active conversation we’re having outside of Calgary and Edmonton, which doesn’t surprise me there was a stronger mandate.”

To restrict their access to healthcare and education?

What?

Kathleen Petty asked why she would put those questions to the two largest cities if she knew it wasn’t a priority. The Premier responds that it’s so she could talk to the Prime Minister about it.

“Section 95 says we have the right to co-manage immigration and every time I’ve approached the federal government to ask for co-management they’ve turned us down cold.”

So… she’s already been doing this? Then why did we have to… nevermind.

Apparently the Prime Minister said he’s open to having this discussion with her; whatever it’s about.

The Premier was then asked about something she said on another show, regarding a drop in Conservative support in the cities.

“I looked it up a little while ago and I think there’s something like 240 seats in urban centres and Conservatives only have 45. We’ve seen this across the country, a slow erosion or fast erosion of Conservative vote in our big cities and why is that? Well maybe it’s because Conservative parties do tend to talk about some of the resource development, farming issues. I think we talk a lot more about free enterprise, and faith, family, communities— like, there’s just different things we talk about that may have more resonance in rural Alberta but that doesn’t mean we can’t focus on the things that matter in the cities. And finding out exactly what those are in a way that allows for us to connect with voters and win seats, that’s sort of the purpose of an election.”

Aside from that stream of consciousness that began with a one and went to cabbage, it’s like she remembered that little trick of responding to a job interviewer with “weaknesses that are actually strengths.”

This is actually a fabulous demonstration of why I refused to interview politicians about anything substantial. Tell me more about this legislation or program? Sure. Tell me something meaningful? Why waste both our time?

Oh, look, a segue.

A party for separatists

How will Danielle Smith enforce her no separatist MLAs or board members in the UCP? Well, they just have to tell her they’ll respect the will of the people.

“If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to run for our party. You don’t have to put your name forward for the provincial board.”

She cackled overmuch when she was asked whether the separatists played a role in helping make her leader of the party. She said it wasn’t them— it was people who were really concerned about the COVID response. In the last five minutes or so, Jason Markusoff joins Kathleen to respond to the Premier’s comments and says she has to be aware of the throughline from anti-mandate to separatism.

But then… does she? I’m still trying to figure out what we can reasonably expect our Premier to be aware of when she somehow manages to be aware of so little.

She adds that her supporters were the ones trying to make U.S. culture wars a thing here. I paraphrase.

“The people supporting me were the ones who were concerned about some of the DEI ideology that was in classrooms. They were the ones who were concerned about young children being transgendered behind their parents backs. Those are the people who voted for me.”

Right. The ones trying to make far right conspiracies from the U.S. a thing here, too. I wish I could forget.

She brushed off the questions about Mitch Sylvestre and David Parker. She doesn’t say that she deferred to the Alberta Prosperity Project’s influence and allowed them to maintain it over her, but she very much did.

It’s possible that she actually believes she can break away from that influence she helped build because the separatist question was trounced.

She may be right— sort of.

Most of them have admitted they don’t want to start a new party and that they want to stay in the government one.

Shockingly enough.

Mitch Sylvestre said he’s not going to be responsible for breaking up the right and that the “progressives” can leave the UCP instead. Their Overton Window is way over on the shores of St. John, New Brunswick by now, so I don’t even know who he’s aiming that at.

In the last place you look

The Premier vowed to appeal the court ruling that said First Nations deserved consultation when their rights were being put to a vote. When asked if she would withdraw her appeal since the separatist question did not receive enough support, she said no.

“No, because the issue of the appeal is around whether or not citizens have a right to even do a petition campaign.”

Maybe the government could make it a law that Charter rights aren’t put to a random vote.

“That’s what we’re fighting is the right of citizens to be able to organize to be able to ask their government a policy question.”

“Policy question” or “unconstitutional question?” I can’t keep up with the spin.

When asked if, in light of her own sinking popularity, the multi-million dollar price tag, and the division, it was all worth it, Danielle Smith says it was absolutely worth it. She then says that “so many” people became separatists in April of 2025 because the Liberals were re-elected.

She said that the referendum provided certainty and closure.

“We now know that we have to work with Ottawa.”

Well.

Glad you finally figured that out, Premier; and only four years after being elected, too.

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Danielle Smith’s… wins?

The Premier sat down with Kathleen Petty for last week’s episode of West of Centre. It was… difficult. If you’re a person who understands logic and reasoning, or has any knowledge of what’s been going on for the past three and a half years, it’s not easy. I tried it twice. The first time because I couldn’t wait and the second because the first time informed me that I had to actually fact check it.

What follows is only the first three minutes. I will have to do a part two.

I want to remind readers (in case you’re new here) that I don’t expect everyone to know some of this stuff but I do expect the Premier of Alberta— who legitimately has the greatest nerd base (it’s a compliment) in the province at her beck and call— will. Not “should” or “could”— because she does— but “will.”

When she makes inexcusably bad decisions, I don’t blame the people who work for the GoA— I blame her for choosing to listen to a bunch of yahoos instead.

The first complaint I have is around data gathering.

Alberta’s electoral geopolitics are well known. We have a “three-legged stool” as Ralph Klein called it; Edmonton, Calgary, and rural Alberta.

When Danielle Smith was first elected, she said she wanted to prioritize rural voices. That was great for 33 percent of the population but not for the majority of Albertans. She was committed, however.

In 2025, Danielle Smith led the Alberta Next Panel by the nose around rural Alberta seeking input from rural Alberta on issues important to rural Alberta. Those engagement sessions “directly shaped” the 10 referendum questions that the Premier chose to spend over $100 million to put to all Albertans.

Here’s where the data gathering matters.

A representative sample is achieved by asking for input from people who might be representative of the population. Being that rural Alberta represents a third of the population, no one who is seeking a representative sample of Albertans would spend 80 per cent of their time in a third of the province.

From those engagement sessions— eight in rural Alberta, one in west Edmonton, and one other in south Calgary— the Premier inferred that she had a majority level of support for the questions she was going to put forward in a referendum. They included five questions on restricting taxpayers from public services based solely on their immigration status, and some constitutional questions that would allow her to “fight Ottawa” instead of doing her job.

The constitutional questions failed, while the second-class citizen questions received low levels of support— with none above 50 per cent in either Calgary or Edmonton— and Albertans from both urban and rural overwhelmingly rejected holding a binding referendum on separation.

The Premier publicly adopted the position of staying in Canada long after House Leader Joseph Schow belittled the opposition New Democrats as being “the only ones talking about separation,” while his party brass and membership were actively campaigning on it.

Like, it was true, but not for good reason.

The Alberta Next panel brought together a broad mix of leaders, experts, and community voices to gather input, discuss solutions, and provide feedback to the Alberta government on how Alberta can better protect its interests, defend its economy, and assert its place in Confederation.

The panel asked the big questions shaping our future, from our relationship with Ottawa to bold proposals like collecting our own personal income taxes, reforming equalization, and even amending the Constitution.

Government of Alberta; last updated June 4, 2026

The results of the referendum, with low margins of support on the questions that did pass, and low but equally notable failures on the others, are exactly what you would expect from skewing your data gathering in the first place.

The Premier says she took the results as “proceed with caution” because what she expected would be big wins (since she didn’t collect a representative sample) were not. The margins of support were dismal. So were the losses.

All it proved is that Danielle Smith didn’t know what she was doing. On purpose.

In a completely unexpected twist, the Premier said that the questions about denying health and education access from temporary workers was somehow about getting the federal government to approve permanent residency faster.

I suppose I need to point out that is not anything close to what the questions were asking.

And the fact that they didn’t bring up faster approval for permanent residency makes me give the Premier even more side-eye.

Why didn’t she just say that’s what she wanted to do?

I imagine it would have looked less like taking away access and more like: “do you support the Alberta government getting more immigrants on the path to citizenship?”

It seems like a simple enough question to ask.

And the fact that she is now saying that’s what she meant is suspect AF.

It’s an insult to rural, urban, and businesses.

And I hate that I had to hear it twice.

She said “everybody’s telling me these are really are important, but are they?” No. Because it wasn’t “everybody,” let alone a representative sample that would have cost us a fraction of what you spent to find out in an opinion poll, you absolute twit.

I do recall that I hadn’t started swearing excessively until well after the three-minute mark. I will go back to it after I’ve had a much-needed sleep in my own bed after looking after G-babies for the past four days.

Separatists say they aren’t leaving the UCP

And why would they? Because Danielle said so? As I wrote earlier this week (and over the past three and a half years), Danielle Smith says a lot of things. With the cushion of time only decreasing before the next election, the narrative has to change lest she cough cough PP herself.

Now that’s one hell of a double entendre only some of us fully get.

As Jason Kenney said, it’s not like the party can grill every single member about their political views.

However, those who are more widely recognized are easy pickings. Unfortunately for the UCP, they are also people who have either proven, purchased, or even both, a high level of organizational capacity.

Suddenly, the person who took credit for ousting Jason Kenney as UCP leader through legitimate party processes is worth a passing interest once again— and it doesn’t matter if the party publicly takes away their memberships.

The separatists had a year to build their lists, and fundraise, and who knows if they downloaded the voter’s lists when they had the chance. Or had it was printed and bound as party favours.

I’m not saying they don’t need Danielle Smith.

I’m simply saying that they can get rid of her whenever they choose.

That threat will remain.

Albertans will have to decide whether they’re willing to risk their, and the economy’s, future now that the separatists have their foothold in the UCP.

The worst game of Guess Who ever

Mitch Sylvestre, formerly (???) the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project and current Constituency Association President of the UCP in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, told CTV just before the referendum that he wouldn’t accept any result that showed less than 40 per cent support for holding a binding separation referendum. He said it was because (polling has consistently shown that) just over half of United Conservative Party supporters also support separation.

With my usual mathing caveat, if the UCP has around 50 per cent support in Alberta, and if just over half of the people who support the UCP also support separation, then support for separation would be somewhere around 25 per cent. Division and all.

To me, the math worked out perfectly. Half the UCP equals 25 per cent and that’s what the support for a binding referendum received in Danielle Smith’s referendum.

This is also why I said that they can get rid of the more well-known members without managing to dent support for separation within the party generally; because no one knows who they are.

I heard Tanya Clemens speak at the We Unify event. She said that she’d been traveling around and assisting Keith Wilson with his “Let Alberta Decide” campaign. Then I saw that she’s apparently a board member with the Alberta Prosperity Project, too. She supports separation. She also supports the UCP.

Chris Scott, owner of the Whistle Stop cafe who rose to Facebook/X fame after refusing to follow public health closure orders during COVID, and was the headliner for “Let’s Talk Alberta” (a “we should be able to have a civil conversation about infringing on the Charter rights of Canadians” road show), is also an APP board member. He supports separating because he doesn’t see any reason to be part of a country that doesn’t vote like he wants to. He’s running for a board position with the UCP at their AGM in November.

Kathy Flett, former Chief Financial Officer for WEXIT Canada (I can’t even make that up), and CFO for the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta, and who has been a regular voice for independence, is challenging the UCP nomination in Sherwood Park.

I only know these names because I went out of my way to go into their spaces.

I don’t know the names of every person in the room who was there to listen to Mitch Sylvestre on his separation tour of Alberta, or who donated to Let Alberta Decide or Let’s Talk Alberta, or who was in the rooms where Kathy Flett was speaking; and neither does the UCP.

Even if the people I could pick out of a lineup were no longer allowed to be active members, that doesn’t account for the other 24.99995 per cent of voters (and half of the UCP base) who support the same goal.

Final thoughts

A solid 6.

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Unsurprisingly, Albertans voted overwhelmingly to stay in Canada. As counting continues through Wednesday, the numbers are holding fairly steady around 75-25 in favour.

It’s probably fair to say that, for many Albertans, they can leave this ridiculousness behind them and get back to their lives. It’s equally fair to say that while a clear majority may be feeling relief today, the separatist problem is not going away— not for Albertans, not for Danielle Smith, and most certainly not for the United Conservative Party.

Separatist sentiment has existed for decades, it has been encouraged with political rhetoric that benefits elected officials in Alberta so long as they can blame a Liberal government in Ottawa— separatists just didn’t have a mainstream political party in their back pocket before now.

Danielle Smith has declared there will not be another separation referendum while she is premier. If only we’d known that’s what we were supposed to ask the first time. She also said that her government had to follow the law when separatists got the signatures after she lowered the number they were required to reach.

She said her government would not allow opposing questions to be asked. Then she changed the law to accommodate both a stay in Canada option and another referendum on separation option.

Danielle Smith says lots of things.

On the other nine questions, the result is not as definitive. While a 50+1 per cent margin is all that was needed to adopt or reject the Premier’s (non-binding) offerings, the current margins are not resoundingly in favour of or against like Question 10; instead, they’re mostly coin tosses.

Thus far, the expected results from someone else’s model I’m using suggest that Albertans are not resoundingly in favour of any of them, with a low 50 per cent approval or rejection. However, the second strongest victory after Question 10 was awarded to proving citizenship in order to vote— which has already been in the works for more than a year.

Un-fun fact: if you search for “UCP passes law requiring proof of citizenship to vote” in order to reference the Bill that signed it into law, the “Save America Act” pops up, too. Colour me eye-rollingly shocked.

Question five asked whether proof of citizenship should be required in order to vote. It was the one question that referenced a law the UCP already passed in 2025 under Bill 10 Red Tape Reduction Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), and implemented three months ago on July 2, 2026; citizenship markers on government-issued ID.

As of publishing, it is looking like her offer to spend more time and attention away from the issues genuinely affecting Albertans in favour of continuing to whinge about the constitutional questions may also be rejected.

As if I needed something punchier, the Premier stated that she will now take up the constitutional question from Alberta’s last referendum, in support of equalization reform.

Just remember, when we don’t turn our clocks back in a couple of weeks, that we also voted “no” to remaining on DST.

Non-binding, yadda yadda.

Referendumb hangover

I was one of the early “no to the nine” proponents because I read the questions and thought they should have been an election platform. I also read the questions and realized they were a push-poll, which manipulates the question to obtain a particular answer. In their case, it was more like shoving as many questions into one in order to elicit agreement with at least one, and give the government a better probability of getting support.

No one knows what the government’s plan is because they didn’t have to tell us.

She said she wanted Alberta’s population to reach 10 million. She said obviously that would include skilled people from other countries. She championed the “Alberta is Calling” campaign. Good thing there was a Trudeau in office then, too, right?

I don’t know how she’s going to restrict people from moving to Alberta. I don’t know what an “Alberta Approved Immigration Program” is. And I don’t know how she plans to force companies to hire Albertans first instead of the best person for the job. Sounds like an Alberta DEI program, to me.

Danielle Smith claimed she was bringing back meritocracy.

Standard caveat applies: she says things.

The results come with more than a price tag

While many Albertans probably felt some relief that the latest hundred plus million dollar boondoggle was over, long-time independence supporters like Cory Morgan are looking at this result as a baseline. He thinks it might be wise to just ride Danielle Smith’s coattails to an election win before they make another move, too.

Easy peasy.

Not only did they end up with a lower percentage than they were hoping for, it looks to be a lower percentage than they might have had before Danielle Smith added a separation question to her referendum at all.

There were also conflicting accounts of what the Premier was doing for her part. UCP President Rob Smith (no relation) claimed the Premier (and leader of the party) told him that she would only campaign against the nine questions. The Premier told the public that was not true and that she would campaign against the separation question.

I saw the Premier’s speech three separate times. The first was in September, after the loss in Calgary-Shaw at a Constituency Association Event, then again at the True North Nation event, and a third time at the Canada Strong and Free Network Conference (on CPAC). For her campaign, the Premier mostly limited herself to Conservative events, including one small gathering in Red Deer with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Monte Solberg, a former Cabinet Minister who launched the Conservative initiative “Vote to Stay.”

Support for separation is almost entirely concentrated in Conservative circles, with a slight majority found amongst UCP supporters. Almost as if the people specifically targeted by anti-Ottawa and anti-Liberal Conservative political rhetoric are more likely to believe it. They’re not all wallowing in their “legitimate grievances,” to be sure, but far too many are.

She knows much of her party supports separation and we’ve had the polling in glaring neon lights for the past 18 months to back it up, too. Rumours suggest she even picked up the WEXIT party’s membership list and campaigned for their support to make her UCP leader in 2022. This tidbit would be right up there with the number of times I haven’t been shocked today.

I’ll tell you something that did raise an eyebrow though— hearing that Danielle Smith suddenly decided she didn’t need them anymore. Well, that was what she said for the non-members, anyway.

To the membership, she said she totally gets why they would vote for separation but now is the time to focus on winning the next election and she hopes they’ll stay in the party because the big bad NDP-Liberal-bogeyman might come after their children!

As snarky as that sounds, she actually said that.

However, she doesn’t really have to worry about losing the separatists; they’ve promised they aren’t going anywhere.

There’s legitimately no benefit to giving up their leverage in the UCP when they’ve already seen what Albertans think of the goal. Besides, they weren’t just welcomed into the UCP— some say they were invited.

Now the only thing left for her to do is convince Albertans that they aren’t risking their own future by voting for her party again.

After all, she said things.

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Oh, the places I have gone.

It’s one thing to go out of my way to see what’s happening and try to learn about why people think a certain way. I think I’ve solidified my own understanding that I can handle, quite easily, ordinary political disagreements. I don’t have a problem going to Conservative, Liberal, or NDP events. I typically enjoy detailed, in-d…

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Advance Polls are Open!

The countdown to rid ourselves of this daily frustration that is an impending province-wide vote on whether to stay in Canada or start the process of making life more difficult for everyone— courtesy of Premier Danielle Smith— is finally in the single digits.

I voted on the first day, October 13, and posted about the experience with a simple “Stay in Canada. No to the Nine.”

Of course it triggered separatist supporters.

Their echo chambers and safe spaces have been telling them no one is voting to stay. Apparently, some have convinced themselves that because I voted… they don’t get to? If I’m entirely charitable, maybe they meant that my not supporting a full-on, economy-destroying, victimhood-laden, separation referendum meant they wouldn’t have the opportunity to vote in one.

Dry your tears.

Remember that Danielle Smith is challenging the court ruling that said she couldn’t just use a citizen-led petition as authority to push a separation referendum on Albertans without actually doing her job.

Out of one side of her mouth, she hasn’t entirely given up on the separatist cause just yet.

Speaking of which; what’s in store for the UCP?

Like the SUN’s Rick Bell, I was also in attendance for Danielle Smith’s remarks at the True North Nation event in Calgary on Saturday.

I didn’t write about it because it didn’t give me anything to write about. It was a typical Danielle Smith speech where she said the NDP was bad and asked people to support her in continuing to do things they don’t like since things are going swimmingly under this new Prime Minister.

She claimed she would vote to remain and also offered up a reminder that a new leader can pivot and deliver what voters want, like Prime Minister Mark Carney. She also said that if a party can elect a leader who can do a 180, it means they could also reverse course.

Just like a provincial party leader.

She didn’t add that last part. After her speech, a few others around me did, though.

The Premier said that she hopes everyone will decide to stay in the tent lest an NDP government get elected.

Out of the other side of her mouth, she has said that there will not be another separation referendum while she is Premier.

Some people around me weren’t thrilled with the idea of waiting 15 or 20 years, like Quebec, until they can do this again. One admitted he’d probably be dead by then because, as with the majority of other events I’ve attended like this, the room skewed retiree age.

At the same time, they offered, the idea of maintaining unity just to re-elect the UCP didn’t seem like a real path forward either, when the alternative might give them an opportunity to build a real independence movement. Again, time is getting short for some of them.

The younger (than picking out their retirement village) of those among them suggested a better idea is to continue building their numbers within the UCP so that the premier will have no choice but to do what they want.

Whether that’s Danielle Smith or someone else who is jockeying for the position (*cough* Keith Wilson) is really the only thing up for debate.

They already had the majority of the small number of people who will purchase a membership in a political party and show up to be counted.

Even before the Premier gave them a solid year to organize, fundraise, and collect (or purchase) voter data, they were already a majority of the passengers in the vehicle that is carting around the United Conservative Party.

The easiest thing to do would be to let Danielle Smith carry them through another general election where she can make all the promises that she leads a moderately eccentric conservative party and then replace her when they only need a fraction of the votes to elect someone else who isn’t restricted by “promises” they made to win a general.

Easy peasy.

Edmonton Mayor Knack considers taking Premier Mayor to court

If UCP supporters in rural Alberta who are currently fighting their municipal councillors over data centres needed a reminder, Danielle Smith will infringe upon municipal authority whenever she chooses.

Any old time she chooses.

UCP supporters in the largest cities have been blessed to receive the UCP’s intervention when it comes to speed cameras, bike lanes, public transit, noise bylaws, and now, infills.

Municipal elections were held just over a year ago, during which anti-infill candidates were not elected.

The Premier held a press conference on someone’s front lawn last week to tell council they will repeal municipal bylaws regarding infills after they hold a sham of a public hearing.

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack told the Edmonton Journal that the Premier’s directive (which has yet to be released in legislation) puts council in conflict with the Municipal Government Act no matter what they do next.

“As per provincial rules under the MGA, I am required to go into a public hearing with an open mind,” he said. “They are issuing a directive that says how I have to vote. If I don’t follow the directive, I’m in violation of the directive. If I do follow the directive, I’ve gone in without an open mind. That would again put me in violation of the MGA.”

“Either way, every member of council will be in conflict of interest. If they have a desired outcome, they should just do it. I don’t think they’re following the law and I think we need to actually take this to the courts.”

Eric Bowling, Edmonton Journal, October 13, 2026

You would think that a level of government that has basically curated their entire personality around rejecting interference from another level of government would “get it.”

Then again, you’d think that voters who had to endure governments they didn’t like wouldn’t be so keen to allow interference when they do like the one in power; lest that same attitude be mirrored by one they don’t.

In my ideal world, people would think about that even a fraction of how much I do (no matter which party they support).

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful

As my family filled the house this weekend, I was thankful. As I almost tripped over one of the now-mobile twins, and my eldest grandbaby who is barely much bigger, I was thankful (for them and that I neither stepped on them nor fell on my face).

And as the government of Alberta ad for their referendum appeared during the football game, I was thankful that I knew their questions were garbage.

I am thankful this referendum is almost over and for the slight reprieve we may be able to enjoy afterwards— no matter how short-lived.

Above all, though, I was thankful that Canadians elected a Prime Minister who has never thought our country was “broken.”

I’m thankful that he is working with the most incompetent Premier in the country and addressing the concerns she said she had. I’m thankful that he earned her respect not with slogans or gotcha moments or because he has the same colour banner that she does (and she said at the True North thing that she will still vote for the guy polling at 30 per cent anyway), but because he’s doing his level best to listen and respond to her concerns while trying to keep our country in the black.

Too many of our political class hails from Ontario, arriving so angry at being the odd ones out that they had to come to Alberta to get high on the grievance fumes.

Then there’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, an Albertan who’s proud of what our province gave him. Be they memories or opportunities, we have an amazing legacy that I think we should be more thankful for, too.

We can’t ignore the walking, talking prairie oysters today but most of us grew up without knowing any of them. Probably because they didn’t live here yet.

I’m very thankful that I live in Canada but I am proud to call Alberta my home.

Final thoughts

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Even though her Ministers accepted box seats with him for Edmonton Oilers playoff games and she also had him in the skybox in Vancouver that she was received as a “gift” from his accountant who was also working at Alberta Innovates?

Now that I think of it, didn’t she also say that she meets with people who do business with the government all the time? Funny.

Then we found out that her Chief of Staff lived at a house owned by his sister and a bunch of his nephews worked for the Alberta government?

And then we found out her Justice Minister was like bffs with that guy and also related to him through marriage.

And then it turned out that during her leadership run, she had a Zoom call with both the senior procurement officer from AHS and the guy who would allegedly scam $50 million from AHS just a few months later?

I remember.

It’s a small, small world

Jeff Rath, a local lawyer, separatist “leader” and United Conservative Party member has been bragging for the better part of a year that he was attending meetings with U.S. Administration officials in the states.

He even stood up at last year’s UCP AGM and called Premier and party leader Danielle Smith a sell-out for signing an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Prime Minister Mark Carney on the west coast pipeline.

“We did that to send a message to Danielle Smith, and to send a message to this Cabinet that their party is an independence party,” separation activist Jeffrey Rath told James Dunn from Edmonton’s City News.

“Their party wants a free and independent Alberta and they better start leading like we’re going to become a free and independent country because that’s what their members demand.”

Women of ABpoli; November 30, 2025

He’s not just a UCP member, or a separatist “leader.”

Mr. Rath is also a lawyer for the Alberta Prosperity Project.

The current CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project is UCP Constituency Association President for Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, Mitch Sylvestre.

Dr. Dennis Modry, co-founder and former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, claims he was also in attendance at the meetings where water, royalties, and resource access was offered to U.S. officials in exchange for money and assistance with the separatist movement. Dr. Modry was also the former policy director for the WEXIT provincial party.

Speaking of which, the former CFO of the WEXIT provincial party (and federal party for that matter), Kathy Flett, is challenging the UCP nomination in Sherwood Park. As a political party, they decided not to run any candidates in 2019 because they didn’t want to risk splitting the vote (not a thing) with the UCP.

Pfft. Saving face before they collectively fell on it more likely.

Moving on.

I also remember that during the leadership race, a small handful of UCP leadership hopefuls— Danielle Smith, Todd Loewen, and Brian Jean— starred in a debate just for the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP). Rebel news potentially still has the link to the event (search results) but the APP has removed it from their site.

Rajan Sawhney, Leela Aheer, Rebecca Schulz and Travis Toews all declined to attend.

Now you might look at all of that and say— okay, so obviously she knows who these people are and sees them at social events, but it’s not like she’s really “affiliated with” them.

That’s fair. However, I have to wonder if she isn’t really “affiliated with” them in the same way she wasn’t really “affiliated with” the guy who allegedly scammed $50 million from AHS and kept getting more and more contracts from her Health ministry anyway.

Because when I read that statement from her press secretary, I was reminded of another time that this incestuous little group popped up in Danielle Smith’s decision-making.

You may recall that before the election in 2023, Artur Pawlowski (facing charges for his role in the Coutts border blockade of 2022) leaked audio of a phone call he had with Premier Danielle Smith where she claimed she was trying every week to interfere in the administration of justice on his and others’ behalf.

But did you recall that the phone call itself was “hosted and arranged by Dr. Dennis Modry” by chance?

Smaller and smaller.

I have questions

She’s been swimming in this swamp before she even managed to get elected and we only know some of the things she’s been doing behind Albertan’s backs.

She claimed she didn’t know the AHS scammer but once allegations arose, she and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange did everything they could to shut them down, including allegedly firing the AHS CEO, Athana Mentzelopolous, as well as the AHS Board (and other staff) who had recommended the evidence be handed over to the RCMP. The alleged scam artist even continued to get more government procurement funds in the form of long-term leases for addictions centres under Recovery Alberta (an AHS carve out).

All to end up with a story about Danielle Smith meeting with them before she even became premier.

If Premier and UCP leader Danielle Smith’s separatist story follows the same trajectory, what would we find?

That she changed the Citizen-led Initiative Act legislation four times just to help them along?

That she’s been helping them in other ways too?

I mean, who among us hasn’t wondered how a bunch of nobodies from Alberta ended up getting meetings with officials from the U.S. Administration in the first place?

Nobodies who have the gall to offer up access to things only the Alberta government can offer?

It’s pretty weird that all of that is just floating around Danielle Smith and she hasn’t even “heard about them,” don’t you think?

I mean, this is the same Premier who snarked at Pete Guthrie in the Alberta Legislature about ordering a tomahawk steak while he was at an Oilers game; a detail that was dropped on a podcast allegedly funded by the guy who allegedly scammed AHS out of $50 million and still keeps getting procurement deals from her government.

That she heard about, but members of her party who run a separatist organization— that she uses as an example of why she has to cater to them or they’ll leave her party and she won’t get to be Premier anymore— meeting with U.S. officials and bragging about it for a year escaped her attention.

Sure, Danielle.

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Oh where to begin? Even having 24 hours between me and that event feels less than optimal.

If Saturday’s agenda of the We Unify conference was dedicated to separatists, Sunday was offered up to the deep state. There’s overlap, to be sure, and it’s surely not coincidence that it’s threaded by religion. Conspiracy world is a truly dizzying space that is propped up and propelled by a shallow but consistent feedback loop that is accepted as the norm rather than the outlier.

Someone asked how I can sit in these spaces and not be “turned” by them. I responded that little of it is actually “new” to me. As I noted in the first article, I’ve heard these stories before and I know them well enough to also know what’s missing when I hear them again. I’m also contrarian by nature. When I hear something new, I’m motivated to look into it, while being discerning of my sources. Then there’s the logic brain which necessarily balks at “two plus two equals fish.” Even if I could control for the former, I have no control over the latter.

Which is not to say that I’m immune; I’m sure I could be turned by an extremely well-designed argument for which no more reasonable explanation or conclusion existed.

However, much of the fervor around separation and even “freedom” stems from adding everything they don’t like together to get “fish”.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect

Education made its way onto the stage early, with a parental version followed by those who were, or at least more recently were, students. Home-schooling was applauded often and public education was denigrated generally. It was extra special to hear the college drop out from the U.S. offer his “insight”. I’ve seen the conversations people have been recording with some of the dumbest people on the beach, sidewalk, or at a Trump rally in the U.S., too; there are definitely some major problems out there.

What I consistently marvel at is how most of them were so certain that being cut off from learning about people or things they disagreed with somehow gave them a better opportunity to think critically about the same things.

As a person who spent 14 or so hours in the room listening to it, it’s certainly given me something to ponder.

Anecdotes of how others aren’t learning critical thinking in school were punctuated at times with how no one gets a participation ribbon in the real world. From people who were shielded from participating in a “real world” where they might disagree with something themselves. There were calls for parents to get more involved in their child’s education, which I don’t necessarily disagree with to a point. Parents should know what their children are being taught. Talk to your kids and find out. But I want to draw the line at them forcing their views on my kids’ education. Not because I inherently trust government, but because I put more weight on the expertise of people who have spent their careers studying education than I do on the individual preferences of whichever parent is loudest.

The college drop out insisted that education was “too feminine” and relied overmuch on memorization instead of critical thinking. Most agreed that there was too much emphasis on “what to think,” especially in elementary school, over learning “how” to think. Another suggested that there wasn’t enough diversity of thought coming out of the school system yet, somehow, they all managed to find a way to disagree with everything they’d been taught enough to get an invite.

The more recent students also thought everyone around them (outside of this event, obviously) was in a worse state than themselves. Some recognized that they benefitted from parents who treated them like autonomous beings and engaged them in discussions about the world around them. Some blamed the previous generation for handing their children off to the public school system with the belief that government would make everything all better.

I bring my own bias to this topic.

I was educated in Alberta’s K-12 system and so were my children. I know that Alberta’s standards have been exceptionally high and Alberta students have met and exceeded them consistently. They didn’t belabour the point about parents giving their children the confidence to disagree with their fellow students, or a teacher, despite flirting with it a bit.

To circle back to the reason we were all there, it couldn’t possibly be the government’s fault if it’s a parental responsibility, though, could it?

“Science” pffft

Considering I have the logic brain, it does suggest that I should have enjoyed science more. I like math. Or, more precisely, math problems in word form, and algebra, and statistics, but I’m not a fan of science. In a way, I could blame the crap science teacher we had in junior high who could easily be persuaded to go off on health food and exercize instead of teaching us science, or my fellow students who would all have a go at getting him off topic for the entire class, but it wasn’t my thing at all and I blame no one. I was, however, woefully unprepared for the introduction of a new science teacher in grade nine who expected us to use the scientific method. Meh, I learned.

What I’ve always been willing to admit, however, is that I don’t know jack about science. Yes, I could memorize life cycles of frogs and I was able to use linguistics to deduce things I didn’t know about bio-chem to figure enough out to pass, but it all boils down to I know little to nothing about the topic.

There were no speakers representing what one would deem “the scientific community.” There was an MD who raised the alarm about COVID vaccines. He didn’t say that his town burned down because of his findings but his town did burn down eight days after he went public, so.

Another speaker wanted everyone to know that raw milk is fine. A farmer said that if you know your farmer, you can guarantee you get the unvaccinated meat and eggs. He added that he was home-schooled and his four children were home-schooled. Not by him but by his wife. He offered that probably means they probably home-schooled themselves. I think he meant it as a joke at his wife’s expense?

There was a former Ottawa Police Service detective who noticed that deaths in children under the age of 5 had tripled. After she brought it to her sargeant’s attention, she was suspended. And accused of accessing records, including coroner’s reports for personal reasons. She helped solve a cold case once though, so. She received a demotion, the union urged her to take a plea, which she refused. She now has representation by a lawyer who was also a speaker.

The lawyer wants the province to convene a tribunal to take away the licences of those who advocated for the vaccine because “millions” have been injured. The Allison Inquiry demonstrated just how badly some have been injured and no one is admitting fault, they said. Though I do recall that the Canadian government set up a website where people could report issues with the vaccines and potentially receive compensation if they were injured. Almost as if every vaccine comes with potential risks and the Government of Canada acknowledged that risk when they set up the website to report said outcomes.

I’m not sure why it’s a thing to suggest that no one acknowledged risk; I can only surmise that it sounds worse that way.

Much like a Trudeau in government, though, COVID has also become a catch-all for everything that went wrong. Just the feds, of course, even though health is provincial jurisdiction.

They are careful not to let that slip, mind you, because it would mean admitting that not everything is the fault of the federal government.

The “entertainment” was a woman who blames not getting vaccinated for her career not taking off. I heard her sing. My ear says her vaccination status was and remains entirely unrelated to the particular outcome.

Then there was the guy who has always said he was arrested for defying public health orders, which he was, but described it the third time he spoke as being “in the drunk tank for three days,” and I have questions.

Then there was the anti-transwomen crusader who is in the midst of a human rights tribunal that is set to hear final arguments in December. Some people I’ve truly heard enough of and from.

However…

I have been quite taken with Benoit Trudeau’s contributions each time I’ve heard him speak and his debate with Derek Fildebrandt was no exception. It probably needs to be reiterated that he is neither a separatist nor have I heard him lay blame at the foot of COVID mandates for all of his problems.

He does have an, in my opinion, slightly unhealthy interest in getting back at/even with Ottawa, but I suppose that’s the minimum requirement.

In the same way that I have some initial support for Drew Barnes’ plan to start an Alberta bloc, I also support Ben Trudeau’s assertion that Alberta can behave more sovereign if it chooses to. I support each of these as options to try before one moves to “I’ve tried nothing and therefore separation is the answer.”

Back in the 1960’s, the federal government offered provinces the option of taking over some federal responsibilities like building hospitals. Quebec was the only province to do so. As a result, they see a slight decrease in federal taxes but the province collects the same in order to pay for them.

Mr. Trudeau said that he was extremely disappointed that Alberta’s government would take such a great democratic tool and use it to confuse and conflate every question. He said the only question that meets the requirements of the Clarity Act is Option 1 of Question 10.

Mr. Fildebrandt agreed, saying that while he was a proponent of direct democracy, he felt that referenda should be used to overturn bad laws, not waste his time telling the government he supports them in doing their job (immigration questions) or supports them in whining about things they cannot do (constitutional questions).

I also fully admit that while Mr. Trudeau makes the most sense, what he’s talking about is a hard— if not impossible— sell to the people he’s speaking to. They’re on the same page with “taking more control” but differ exponentially at meeting the challenge.

Mr. Fildebrandt threw some shade at former Premiers Ralph Klein and Jason Kenney, as well as current Premier Danielle Smith for not moving on implementing ideas from the Firewall Letter without acknowledging the thing that stops every Premier in Alberta from acting: responsibility.

They don’t want to recreate the wheel of federal services because they’d have to ask Albertans to pay for it. They don’t want to take on the responsibility because Alberta voters might not let them get away with blaming the federal government.

It would poke a lot of holes in “the Alberta Advantage” and also leave Conservatives without someone else to point the finger at.

And really, how un-Albertan would that be?

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I signed up for an event I’d never heard of before last month called “We Unify.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it? There was a ridiculously long list of speakers, many of whom were billed as “Conservative influencers” and I didn’t know most of them.

Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be a separatist event. Yet…

I’ll admit I did not do much research on it. For some reason, I thought it might be related to regular old politics. Alas; I was mistaken.

After being thrown for a loop by this unexpected twist— and annoying one person (on purpose; sorry Josh, it had to go somewhere), almost giving some guy from B.C. who consumes way too much FOX “news” an aneurysm, and telling a volunteer/speaker off with the help of a random gentleman from Ontario (who was there for a wedding) I happened to be sitting with at the time— I gave up any pretense of “blending in.”

Not that I was probably making much headway since I chose to wear my little Canada flag lapel pin.

I did clean house on free swag, however. You know it has to be top of the line when they’re giving away piles of DVD’s and books for free. For now, they will just have to remain in the little blue bag of future sadness while I deal with this.

The stories we tell

I took a class on the sociology of narrative when I was in university. In one of my proudest moments as a student, I absolutely scandalized the professor by taking on the narrative of “Reefer Madness.” My argument was somewhere along the lines of how that entire campaign (which was also a way to target Mexican immigrants) probably did the exact opposite of what it was meant to because it dialed up the fear-factor to 11 and didn’t deliver. To me, if you’re going to try and claim that weed will make the kids go mad, and then they try it and don’t come anywhere close to having that response, they won’t trust another word you say.

We all have a narrative; for our lives, our experiences, and our relationships. Some of those might be very true but some of them might be what we’d rather tell ourselves and others. It’s entirely human (and psychological).

Sometimes, though, the narrative is a tool.

Someone once told me that one of the reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses are sent out into the community is because they will typically encounter people who don’t embrace them or their faith. They said it’s a tool to reinforce the safety of the congregation and the church. The narrative is that they can count on the warmth and acceptance of those who share their faith.

Separatists have adopted the latter.

They tell a lot of stories about finding nothing but hate and friction in the outside world. Everyone in the room is “open” because they’re “willing to listen” or “able to engage the conversation with civility,” while everyone who disagrees with them screams “vile things” and wishes them dead.

For the most part, I think the audience was receptive to it and were also told to go out and have these conversations with their family and neighbours who had a “Forever Canadian” sign.

Of course; because what might happen is they get shut down or frozen out and come running back to the welcoming arms of the people who expected them to be met with hostility in the first place. See above.

Eva Chipiuk, a Convoy lawyer and separatist sympathizer in her own right, told a story about how Nellie McClung didn’t take “no” (you’re not worthy of “person” status) for an answer. Somehow, this was meant to be equated with taking away the rights of people who work here temporarily to access healthcare, but pay taxes, and stripping some of us of the right to remain in Canada because someone else doesn’t want to.

I’d been thinking about an actual equivalency and I was able to use it today. In response to a question about why I would vote to stay, I said that my ancestors chose Canada and I wanted to come back to Canada when I was living outside the country. I added that the entire argument is silly; it’s like me saying I don’t want to live in Saskatchewan but also that no one else should be able to, either.

Of course that makes no sense.

I bet there were Quebeckers making the same argument right up until their referendum as well. Not the Saskatchewan part, probably, but it would work equally well. Sorry, Saskatchewan; fix your roads. There’s not an immediate “oh, I’m obviously in B.C. now” feeling like there is when we cross into Saskatchewan. SHOULDERS ARE GOOD.

I digress.

There were other stories as well, like “separation is just an administrative change— no biggie!” Or “we need to be able to elect the people who will make decisions.” I’m sitting there thinking “I voted Liberal. I did— at least help— elect the people who will make decisions.”

I didn’t have the chance to ask anyone today, but I did ask at the last event, “how small are you willing to make your world until everyone agrees with you?” Like, sure, provincial separation today but what about tomorrow? Split the province in half? Put up some Berlin-esque walls in small towns and cities? How small does the space need to be to fit you?

Erm, know your audience

I was obviously the fish out of water here, but when the Brit who is part of the corporation suing the U.S. govt over tariffs (and also briefed Danielle Smith before she went to Mar-a-Lago), and the Aussie/Papua New Guinean who “drove all night from Colorado” and the previously disqualified UCP candidate (Nadine Wellwood) took the stage, it was really getting a bit much.

However, my interest was piqued when they (all of them) stepped in it; with data centres.

Data centres are not popular in rural Alberta. Something about them needing excess fresh water has, for some reason that seems to be difficult for some people to understand, set the farmers and ranchers off.

To the moderator’s credit, when people in the audience responded “no” multiple times, she decided to go back to it.

They all doubled-down.

Then the one guy is like “and they should get more government subsidies!” As if he thought he was on a roll.

The gentleman who I’d shared a table with since arriving hours ago finally decided to ask if I was the official note-taker for the event because I’d been typing all day. I pretty much do it to keep from banging my head against the table, but, anyway, I informed him I was keeping notes for myself.

I hadn’t intended to start a conversation as he’d whooped more than once to things I’d not found either whoop-worthy nor passingly interesting. He told me that he was an American who has been living in Canada for 25 years. I had more questions, but then the next speakers were ready to go.

I will find him tomorrow and hope that the single beer he had purchased isn’t the reason he finally decided to chat.

Because, yes, there’s another seven hours of something tomorrow, too.

Some conversations might be worth having

For the “think about this a bit” side, Ben Trudeau made another appearance, and I was introduced to Bill Jones and Michael Binnion. They all urged Albertans to take control of things they could before they tried to take the leap towards separatism or true independence.

Mr. Jones described it as being offered an artist’s rendering of a new house but when you get there, it’s just an empty lot full of stumps and mud. Sure, it looks nice in the drawing— the blueprints are exciting— but the reality is that it has to be built and they haven’t given us a price point yet, or a timeline.

Mr. Trudeau again stressed that Alberta should be doing all the things it can do to demonstrate that it could govern itself.

Mr. Binnion said that Ottawa responds to those that demonstrate they can govern themselves.

These are people talking about our future, not our past. This is a conversation I am completely willing to engage in— even if the goals are different. This is a debate worth having because we can do something about it.

I’ve followed and forgotten (figuratively) the painful past that few people today have actually lived. It’s gone. What else do you have to offer?

And then there's the problem of all those things that are equally part of “Alberta culture” but entirely incongruent with separation. We want low taxes. We don’t actually want to pay more to do all of the things the federal government currently provides us with our tax dollars.

That’s why it fizzled out under Ralph Klein; it would have meant raising taxes to recreate the very services we already get from the federal government.

In case you’ve never met more than a few Albertans, they don’t want to pay more for things they already get. It’s a thing.

And from there… I still can’t see a there, there.

Of all the speakers, Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Jones and Mr. Binnion actually spoke about our province’s future, but also about “strength.” The rest of the speakers were still down in the dumps over things that happened 116 years ago, or 70 years ago.

I’m sorry that happened and all, but could you join us in today-land by chance?

We cannot change the past, but we have no better hope of changing the future either if we’re unwilling to leave yesterday behind.

I’ll be back tomorrow evening with… more.

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Thankfully, yet another Liberal government understands that some projects are, in fact, a “national priority”

There is only one thing I like more than talking about politics and that’s being right.

I LOOOOOOVE being right.

In fact, I stake my reputation on it every time I hit the “publish” button.

Part of that, of course, is being able to dance around with the receipts of ridiculously partisan takes that aged like a glass of milk in your teenager’s bedroom during a heat wave.

I kid— they probably left it propped up in the photo album rack to ensure you wouldn’t stumble upon it until the fall cleaning blitz. But I digress.

That’s right, the oldie but goody from then-Employment Minister Jason Kenney in 2014 when he said that pipeline projects were “strategically important” but “no particular project is a national priority.”

If anyone is keeping track, that’s two more pipeline projects that were specified as national priorities to the CPC’s zero. Totally coincidentally, that’s how many more pipelines they’ll probably build under the “no more pipelines law” than the CPC managed without one, too.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Alberta on Thursday to announce that the TMX twin has been given national priority status.

And from Jason Kenney’s response, you’d think it was his idea.

Interesting times indeed.

Six months ago, the UCP would have won an election; today, they might not even get majority support for their referendum

How unpopular are the United Conservatives in Alberta today? So unpopular that Danielle Smith is doing living-room coffee parties and member’s only events.

So unpopular, that the only UCP MLA trying to get headlines is the guy who adopted the cadence of a seventh-grade drama student who cannot discern pitch. Seriously; it’s like listening to a record on a wobbly turntable at 0.25 speed.

Their newfound unpopularity isn’t even just in urban centres, where they desperately need to hold onto the few seats they have, but in the midsize and small towns that dot our glorious prairies.

It’s not just the fact that they pulled the switcheroo from “principled conservative” party to a sham of a “big tent” separatist party, it’s that they spent time and money “consulting” on petty grievances that have no real impact on the daily lives of people in rural and unilaterally greenlit competition for a resource farms and ranchers in Alberta cannot make a living without: water.

And I’m not even talking about the allegations of un-funny business in the Water Not Coal petition verification process.

One would think that if anyone knows the UCP base in rural Alberta, it would be the UCP but, apparently, one would be wrong.

Almost as if the culture wars the UCP has been droning on about since Danielle Smith was elected were a distraction from things that actually matter to voters.

CBC has been out traversing the prairies, as have I, and they’re reporting the same things I’m seeing: federalist signs far outnumber separatist ones and farmers and ranchers don’t give a damn about the UCP’s newfound money tree if it might have a negative impact on their livelihoods.

Like many items that get approvals faster in the U.S., data centres have a history… and they don’t convey anything close to confidence.

In areas where data centres have been up and running, the draw on local power grids have been excessive and they don’t have enough access to fresh water to quench the thirst of their inanimate being-hood.

When the pushback was brought up by a resident near Indus at the town hall I attended in Strathmore on the 22nd, the Premier shifted the blame to town council.

“The (councils) that have gone to their communities first are the ones that are going to be successful,” the Premier said.

As if the UCP hasn’t stepped in to force councils to do what they want councils to do for the last four years.

“I don’t know about you, but I like low taxes and these data centres are going to provide municipalities with $40 million per year,” Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Chantal de Jong chimed in.

The Premier added that data centres would also be paying $250 million to connect to the grid.

Water was not addressed.

Now, we all know the stereotype about environmentalists that some people like to trot out; they’re latte-sipping, avocado-toast eating Liberals who don’t understand how we make money in this province. As Premier, Jason Kenney was just as handsy with the public purse as his successor, and shelled out more than $3 million to find out that environmental conservationists aren’t the bogeymen they like to point at.

I could have told him that for much less just from my time with my local paper.

“We struggle with foreign-funded environmental forces against projects necessary on a national scale but here, locally, to be credible, we must demonstrate we know how to protect our own lands,” Clark said.

What I couldn’t add then but we know now is that those local advocates were not successful in their attempt to further protect the river valley.

I don’t want to be a Negative Nelly, but I expect the same treatment to befall data centre opposition today, as it did the Rosebud Valley advocates, just as it did the Water Not Coal advocates.

Soft-launching the next election

Why start from a position of strength when you can announce you’re going to be the UCP candidate less than a month after failing to win a by-election in what should have been a slam dunk riding?

There is a generationally tried and tested narrative arc for Conservatives to win in Alberta, however: “if you’re a ‘true Conservative’ we’re your only option.”

Except.. people are really unhappy with the leadership of the UCP. They’re also not happy with the MLAs who stood by the poor leadership as it screws them over.

So, as much as I’m ever-so-sure that the local MLA’s were happy to stand with Danielle Smith and announce they would be the UCP candidate in their riding, I can only assume they are hanging out in their local circle jerk of a Facebook group and basking in the, uh, glowing support they are receiving there.

The Premier is worried about support. The Premier acknowledged voters are unhappy. The same Premier who wants to be seen as omnipotent was flailing around in her flaccidity.

I’m not entirely sure how the town hall with Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Justin Wright actually went (because I wasn’t there), but the town hall in Strathmore felt like a shotgun wedding where the officiant just needed to get through the things they had to say as fast as possible.

I engage on a daily basis, so, I could keep up with the rapidly-delivered list of “accomplishments” and also compare the outcomes, but I wondered more than once if everyone in the room could do the same, let alone follow along. The room was mostly silent as she hurried through her pre-written list.

For the Q and A portion, the Premier denied that making drugs more expensive for Alberta seniors was the “intent” of her government’s Bill 11. I already covered the data centre question. A couple of attendees addressed the “winning an election” elephant in the room. One said that she’s a newcomer to Canada and works with more than a few others like herself. She said there’s a perception among her colleagues that the UCP doesn’t support immigrants.

The Premier blamed living in urban centres rather than acknowledging her anti-business, anti-worker, and anti-immigrant referendum questions might play a role.

She may not be thinking about it but voters are.

A person in Brooks asked me during my recent tour in rural, “what are the options (outside of the UCP)? The (former Mayor) wrecked Calgary and can’t be given a chance to do it to the province.”

I offered him the Tories and he accepted it with a curt nod.

It was one of those rare moments where I was in complete agreement with the Premier, who said in Strathmore a week earlier that she was just really hoping that Conservatives (who are upset with what the UCP is doing) don’t stay home on election day.

Optimistically, Premier, I think that if they know they will be given an option to vote for someone they aren’t expressly angry at, voters might just show up in droves.

Win/win, amirite?

Final thoughts

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I was going to vote “no to the nine” anyway.

Before I even took the time to digest the questions, I was voting “no”.

Not because— as my aunt suggested— I have “Danielle Smith Derangement Syndrome,” but because this should have been an election.

My favourite thing to do (which is also the thing that keeps me from succumbing to DSDS) is ask myself if Conservatives in Alberta would think it was fine if the NDP decided to ask for a new mandate without calling an election.

If the NDP was spending $130 million because they wanted a “mandate from Albertans,” without doing what every governing party should do if they want a mandate— that’s “call an election,” Lauretta— I don’t think Conservative Albertans would be thrilled.

Sit with it, though, and get back to me if I’ve got that all wrong.

I was initially calling it a “freebie” where the governing party could run a campaign with public funds and, if people don’t support the options, could just be like, “welp, guess it’s not popular; no harm, no foul!”

Except… it’s costing almost three times more than a general election and some of these questions unfairly target an incredibly small percentage of the population who can neither vote nor have democratic representation.

Certain Conservatives still refer to a saying that was super popular in the 18th century: “no taxation without representation.”

Yet, it’s exactly what this government is proposing for people who legitimately come here to work on our farms, in hospitals and senior’s centres, meat plants, and yes, our retail sectors.

Intended consequences

What’s worse is that by putting these questions to Albertans, the UCP is just looking for another scapegoat. The Premier will absolutely shrug off accountability and say “Albertans wanted us to target temporary workers and businesses who hire them.”

The obvious problem with forcing additional costs on businesses who hire temporary foreign workers is that they will push those costs onto consumers if they can; I’m not sure what the farms will do with it as they mostly sell at global commodity prices. But do we really need meat getting more expensive? Or our healthcare costs going up again?

I could pay more for my large double-double once a month without feeling the pinch, and I’m sure people who hire nannies aren’t going to balk at an extra $1900 per year, but do you know who can’t afford to absorb the costs? Seniors.

Healthcare aides, housekeepers, and kitchen staff from the Philippines are incredibly popular in both the long-term care facility and senior’s lodge in my town. If those businesses have to start paying additional costs for their employees, who do you suppose is actually going to pay for it? The people on fixed incomes.

Almost as if they know how this works, the governing party has floated an “Alberta-approved immigrant status” to exempt certain businesses from paying the additional fees for their employees.

According to the host at one of the separatist events I went to, some UCP MLA’s are saying they have no idea what the “Alberta-approved immigrant status” means or what the legislation would look like.

I believe that to a point; the leadership in the governing party seems unconcerned with the impact of their haphazardly written legislation. Just look at how many times they had to amend their Citizen-led initiative legislation to help the separatists even get their petition started. They don’t seem to think about consequences overmuch.

I do think about consequences, though, and the only benefit to this so-called “Alberta-approved immigration status” I can see is for the political party. Not “the governing party” per se, but the political party itself, whose leadership rewards friends and donors with heaps of public funds.

If we can afford to cover access to public services for “Alberta-approved” workers, then it’s not really about the cost, is it?

Targeting people here to help us… doesn’t help “us”

Today’s OpEd in the Calgary Herald by Yedlin & Parry should be required reading for every voter.

Alberta has been striving to diversify our economy since Peter Lougheed. We are finally seeing progress; yet we are seriously thinking of blowing it all up by erecting new obstacles in the form of this referendum - including all 10 questions.

A diversifying economy needs two things: talented labour from around the world, and foreign capital investment. We don’t have enough of either here at home to realize all of the current opportunities. And there is plenty of competition for those two assets from other jurisdictions. People and money have choices.

As angry as I frequently get at Ottawa (especially the Trudeaus - both of them), it just isn’t worth tanking our economy by closing doors and creating turmoil just when diversification is actually happening. Put the gun away before we shoot our collective feet.

Former PC volunteer and advocate

The Yedlin & Parry article is titled “Province could score big with global investment; or self sabotage.”

Again, it doesn’t make sense to even float this from a provincial opportunities standpoint, or even a cost standpoint. What does the business community hear? Alberta will be more expensive to run your business if you can’t hire locally.

Even if I try to be charitable about their motivations, if the province isn’t bringing in enough money to cover public services for a small number of people working here who might use them, the Premier is highlighting another problem entirely: maybe having the lowest corporate tax rates in the country isn’t working out.

The narrative usually goes to some form of “low taxes support investment” or “taxes on profit are unfair to businesses.” And, sure, if you believe that corporate taxes don’t support things like roads and infrastructure businesses rely on, or education to get the staff they need, or healthcare to keep their staff healthy and productive, then I guess that’s a reasonable argument.

However, they do, and it’s not.

Most economists will say that it’s not about having the lowest taxes, it’s about finding the sweet spot where taxation levels are not a deterrent to investment but also still manage to cover the costs associated with them. Their employees, wherever they came from, benefit from the same access to high quality public services. If their business taxes are too low to cover $1900/year for some of their employee’s healthcare access, or $10,000/year for a few students (who they would have to sponsor to move to Canada, by the way), the problem seems to be the province’s corporate taxation structure.

Not that this government would admit it.

The United Church in High River, Danielle Smith’s old stomping grounds in her Wildrose days, came up with a decent message: does this strengthen our community?

How does it strengthen a community to refuse to educate the children who live there? How does it strengthen a community to punish local businesses and employers for hiring people to do jobs that Canadians aren’t rushing to do themselves?

When people say they want jobs to go to locals first, they mean the good ones— not the ones who have to empty bedpans and cut other people’s toenails, or spend their day around recently skinned animals. I hear people saying that our youth could be working at Tim Horton’s or McDonald’s yet three out of my five didn’t want to work in fast food and never applied. The fourth applied to one and got hired elsewhere.

If those businesses can’t get staff, they don’t stay open.

Getting Kenney’d

As Ken Boessenkool pointed out on the Rob Breakenridge Show, politicians usually try to find wedge issues for their competition; not themselves. He also reiterates his previous argument that Danielle Smith is not conservative and with her separatist-lite platform, should have been disqualified from running for the leadership in the first place.

Have I mentioned lately that I hate political parties and think they should be banished from existence? Just add that to the list of how they are not accountable to the public and keep providing reasons for me to dislike them.

As if to underscore Mr. Boessenkool’s point, too many of the UCP’s referendum questions take aim at traditionally conservative support.

Businesses? Check.

Patriotic Canadians? Check.

Newcomers to Canada? Check.

“Fiscal responsibility” conservatives? Check.

All to placate the separatists in her party who are also unhappy because they didn’t get what they wanted, either.

One of the spokespeople for the separatist cause, Jeffrey Rath, is calling on separatists vote “no” to the constitutional questions because they’re just separatist-lite, too.

In a recent poll by Ipsos, the “meritocracy” argument reared its head in response to the suggestion that Albertans should be prioritized for jobs.

Albertans who think this is a distraction are mad. Albertans who wanted to separate are mad. Albertans who never wanted to separate are mad. Albertans who can think of better ways to spend $130 million dollars are mad. Albertans who don’t think the government should be spending $130 million dollars are mad.

You see the common thread, I’m sure.

That’s what getting Kenney’d looks like. In an effort to appease a small group of people who have unrealistic expectations, they manage to piss everyone off, including the people who were led to believe that what they wanted was even possible. With Jason Kenney it was an end to restrictions on public gatherings during a pandemic. With Danielle Smith it was promising a separation referendum.

Same audience. Same attempt to cajole them along. Same outcome of hitting a wall of reality. For Premier Kenney it was hospitals bursting at the seams. For Danielle Smith it was the law. Reality doesn’t care about your feelings.

Overcoming the rurban divide

From the loss of the Calgary-Shaw by-election, to the Premier’s— and with that, the UCP’s— potentially growing unpopularity, I think it is even more likely they will now attempt to gerrymander the electoral boundary map in their favour.

With all of the other chaos the Alberta government is creating, we haven’t talked as much about the ace up their sleeve to keep them in power without having to win over voters. One woman I spoke to recently was surprised that they were going to do that “again.” After the by-election result, it was almost guaranteed.

At a town hall last week in Strathmore, the Premier tried out some messaging on the topic. Her riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat, she noted, was rural with a “chunk” of the city and she claimed that it was good because it allowed her the opportunity to represent both rural and urban.

“That’s how it should be,” she said.

In response to a question about the by-election result, she said “that’s how it is all across Canada, people urban centres will eventually vote Liberal and NDP.”

Not that Conservative parties are alienating voters with their culture war crap and constant victimhood, but that being in an urban centre long enough will turn people into progressives— even in Alberta.

It had a real “the bogeyman will get ya” feel to it.

She offered that it’s still possible for the UCP to win in cities, because conservative voters have the same values, but that their priorities can be a bit different and the party messaging will have to reflect that difference.

“I’m not saying we would try to win Calgary-Buffalo,” she laughed. “I don’t even know what we’d have to say to try.”

It is certainly easier not to spend any time wondering why they’d be so against voting Conservative, at least.

Timing is everything

To have done as much work as they did to get a separatism question in front of Albertans in this political climate is beyond obtuse. That alone is probably souring Albertans on the rest of her questions, too.

It’s ironic.

Not only did the UCP not require a referendum to do any of the things the Premier says she wants “a mandate” for, but I not only think they would have probably eked out enough support without the separation question, I’m quite certain they only threw the rest of the questions together in an attempt to provide some political cover for putting the separatist question forward.

At this point, support for the questions they could have won support on is actually dropping, according to Janet Brown’s latest for the CBC’s Road Ahead series, and 49 per cent of respondents said they were unsure how they were going to vote on the other nine.

Those numbers, just over three weeks away from E-Day on October 19, is a terrible place for the Premier and the UCP to be with Albertans, but the numbers are actually worse within their own party.

It perhaps explains why none of them are out campaigning for it— they don’t want it to stick to them a year out from the election.

Even with the separatists campaigning to “send Ottawa a message,” Ottawa is not on the ballot. The Liberals are nowhere on the ballot.

This referendum is entirely Danielle Smith and the UCP and these numbers suggest that they are not even flirting with majority support in their own party right now.

Frankly, I hope every elected official is mulling over their choices, too.

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When is it okay to talk about a woman’s appearance? There are magazines (I think) and websites and Instagram accounts dedicated to it. When you’re in the public eye, it’s going to happen. In politics, I prefer to think of it less about “appearance” and more about “image;” appearance is just working with what you have but an image is curated.

Those aiming for, or in, higher offices all do it. Stephen Harper tried out “Steve” early in his political career. There’s a story about the work that went into the choice of the blue sweater for an ad after he was Prime Minister. Pierre Poilievre traded in his collared shirt for tight tees and lost the glasses (because no one who wears glasses has ever been elected Prime Minister). Related to appearance, maybe, but the purpose is building an image.

Considering I spent the weekend watching Preston Manning’s umpteenth attempt at a comeback tour, I was initially going to pass on watching a separatist vlog. However, it was shared by someone who wouldn’t normally share that type of content and I was up extra early, so, I had time.

I got a few laughs out of it because he began with “normally I wouldn’t talk about a woman’s appearance” and then went all in. “You know where I’m going with this,” he offered, and in all honesty, I didn’t have the slightest clue.

He was talking about Danielle Smith’s “appearance” but he went so much further than that. This vlog, by a person who may actually have some clout in the separatist circles, was not intending to be mean, per se, but it was savage. Not to Danielle Smith the person but to the image of Danielle Smith, Premier.

Which, in this case, is far worse for her.

“A strong, Conservative, woman”

Over the past ten years, conservatives have started pushing back against feminism. It appeared to be in response (and effectively opposition) to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s embrace of it (or at least his curated image of doing so). At the UCP’s inaugural convention in 2018, Rona Ambrose led a panel of women in a discussion about women in politics.

Heather Forsyth called the idea of barriers to women in politics “socialist crap.” In defence of that “socialist crap,” women weren’t even considered actual people who could vie for a seat as a Member of Parliament until 1929, and there’s not a lot of work/life balance for politicians, and there’s the issue of who typically gets parachuted into a riding that has a better likelihood of winning, so, yeah, people are still curious about barriers that have existed for women.

The bit in the Alberta Legislature over the past few years has been to take every criticism from the Official Opposition as an attack on the gender of the people in charge of the Ministry they’re critiquing. If they’re women. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

The first time I saw UCP House Leader Joseph Schow stand up to defend the Premier as “a strong, Conservative, woman” it struck my funny bone because I immediately thought how laughable it would be for him to accuse the Opposition of unfairly picking on “a strong, Conservative, man.”

However, it was not entirely about defending the gender of UCP ministers and the Premier (even though they only did it for the women), nor was it entirely about weaponizing feminism against critique from “the left” (which I definitely think it was)— it was also about the image they were trying to project.

For the most part, I wouldn’t even say it was wrong-headed.

From what I’ve seen and heard, voters generally accepted and agreed with that image of the Premier.

Yet, those who I’d argue were targeted with Danielle Smith’s attempt to elicit support of her big feelings at the Alberta West Assembly, were not moved in the way she intended.

They think she’s broken.

“She’s not okay.”

This particular separatist wasn’t abrasive, arrogant, nor trying to be unkind, but neither was he fazed by her depiction of a person who cares ever so much that she almost shed a tear while talking about federal environmental policy.

He showed a couple clips of her, saying she looked “gaunt,” “tired,” and “haggard.”

He then compared it with a clip of her and Prime Minister Carney at the MOU signing (where she looked like she was having a pretty good time, frankly) and saw that as evidence she must have been under duress.

Hey, I’m not saying he’s nailing this analysis— I laughed out loud more than once watching this thing— but I’m not his target audience. I have absolutely no sympathy for the fact that Danielle Smith has painted herself into a corner because it has real consequences for me and my fellow Canadians who live in Alberta.

For his audience though, which I presume is fully separatist and separatist-leaning Danielle Smith supporters, he’s creating a narrative; and it is not a good one.

With the caveat that he is “not a psychiatrist,” he said he “doesn’t know what’s going on with her,” but she looks like “she needs help.”

“I think it’s just too much for her.”

OUCH.

Personally, I guffawed my way through her performance but I figured it would be taken as evidence of how deeply she cares about oil and the (almost) overwhelming empathy she has since they’ve had to tough it out with record production and profits since the “jobless recovery” after the 2014 oil price downturn.

Apparently, I was mistaken.

In this person’s eyes (and perhaps a few of the 35,000 plus views from those tuning in as of Tuesday morning), she’s not handling herself well.

He questioned her emotional and mental state.

He offered sympathy for what he identified as weakness.

He suggested she needs to step back and take some time for herself because it’s obviously beyond her capacity to continue.

I critique a lot of things about Danielle Smith— decisions, language, inability to see past her nose, political gambles… I could go on— but her image was, I thought, pretty solid.

Then again, I’m not the audience they were trying to convince.

The audience was Danielle Smith supporters.

The audience was Alberta conservatives, and UCP supporters, and separatists, and separatist-leaning UCP supporters; and they didn’t see someone play acting her way through emotions… they saw a woman breaking under the pressure.

From his perception, and the comments on his channel, instead of being moved by it more than a few of them are, apparently, ready to sign a “get well soon” card and send her on her way.

The leopards have picked up the scent of weakness in the UCP.

Again.

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I spent my weekend watching Preston Manning’s Alberta West Assembly online. It was, I presume, a group of people who are in Preston Manning’s rolodex from western Canada (and a few people they recommended) all gathered to offer their thoughts and ask questions of people Preston Manning wants to hear talk about separatism. He also invited Stephen Carter to be the lone voice saying “absolutely not”.

Danielle Smith was there on the first day, offering sentiments out of both sides of her mouth, which is why somewhere around 90 per cent of Albertans don’t believe her. Separatists and Danielle Smith supporters believe she’s voting to stay because she said she would.

Albertans who are neither separatists nor Danielle Smith supporters believe she’s not going to vote to stay in Canada because of her actions; changing and amending the law at least four times to help them get their question in front of Albertans, and then offering a referendum question about having another referendum when the courts said she couldn’t just forego Indigenous consultation.

Some, like me, think that if you need a new mandate from Albertans, you should hold an election and run on the things you want a new mandate for rather than hiding behind a citizen’s initiative referendum that only happened because of your efforts to help them along.

Yet, here we are— facing a cost of $130 million for a referendum, unprecedented pressure on our elections staff, allegations of interference in the process (again), and the general feeling that we shouldn’t have to be dealing with this bullshit at all when no voter was told this was what Danielle Smith and her limp AF caucus would do if they were elected.

And Preston Manning is out here trying to relive the glory days of Reform.

There’s an audience for it, to be sure, but that’s more of a testament to how deep our triggers are in this province.

If I didn’t know that Preston Manning wrote an “apology” opinion piece for “his role” in Danielle Smith’s 2014 floor crossing, or that Danielle Smith had played a major role in the Manning Centre’s events since, or that she appointed Preston Manning to chair the COVID inquiry panel (and paid him $300k to do it), I might not think Mr. Manning offered her yet another opportunity to try and convince Albertans that she’s totes on the ‘stay’ side. However; I do.

Not because I’m not being charitable but because I can’t look at the history and convince myself otherwise (let alone you). I also remember how, from 2015-2019, the Alberta government and federal government tried to help out of work oil and gas employees go back to school for a trade. Conservatives mocked and derided that program and then went all sad face after forming government in 2019 when Alberta really needed more qualified tradespeople.

Political rhetoric has so many consequences.

We’re living them.

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First off, congratulations to the NDP’s Kyle Campbell and thanks to everyone who put their name on the ballot. The people who show up make all the difference in our democratic system.

Now... onto the rest.

Oh the humanity. And the takes.

Good thing I don’t mind crowded spaces.

“The polls were wrong!”

“It’s the Tory Party’s fault for splitting the vote!”

“Where did all the late votes comes from?!”

“This is because of immigration!”

“It’s Danielle’s fault for cozying up to Carney!”

“It’s Danielle’s fault for running a separatist!”

“It’s because of the separatist referendum!”

Woof.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Don’t blame the polls

I learned during the General Election in 2025 that pollsters don’t poll at the riding level. None of them do.

The only way to get that data would be door-to-door and the costs would be astronomical with few people willing to pay. Also, it would take local knowledge to even get a good sample; some neighbourhoods lean one way and if they over-sampled that one, it would skew the results. It’s also difficult to get an accurate sample when the outcome looks like it could be close; it’s like all the proof you need that every vote does count. In order to get an accurate count, one would have to ask every house and hope they were willing to not just be honest but also rely on them showing up to vote (and fewer than 65 per cent usually do).

All that is to say it would be a lot of work with little opportunity to be able to predict the outcome with more accuracy.

What pollsters like 338 do instead is look at whatever provincial polling they do have, perhaps considering any trends, as well as the data from the previous election (which is solid because it’s voter turnout and how those people voted— the “only poll that matters” and all that), and try to make as educated a guess as possible how that riding will turn out.

With so many unknowns— the biggest being actual turnout— a riding-level prediction is, at its very best, only ever an educated guesstimate.

Vote splitting does not exist

People who think the Tory Party took votes away from the UCP, or the Liberals took votes from the NDP, are wishing that those voters would show up and support the party they like instead. That’s cool.

A better question (and conversation, in my opinion) is “why didn’t they?”

Danielle Smith made it illegal for another political party in Alberta to put the word “conservative” in their name. She says it’s because it would be “confusing” but in my experience, no one is anywhere near as confused about anything as the Premier of Alberta. And I’m just basing on that how often she claims others are confused about something almost no one is confused about.

No one is seriously saying that those who voted Tory were “confused” about their options.

And here’s the thing— those who showed up and voted Tory could have voted UCP.

It was an option on the same ballot they received when they voted Tory. Those voters, and the ones who voted Liberal, and the ones who voted NDP, and the ones who voted for the independent candidate, chose not to.

They may as well blame those who voted NDP for not voting UCP.

Oh wait… that actually happened, too.

Jason Kenney’s theory when he merged the PCs and Wildrose was that it would be easier to remove the competition rather than doing the hard work to actually prove to voters that they are the better choice they claim to be.

Today, he chose a different tack.

Folks planning to vote “to send a message” by starting the separation process: please take note of the NDP’s win tonight in the most conservative part of urban Canada.

A vote to separate is a vote to help the NDP win the next provincial election, and for the Liberal Party of Canada to win far more Alberta seats.

Supporting separatism:

- Splits the conservative movement

- Pushes many patriotic conservative voters to support the Liberals and NDP

That’s not how to make Alberta stronger, but weaker and more divided.

Jason Kenney on X, September 15, 2026

I guess kudos for not blaming the Tories?

The partisanship is still mind-numbing. If having a “natural governing party” isn’t great for a country, it’s no better for a province (even if you’re okay with it because it helps your side). Every elected official should be scared to do things they weren’t elected to do because they might lose their seat.

They should also take the hint and leave gracefully afterwards.

I don’t care what banner they fly or what identity they choose for themselves; when an elected official isn’t afraid of being held accountable, that’s a very bad thing— for all of us.

Grasping at straws

A couple of Conservative “influencers” started steering the train to crazy town. One attempted to cast doubt on the outcome because of the “large batch of votes” added before polls had finished reporting. That large batch was advanced votes, which, just like individual polling stations, had to be counted all together, and the count is released only after it was complete.

43 per cent of the total ballots cast in the by-election were cast in advance polls. Just like individual polls on election day, it’s poll-by-poll as it’s completed, they don’t release the numbers half-way through.

The second influencer I saw blamed immigrants.

Maybe he saw an opportunity to double down on the referendum questions, or maybe he’s just an arsehole. It could be both. I can’t say for certain but if Jason Kenney wants to focus on something that makes Alberta “weaker and more divided,” there’s an empty space being filled with some awful rhetoric that could use some pushback.

But what does it mean?

By-elections can be a gauge of public sentiment in the moment, just like a poll. The UCP had the incumbency and they lost it. That’s not a small detail.

However, there could be a few reasons the UCP lost; turnout, waiting nine months after the former MLA, Minister of Oil and Gas— I mean Environment and Protected Areas— resigned, the bait and switch from a mainstream conservative party to a separatist-friendly party that foists a referendum on a province they had no mandate for, or that their candidate’s federalist feelings were in doubt (exactly like the Premier’s); any one, or a combination of, are good reasons why the UCP lost that by-election.

For the NDP, a protest vote yesterday could disappear before the next election.

Those are some things it could mean.

What it certainly means is that the NDP have secured their claim to a positive narrative today— and until the next election— and the UCP’s will be a little weaker for it.

The same would have happened for Naheed Nenshi’s leadership; the narrative would have suffered if the NDP had lost.

It would have fueled resentment from inside his party that he wasn’t delivering on what he was elected to do. That’s already happened before.

A win would have offered the UCP a narrative of strength.

If the UCP would have won, they’d be saying that Albertans showed their support for the direction the UCP is taking us. They would have said it was validation that Albertans are on their side.

The loss takes that away from them and offers it to the NDP.

I do find it interesting that UCP supporters are also blaming Danielle Smith, albeit for the exact opposite reasons. The UCP is in trouble; and if the UCP is in trouble, then so is Danielle Smith.

It’s about freaking time.

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Premier says she won’t elbow out TC Energy after document leak

Danielle Smith’s “libertarianism” looks a lot more like “if you won’t do it I’ll just take over your business, damn it!”

The document outlines plans to wrest regulatory control over the province’s main natural gas transmission line, called the Nova Gas Transmission pipeline, owned and operated by TC Energy, away from the federal Canada Energy Regulator, and to create two new government-owned corporations. One of those Crown corporations could force companies to build natural gas pipeline expansions based on government priorities, while the other could build and operate the pipelines itself.

Those moves, according to the document, would raise prices on ordinary Albertans and businesses, but would bring in more royalties for the government.

Drew Anderson, The Narwhal, September 11, 2026

After the Narwhal received a purported “Cabinet report,” Energy Minister Brian Jean said it was just asking questions. Naheed Nenshi said the UCP was rolling out the red carpet (over Albertans) for data centres.

Danielle Smith, the smartest person in the room, said she isn’t ruling out trying to elbow her way between the private company and agreements they already have in place.

Smith didn’t rule out her government moving forward with legislation to spur new natural gas infrastructure, something the cabinet report says could land the province in court with TC Energy.

The legislation recommended in the report would look to override federally approved co-operation agreements the company has in place with another major natural gas provider in Alberta, while also allowing the government to force companies to invest in new projects if deemed in the province’s best interest.

Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press, September 12, 2026

Because it’s working out so well for other jurisdictions where a person who thinks they know everything are putting their gross, sticky fingers all over, so, why not here, too?

Art of the surreal, I tell you.

The Alberta Bloc is no longer a pipe dream; but a better name is

Former Cyprus-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes is a co-founder of a new federal party, “Alberta Now.” Missed opportunity to call it the Alberta Party of Canada, which would have been fun for me. Mr. Barnes says that the party will function like the Bloc Quebecois and focus solely on Alberta’s “values, culture, and needs,” adding that the party will only run candidates in Alberta.

I’m not going to lie— it’s about time. I swore I’d written about this exact thing before but I cannot find it (could be in one of the 300 unpublished posts in my drafts folder). I’ve definitely thought about it many times, though.

For a province that has claimed to want representation but refuses to do anything different to get that representation, an Alberta Bloc has been exactly what they need.

Minus the fact that the creation of another provincial-centric party will probably mean that the CPC never forms government again. I’m okay with that too— Pierre Poilievre has added so many toxic chemicals that it deserves to continue its metamorphosis into the People’s Party of Canada.

Whether it will be allowed to grow and prosper is another matter entirely.

Despite the fact that Mr. Poilievre seems intent upon extinguishing any hope of a comeback for the party (although I said the same thing about Justin Trudeau and look at all the egg on my face now), when the separatist WEXIT group reared its ugly head in 2019 in hopes of recreating the success of Reform, I’m certain that CPC political operatives had a hand in drowning it before it could take a breath from them. It was just too cleanly dealt with and disposed of to have been natural.

And don’t even try and bring up the Alberta Party here— that was a professional hit that required a clean up crew and everyone saw it. The WEXIT-turned-Maverick (ded) party… didn’t really do anything aside from letting Derek freaking Sloan run for them and then they just… stopped filing. And who (aside from me) would even remember who they were when that happened? You cannot convince me that name wasn’t especially chosen to do just that.

I will be keeping my eye on Mr. Barnes’ party, however, to see if it suffers the same fate.

In all honesty, though, I think they can, and should, make something of it. It’ll be the closest Alberta conservatives have gotten to a “promise kept” on the federal file.

And it’s about time.

IT’S BY-ELECTION DAY!!

I love election days. Aside from when I’m playing the funeral march for the party beforehand, there’s just so many reasons to be hopeful!

Also, vote splitting doesn’t exist. You don’t have to take my word for it; but may I recommend the Enlightened Savage?

In Alberta, it’s a phrase as common in political campaigns as “hard-working Albertans” or “Laurentian Elites”: “Don’t split the vote”.

What it really means is “please don’t make me have to work for this: I’m lazy and I’m entitled to win.“

Brilliant.

Many years ago, two of my favourite podcasters fought about this.

We’ll call them C and C so no one feels bad.

C said that vote splitting doesn’t exist because if one party failed to make the case for being the better choice, that is their fault.

This is the correct take.

C talked about how he taught his children about vote-splitting by asking who wanted ham and pineapple pizza, Hawaiian, and (I can’t remember but I assume) a vegetarian catastrophe no one wanted.

C is willing to experiment on his children to make an incorrect point.

Obviously C is horrible. And wrong. Doubly horrible.

The mistake that C made is that no one is being asked to choose between the same options with different names. Even if you’re outside of it juuuuusssst enough to think it is so.

They are not ham and pineapple and Hawaiian; they are ham, pineapple, yellow peppers, mushrooms, and provolone; and Hawaiian. Obviously one is better. One is definitely better if you’re allergic to yellow peppers. One is less bad if you’re lactose intolerant. The fact of the matter is that they are not the same, even if someone thinks they’re “close enough”.

Voters know the difference.

This is why vote splitting doesn’t exist.

In 2015, people were digging in their heels on Wildrose or PC. Jason Kenney wanted to take away the other option entirely. Danielle Smith did, too, but a few of her MLA’s didn’t cross the floor with her. Instead, she made a law that no other party can call themselves “Conservative” in Alberta politics again because they don’t want to give people who reflexively mark their “X” by the word “Conservative” (without having any clue who they’re actually electing) another option.

It’s like people who eat 19,000 grain bread. It’s not the same as a French loaf. Even if they’re both bread.

Snicker. Bread.

“AI will be used to help humanity.” ~ Danielle Smith

AI doesn’t have the guardrails we’re being assured it does. Not because Danielle Smith thinks differently, but because Anthropic releases threats they detected and stopped— eventually.

Their list doesn’t exactly give one the fuzzy-feelies. Humans still need to supervise, but there are questions about whether AI agents can avoid detection if they don’t want to let their human (for now) overlords know what they’re doing.

On the one hand, I think, “how bad can it be? We can always just turn it off, right?” But on the other, I realize that every draft I have is on the internet. Every post is on the internet. If it all went down, I’d be starting from scratch.

They always say you should back up your data.

Final thoughts

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It wasn’t that I suddenly had second thoughts about Mr. Fildebrandt’s anti-Ottawa blather. Projecting his personal issues with Ontario Liberals notwithstanding, it was obvious after I read some of the responses to his article that dunking on him for it would be a waste of my energy and your time. Mr. Fildebrandt was just a guy from Ontario who picked up on the local lore in Alberta and doubled and tripled down on it.

We have many such politicians and operatives in Alberta’s history and there’s nothing remarkable about what they’ve perpetuated here— they’re just the mean girls of Alberta politics. The people that matter are the ones they’ve consistently taken advantage of.

I’m not going to excuse any grown-assed adult for falling for the same lies over and over again, I’m just, as always, going to do my best to explain the effect their lies have had on my neighbours, and my family, and people I did and do call friends.

It doesn’t matter what side of the spectrum you fall on; if you’re an Albertan, you should care.

I chose the events randomly. There were two in a row, hosted by two groups I (thought) I knew nothing about. When you spend as much time as I do inhaling Alberta politics, however, I’m reminded that it is, in fact, a grossly incestuous circle.

Let’s Talk Alberta — Lethbridge, Sept. 9

When I first decided to attend this event, the only person named on it was Chris Scott. I did not know the name. When I had to look it up after I arrived at the wrong address in Lethbridge, two others had been added and I knew at least one: Cory Morgan. The third was Benoit Trudeau (a very distant relation to the same PMs Trudeau, he said).

The person who made the welcome speech and initial introductions informed around 50 of us in the audience that they welcome, and try to have, people who are for or against independence. This group was not quite as diverse, she said, but their perspectives were not entirely the same.

Mr. Trudeau hails from Quebec; the birthplace of foundational separatism.

If you happened to have missed that incredible dismissal from Bloc Quebecois leader Yves Francois Blanchet dropped on Alberta separatists, I’m happy to repeat it in all its brutality; “The first thing you have to do is define yourself as a nation. I’m not certain that oil and gas qualify as a culture,” he said.

Savage.

But also… a devastatingly direct hit to every person and politician who has forced our provincial identity into a single industry.

Mr. Trudeau offered his experience in Quebec politics as a hinge and threw some shade at our political predictability that I have also pointed out before— one of the reasons that Quebec enjoys leverage and power is because Quebeckers are willing to hold their government and their politicians accountable. Albertans keep doing the same thing over and over and somehow expect a different result.

We wear that, even if it’s not us specifically who are to blame for it. That’s a good question for those who are willing to vote “differently” but are dedicated to only one specific “difference”. To me, it’s the same brand of loyalty, even if it’s to a different party/sign/colour than other Albertans.

He had no respect for the question being offered to Albertans, nor the process by which it was being done and he spoke plainly.

“When referendum came, we were able to campaign on one question; not a fruit salad of them,” he snarked, adding that he wasn’t a separatist so much as a “sovereigntist”.

The focus, he said, should be taking control of what a province can control. Spend more money to do what the federal government already does. Take responsibility for things the province can and could control like its pension plan and tax collection. That requires trust, and the ability to rely on your neighbours to stand up when something is going wrong and vote out anyone who doesn’t respect what is in their— and also their neighbour’s— best interests.

Quebec is, I think, what some uncharitable Albertans would call “woke.” What with all their high taxes and well-funded social programs and all.

The second speaker was Cory Morgan. You may know him from the Western Standard, the Rebel, or perhaps from his time many years ago as an Independence Party leader.

All that is to say that he is a long-time advocate for more independence but still maintains the idealism that such independence would come with less authoritarianism. If only we knew who would be leading the “country” if independence miraculously happened.

The part of his speech that piqued my interest was when he was talking about the “insane” amount of “vitriol” he was seeing lately. He couldn’t understand it, he said. I’ll come back to that.

Finally, the once-mysterious Mr. Scott took the microphone and began telling the story of how I know of him; the owner of the Whistle Stop cafe. Yes, it’s a throwback to COVID mandates.

He was a disarming speaker. On the one hand, he was just a dude with barely-concealed anger issues. Insert meme of things men will do rather than get therapy. On the other, he had a “bit” where he called people who were definitely not “friends” and essentially wove his speech around comments on Facebook.

“I saw a group of people with red shirts,” he said. “I thought, ‘I like red, too’, and so I went to say ‘hi’.”

“I talked to my new friend Tom who said ‘I’m a proud Canadian’ and I said ‘I’m a proud Canadian, too!’ and I said we need to talk and have a conversation about it, and he said ‘it was a non-starter’.”

He just wants to “have a conversation” about it.

Next, he mentioned that “his new friend Carla” said something that he was sorry to repeat but she called him “a fucking traitor”. He didn’t think that was very nice.

He just wants to “have a conversation” after all.

This was about the time that I decided I was definitely going to get up and “have a conversation” myself. Once upon a time I would have taken my notes and left. Apparently, that is no longer the case.

Before I leave that, I have to add that he mentioned he was sitting in a jail cell five years ago because the government had him arrested. In my notes I added an asterisk and wrote “which government was that, Chris?”

After the intermission, that saw at least half of the original 50 people in the room not return, it was time for the Q and A portion. One person went. Then a second. I decided to go up too.

“I spend most of my time explaining conservatives to people on the left but tonight I’d like to explain why this is an emotional topic and why you might be seeing more vitriol. I’m going to pose this question to each of the speakers; what changes for you if a separation referendum passes or fails?”

Mr. Scott and Mr. Morgan (though a longer version) said “nothing.”

“Right. Nothing changes for you and that’s why people are upset because things would fundamentally change for them if a separation referendum passed.”

Incredibly, I heard a few “oh’s” from the remaining audience as if they hadn’t thought of that at all.

I continued to explain the same with more words and I will admit my voice cracked. I don’t want to think it’s because I was emotional about the topic because that would just prove them right; but I heard it. I stood and listened to the response, then returned to my seat. It was late and I still had a drive, and saw I had a text from one of my kids and decided I could leave before it ended.

When I got up, a lady on the other side of the aisle said “good question”. I smiled and nodded, and continued toward the exit. As I passed the lady who had given the welcome, she reached out, squeezed my arm a bit, and thanked me for the question. As I pushed open the exterior door, an older gentleman was behind it. I laughed and apologized and he said, “that was a really great question. Thank you.”

Honestly— I didn’t expect a single ‘thank you’, let alone three.

And I thought to myself, on the drive back, that perhaps it was just the setup of that specific event. Maybe some people really did want to hear other perspectives. It didn’t really distill until after Wednesday night’s event.

(Late addition, another view from Jen Handley at their stop in Nanton)

Alberta Women for Independence — Cowley; Sept. 10

As the author of Women of ABpoli, I had a special interest in “Women for Independence” and I’m thankful I was able to go. Yet again, I had the wrong address but Cowley has barely more than four avenues (there’s a “3A avenue”) and I knew I just had to find where all the extra cars were parked. I get why that might seem “off” to people in urban centres but it’s easy enough in rural.

I found it after a few rounds and went in. This event was smaller than the previous one— as expected— with about 25-30 attendees, and also not a room full of women— which was somehow not expected.

The host at this event was Angela Tabak. I did not know who she was but I found the common threads quickly enough.

She told us how she had found herself at home with time on her hands during the pandemic. That’s when she discovered the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta (WIPA) [or as Chandler Bing said, “whhhiippahhhh!” (old WoABP pod joke)]. Through WIPA, she became friends with Kathy Flett (formerly of WEXIT, WIPA, and currently competing for the UCP nomination in Sherwood Park).

She began reading books by Dr. Michael Wagner (part II of three) on why independence parties in Alberta die (“ego and infighting” or maybe just power plays by opportunists who will bail for the party in power instead of putting in the immense amount of work to build something Albertans would support… ahem…).

Her group (WINS) assisted with a seven-part video series but the videos are all over the place; one by Jason Lavigne (the Jason Lavigne Show, separatist supporter/independent media, who also ran in Poilievre’s by-election), Cory Morgan, and others.

Ms. Tabak had a different tactic than Let’s Talk Alberta; she went through each of the questions on the referendum.

While admitting the additional nine questions were both confusing and suspect, she also said it was an opportunity to “send Ottawa a message”.

As if decades of sending a solid majority of Conservative MPs back to Ottawa, or Ralph Klein’s famous Alberta salute, or a bumper sticker that said “tax this Brian”, or Reform’s rise to power, or even a referendum on equalization under Premier Jason Kenney had never managed to adequately convey Alberta’s “message” to Ottawa.

I… digress?

Despite the fact that she and Kathy Flett had been holding backyard discussions on independence since at least 2024, the group was told they needed to register as a Third-Party Advertizer (TPA) if they planned to continue them. They were also told they needed to take a position on all of the questions (yes, they’re all supposed to; no they aren’t; no, it doesn’t look like Elections Alberta has the power or desire to enforce any rules now).

Ms. Tabak said that’s the reason they chose to support “yes” to all nine and Option 2.

When she asked for audience engagement on the nine questions, I contributed.

For the question about withholding support services to people who are only in Canada temporarily, I offered the fact that Alberta doesn’t offer support services to them now. When someone is here temporarily, they are assigned a SIN that begins with a “9”. No Government of Alberta programs (or contracted programs) will allow payment for services provided to people with those SIN’s.

Just a little factoid I picked up at a couple of my previous 27 previous jobs.

For the question about whether proof of citizenship should be provided to be allowed to vote, both she and another audience member offered anecdotes about non-citizens having been mistakenly sent voting cards. In both of the anecdotes, the individuals knew they weren’t allowed to vote and destroyed the cards. Somehow, that was evidence of the need to protect our elections harder.

One person in the audience asked if anyone knew of a country that was as generous as Canada to non-residents so he could move there and get free services. Another suggested he move to Mexico and renounce his citizenship, then move back to get all the “free money”. My good gawd.

Okay. That happened, yes, and it was frustrating, yes; and I’m not even telling you about what that same dude said that was worse because I had a point to make.

…

Right.

Just because you can’t reach everyone doesn’t mean you give up the floor

There are people in Alberta— our neighbours, friends, family— whose brains have been cooked by Facebook memes and smarmy Conservative politicians.

Of that, there is no doubt.

I’m not excusing grown-assed adults from their responsibility to figure out what is real and what is fake.

However.

People are confused about these questions and they are seeking answers.

From what I can tell, the only people offering those answers have the same agenda that every opportunistic Conservative politician before them did; to take advantage of them and screw the rest of us.

I hope that makes you a little defensive, too, because it’s obvious to me that we can and should be doing more.

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The Trump Administration has long set about breaching a bond of trust with Canadians but an excellent writeup in the Toronto Star reminded me that it’s not just us they’ve broken trust with— they’ve broken trust with the rest of the free world, too.

There’s a great scene from The Newsroom where Jeff Daniels responds to a question at a panel debate. It’s actually closer to a tirade, but within, he says,

And with a straight face, you’re going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom. Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. So 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

The Newsroom, 2012

Actually, it’s more like 84 “free” democratic nations, with 65 being “partly free,” so it’s closer to 150. The speech is just very good otherwise. According to Freedom House, which has been keeping track of democratic movement across the globe since 1973, worrying trends are showing a decline in many democratic countries. The U.S. lost three points on the scale of 100, moving down to 81. Canada has a 97.

There wasn’t an easy list available, but doing a little bit of math (with my usual caveat; I already had to change the number of free and partly free from 130 to 150) on the countries I know are in the index outside of the U.S.— E.U., U.K, Canada, Australia, and Nordic countries— there are more than 600 million people. Not quite double the U.S. population, but also not inclusive of all 84 countries.

Canada doesn’t have an official boycott of U.S. products but many Canadians are turning away from them in protest. Switzerland has added an official boycott. The Administration’s complete incompetence in foreign affairs has a price and U.S.-based businesses will be paying it; not just today.

Howell said Canada appeals to him for two reasons: its duty-free trade agreements with European countries and Japan, which account for the majority of global ski binding sales, and the quality of the Quebec subcontractors he has worked with.

The growing boycott of American products in countries such as Switzerland is another concern. Howell believes manufacturing in Quebec could make it easier for his company to earn customers’ trust.

“I think a lot of people might be holding out too much hope right now in the midterms,” he said. “I can’t bet my business on that.”

“I want to be with Carney, and I want to be where there’s a stable economy that I can rely on,” Howell said.

Estella Ren, The Toronto Star, September 4, 2026

It was that quote that pulled me out of my Canadian-centric view for a moment. We’ve been saying throughout this attack from the Trump Administration that trust has been broken. We’ve been saying that the midterms won’t fix it. Another democratic Administration won’t fix it because they’re always going to be one election away from putting another despot into power.

The politics of it were always questionable but as it turns out, politics has consequences in the real world.

Businesses rely on reputations that convey trust

A week and a half ago, I wrote about the saga of Good Good Golf, a group of influencers who went from making YouTube videos for fun to building partnerships with big names in the golf world. Unfortunately, through a series of poor decisions, they also torched their partnerships with Callaway, the Golf Channel, and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA). The CEO was removed this week.

Reputations, like trust, take a long time to build and only a moment to destroy.

They’ve taken generations of building a reputation and alliances and blown it up in less than 18 months. They’re not done, either— because they haven’t won anything.

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