The canary is playing my song
Opinion columnists become a must-read for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s because their opinions are loved, or hated, and other times it’s because they’re good at starting conversations. Then there’s the times when they are the harbingers of potential government policy. The chosen, who set it free, releasing it lovingly into the skies where it will soar in all its destined glory.
There have been few times I can think of where a possible government policy had the power to relieve me of an incredible burden that I felt so very heavily on my own shoulders. In this moment I can think of not one that had the potential to exorcize me of a demon that imposed upon me such a deep and visceral rage… until now.
Yes, I am referring to Rick Bell’s article about updating traffic laws on QE2.
I’m aware that such a policy is of little consequence but I cannot pretend that it doesn’t affect me greatly. I have not been able to quell the utter disdain I feel for my fellow Albertans, my fellow humans, while driving on the QE2 . The resentment and rage I feel for a lack of the smallest courtesy from one’s compatriots when we’re all just trying to get where we need to be and want others to get the hell out of the way because they aren’t supposed to be puttering along in the passing lane, ever, but especially — most uncontestably — when there is no one in the right lane to pass.
I’ve never had a near-death experience, but I feel as though the euphoria must be close to this, where one is not afraid, but instead awash, no, enveloped by a sense of utter contentment and optimism. It is leaps and bounds above feeling like I did driving the stretch between Calgary and Red Deer over the summer.
Keep right except to pass. All the time. Pass, move back. Keep right except to pass.
If a third lane shows up and you’re in the right lane already, you’re supposed to move to the right lane, not stay in the middle lane, you arrogant fuckwits.
While I’m at it, if you’re driving a transport vehicle, and you stay in the middle lane, I think you should face a 24 hour suspension. If I can pass more vehicles (while doing 120) in the right lane of the three-laned portion on the QE2, please know that I have cursed every one of you on my way by.
Don’t even get me started on those douchebags who set their cruise control at 122 and take six minutes to pass someone doing 120. Literally no one has the patience for your quasi-rebellious bullshit.
Me, every time I drive the QE2; September 28, 2025
According to Mr. Bell, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen is interested in Albertan’s feedback on increasing the speed limit on the QE2 from 110 to 120 and potentially requiring all transport vehicles to remain in the right hand lane of a three-lane-plus portion of the highway. He quotes Min. Dreeshen saying that drivers “are naturally going these speeds on our four-lane highways because those roads are designed for those speeds.” With the right road conditions and vehicle, Minister, they’re designed fantastically for even more, let me assure you.
It is a small thing. A thing that many people believe will make our highways less safe. It’s possible they are correct. What I would prefer is that people had a better grasp of the rules of the road but I will accept the governing party creating specific rules that are enforceable than nothing at all.
Time to recall the recall?
Confession: I don’t think recall legislation should be used to protest government policy because even if a recall petition is successful and, as a random example, takes out the Minister of Education, the governing party will simply appoint someone else to the role. Maybe they’ll even split up the portfolio and have two ministers; like a Hydra.
There’s the obvious problem that the UCP created with their legislation in that it doesn’t require people to have a reason to recall their individual MLA. I was initially under the mistaken impression that the legislation would have included a guardrail or two, until I remembered that it was created to allow conservatives to recall non-conservative MLAs if they managed to get elected in Alberta. It was arrogant, self-serving, and so blinded by entitlement that I can’t help but tap the Golden Rule sign; “Do unto others” and all that jazz.
So, yes, I’m enjoying that part of the UCP’s latest self-own, but I also understand that Albertans are upset. We have a Premier who governs for, at best, half of her party membership and at worst, some random conspiracy theory someone tells her at a party meet and greet.
We have a governing party that is so convinced their excrement doesn’t stink that they, but for few exceptions, are still blaming a government that was in power for now half the time they’ve had since. I realize seeing an NDP government elected in Alberta shook conservatives to their very core but the UCP is government now, and has been for six and a half years, and they’re rapidly running out of people who buy the excuse that everything is the fault of a one-term government that lost the last two elections.
Albertans may not have returned the NDP to power but they have, in both of those elections since, chosen the NDP to hold the governing party in Alberta to account.
I completely understand that people are looking for a way to have an impact and demonstrate they are unhappy with the government’s direction but it will not change the leadership. The time to organize against incompetent leadership was during the UCP leadership race in 2022, or, entirely more inconveniently, attend the leadership review in 2023. Yes, I know, “I just can’t compromise my principles to save the people I claim to care so much about from being targeted if it means my party might not win next time.”
I may have forgiven but I do not have the ability to forget. Sorry, not sorry.
Back to the matter at hand; there is some organization going on with recall petitions, but it’s not organized so much as supported; if that makes sense.
I’m not certain if the Premier is referencing the same gofundme that raised the $500 filing fee, but there definitely was one. I know there’s people who have said they’ll do what they can to support the recall petitions and one way they could do so is by providing legal and accounting advice (within the rules for in-kind contributions, of course).
I support those who want to do it as much as I support anyone participating in the democratic process (which is fully), but I do not support Alberta’s recall legislation as written.
Is it schadenfreude? Yes. However, because I also support appropriate guardrails on legislation, if it takes this current wave of recalls to remind the governing party that their privilege of creating laws in this province comes with the responsibility of ensuring that they are actually fair to everyone, I’m also fully supportive of that.
Unintended consequences are a bitch
Obviously, the UCP is dealing with the heretofore unintended consequences of having their legislation used against them but there is also the possibility that the recalls are spurring action. Whether the UCP would have initiated immediate review of everything teachers were saying needed to be addressed long before they voted to strike, and without the Minister of Education being on the chopping block, I cannot say, but they are at least now talking about the things teachers wanted addressed. Excellent news for students, teachers, and parents, but it could put a dent in the recall momentum.
During a press conference about a “task force” (yawn) to gather information about class sizes and complexity on Friday, the Premier said that they are “hearing and watching” what is happening with recalls. She also said that candidates have yet to hear back from Elections Alberta on when they can start fundraising to fight the recall. Maybe they should have agreed to give Elections Alberta the funding they requested to deal with it; if Elections Alberta has to make due with the governing party’s choices, it’s entirely acceptable that the governing party does, too.
Keeping in mind that Danielle Smith said it, who remembers what a party didn’t campaign on? Don’t even get me started on the fact that not campaigning on something is no reason to tie a government up from actually governing. I guarantee neither Jason Kenney nor Justin Trudeau campaigned on having to deal with a pandemic but that’s what they both got after their respective wins in the 2019 election.
I respect the fact that voters may not agree with a political party 100 per cent of the time but we don’t elect political parties, we elect people who the political party has chosen to be their candidate. It’s up to the voters if they trust that person to represent their interests.
Moral Question Period
To cross or not to cross? The floor is yours.
After Nova Scotia MP (CPC) Chris d’Etremont crossed the floor, and Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux was rumoured to be considering it, there was a general feeling of wagons circling; or at least intensive blackmail happening.
Some people think that if a member of parliament, or the legislative assembly, crosses the floor that they should resign their seat, triggering a by-election, in which they will ostensibly ask the voters whether they agree with the decision made by the elected member.
While this might be a reasonable expectation in a direct democracy, Canada has a representative democracy. Far too many people definitely show up on election day and vote for people they don’t know anything about, expecting that if the party allowed them to run, it’s the equivalent of a “guarantee”.
I know of no better explanation of a guarantee than that which was uttered by the legendary Chris Farley in Tommy Boy.
Tommy:
Here’s how I see it: a guy puts a guarantee on the box ‘cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside.Ted:
Yeah, makes a man feel good.Tommy:
‘Course it does. Ya think if you leave that box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter.Ted:
What’s your point?Tommy:
The point is, how do you know the Guarantee Fairy isn’t a crazy glue sniffer? “Building model airplanes” says the little fairy, but we’re not buying it. Next thing you know, there’s money missing off the dresser and your daughter’s knocked up, I seen it a hundred times.Ted:
But why do they put a guarantee on the box then?Tommy:
Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That’s all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for right now, for your sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality item from me.
If you voted for a party on election day, floor crossings are a disappointing way to find out you actually elected an individual who has the ability to decide what they will and won’t support— up to, and including, the party they chose to run with. Parties have some sway, certainly, but it’s not because they represent the people who elected them.
I would bet that members of the UCP are dying to call out Mr. d’Etremont’s floor crossing but they can’t; because it would remind Albertans of that time the current Premier tried to end the Wildrose by doing the exact same thing in 2014.
U.S.-owned Postmedia-approved “thought leaders” in Alberta also have nothing to say at the moment. Floor crossing? What floor crossing? Danielle Smith is fighting traffic laws and obviously that’s entirely more newsworthy than a floor crossing.
Uh-huh.
I may not always say “the right thing” but I strive to call out bullshit no matter where it comes from.
Final thoughts
Thanks to everyone who reads, shares, and becomes a free subscriber. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work; to those who have, your support is greatly appreciated!