Alberta
UCP doesn’t want us to know what they’re spending
Let’s be honest: if the government said it wanted to cut red tape for itself and announced they were no longer going to require Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and political staffers to post receipts for under $100, that would be fairly easy to agree with. Do we really care if the Premier had biscuits and a watery, greyish disgrace called “sausage gravy” for breakfast? Gawd no. In fact, I’m slightly nauseated recalling the one and only time I was desperate enough to try it with fries because we ended up in a Kansas City diner close enough to breakfast that it was still available. Shudder gag.
That disarming memory aside, we don’t really care to know the details of their minor expenditures (so long as they aren’t paying premium rates for orange juice).
We do, however, care a lot if they’re wining and dining their friends and donors on the public dime, for example.
That was my first assumption when reading the latest long-weekend Friday policy drop from the UCP that no longer requires public disclosure from Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers, or their staff for receipts over $100. It could be many other things — like hockey tickets, or hotels while they’re off enjoying free tickets from people who “report to” the premier, or do business with the Government of Alberta. Or maybe just flights from the Dominican Republic with your chief of staff and principal secretary.
The imagination does run wild wondering what the Premier and her Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and their political staff could be using their government credit cards for because it could legitimately be anything — and they don’t want us to know.
As always, if the NDP even thought of hiding how they were spending public funds, conservatives would lose their damned minds.
In contrast, knowing full well their expenses would be poured over and scrutinized ever-so-closely, the Alberta NDP was — to my recollection — one of the most prudent personal-spending governments Alberta had the pleasure of hosting in decades. Maybe even in the history of the province. Who can say now?
The UCP removed half a million records “to enhance website performance,” ostensibly for people who are perfectly willing to abide a few extra minutes to load documentation so they can keep tabs on government waste, or how weirdly often this group vacations with their staff. That’s weird, right? It seems weird.
Between a rock and a hard place
I’d be over the moon if we had a good government and I don’t really care what colours they’re flying. With that being said, I have leanings. I lean libertarian because I was taught that I was responsible for my actions and that no matter what happened in life, I could always count on myself, and conservative because I was raised by conservatives and I don’t see a problem with prudent decision-making, and progressive because I’m not an asshole.
I have friends in all of those circles as well, which keeps me pretty grounded in the space I occupy of understanding that people, and their politics, are often nuanced.
It’s also why I think making the separatist movement partisan is a bad thing because if people attach a partisan sentiment to it, and the option is to side with the UCP or NDP, that’s not great for the 70 per cent of the province that feels strongly Canadian — especially if a majority of them also feel strongly conservative.
To their unsung credit, I believe the NDP knows this as well.
As such, it puts them into a difficult space where they have said unequivocally that they support Alberta remaining part of Canada, but also don’t want to be part of the Forever Canadian movement.
It’s possible I’m being entirely too charitable and the real reason they don’t want to be part of it is because the face of the project, Thomas Lukaszuk, is a former Deputy Premier in a Progressive Conservative government and now there’s also a renewed interest in resurrecting that party. Lukaszuk was also one of the more well-known faces of the NDP’s “lend us your vote” campaign, which I felt deserved a close second to the worst provincial campaign strategy; the Manitoba PC’s “no one will know you voted for us” campaign.
Danielle Smith, despite her claims to the contrary, is doing her level best to support the separatists as much as she can with policy, and public funds for her Alberta Next Panel, which seeks to encourage policy that the separatists, and many conservatives, want; at least in theory. The only reason Alberta didn’t bow to the Firewall Letter back in the day is because Ralph Klein knew Albertans had no appetite to pay more for services that we already get from the federal government (and no, federal taxes will not decrease if we decide to duplicate those services here). Danielle Smith doesn’t want to campaign on paying for them either. To hear the UCP tell it, oil and gas royalties pay for everything in this province, even though they only began contributing about a quarter of the budget in 2021. That only happened because corporations stopped investing in oil sands development, though, so it too came with tradeoffs. But I digress.
Premier Smith’s tightrope act is also coming with tradeoffs. She may be able to throw a wink at the separatists but it’s allowed the Alberta Republicans to champion it loudly, which threatens to attract more than half the UCP membership base. Her actions being entirely out of line with her words allow the two former members of the UCP to champion remaining in Canada, which threatens to attract the rest of her party’s base.
Chances are that the next iteration of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives will jump onto the Forever Canadian train and no self-identifying conservative, or progressive for that matter, will think of it as a bad thing.
While the UCP is pulled apart over it, the ANDP can maintain their position and potentially reap the rewards later.
When you put it that way, being between a rock and a hard place might be pretty solid ground, after all.
By-election barn burner
Bonnie Critchley aiming to knock Pierre Poilievre off his high horse in BRC
Pierre Poilievre and his campaign team probably thought they’d be able to take the summer off while they awaited his coronation in the rural Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot. In fairness, they were probably correct — right up until a pissed off Albertan who is actually from the riding spoke out.
I had a discussion with Markham Hislop on Sunday morning about the upcoming by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot; a by-election that I wasn’t planning on paying attention to but has become the most exciting thing to watch this summer and it’s all because of Bonnie Critchley.
As much as I expect Poilievre to win — even while he’s cosplaying future Prime Minister who just needs those silly voters to give him a stupid seat, and talking about things that do not matter to the constituency he wants to “represent”, I don’t discount the possibility that rural Alberta could tell him to ‘shove it’.
I wouldn’t expect them to do that without a strong replacement, however, but since Bonnie Critchley stepped up, I’m certain they do.
Battle River-Crowfoot goes to the polls on Monday, August 18.
Canada
Freedom warriors are at it again
Can we stop perverting what rights and freedoms actually are? You don’t have a right to go hiking in the woods. You don’t have the freedom to ignore provincial mandates or bans. The Charter was created to ensure equality of opportunity in our country, not excuse dumbassery.
We don’t have a right to put other people at risk, and neither should we have the freedom to do so. Our ancestors didn’t come here to watch the rule of law be ignored or the greater good be forsaken for one person’s selfishness — in many cases it’s precisely the attitude they were trying to get away from.
Yet we have “thought leaders” trying to debate whether rules that protect people’s homes, lives, and livelihoods are simply too great for an individual, whose only concern is indulging in their preferred form of entertainment, to bear.
It makes me think of warning labels; they aren’t there for the general population who has the capacity to understand risk, they’re for the weakest links. On a hair dryer: do not operate while sleeping. A baby stroller: remove baby before folding. On a thermometer: once used anally, should not be used orally.
No one is saying everyone needs the guardrail but someone obviously did and now we have to account for them all the time.
Few people would legitimately wonder — while fires rage in multiple provinces and almost all of our first responders are currently engaged in fighting them — why Nova Scotia, and now New Brunswick, would discourage people from going into the woods with the threat of massive fines. Fewer still would do it if they looked up one simple (and astounding) fact, like “97 per cent of wildfires are caused by human activity, ‘mostly accidental but sometimes deliberate’.”
Yes, we all understand this puts a damper on summer vacay plans but the good news is that if no one burns the place down, they can try again next year.
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As an Ottawa resident, and until last year, living in Mr. Polievre’s riding, I would be most proud of BRC should its CPC members reject this phoney candidate. I am a life long Progressive Conservative and former federal and provincial Minister’s Chief of Staff. This man is not fit to represent BRC. The excuse given for losing his long time riding, is nonsense. He had no trouble winning previously against better known candidates, and his attitude towards public servants was already well known. More accurately stated, the majority of the constituency was fed up with his “Trumpian” approach and slimy persona. He is not trustworthy.
Of course Gov. Smith is doing her darnedest to dogwhistle and gaslight the whole separatist clown circus into a partisan issue. It already is, and will be, a great distraction from all the UCP incompetence and corruption in education, health care, affordability (check your auto premiums & day care bills), environment, and looking after our most vulnerable fellow citizens.
The NDP is probably wise to focus on the latter issues while their supporters quietly go about supporting and enabling the Canada First initiative. The party’s position is clear, as you point out, on matters of patriotism and sedition.