As an insatiable consumer of political narratives, I spend a lot of time reading, researching, fact-checking, and generally taking in far more information just to get a good sense of the story I’m trying to understand so that I can write about it without the spin. Sometimes, that takes me to how it was created; the catalyzing event, to the effort of shaping it, and, for the ones that reach a level of mass consensus, how they become impenetrable to facts entirely.
A couple of my all-time favourites are: Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program caused the 80’s recession; Sarah Hoffman called Albertans “sewer rats”.
I may not have been paying close attention to politics for the first one, because I was a toddler, but I’ve heard it all my life. The second is especially dear to me as I was able to watch it play out from the event itself and the initial twisted retelling, following the effort to solidify the narrative, that culminated in the realization that, upon hearing the tale from a very good storyteller more than a year later, even though I knew the truth of it, I could almost believe their version.
Watching a narrative bloom is quite the experience. Hearing it repeated in the wild is psychologically fascinating, but it is also alarming how easily we are willing to accept false narratives.
As I was writing this, a religious Republican influencer named Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a university speaking event in Utah. Unsurprisingly, the event has already seen a bubbling narrative, despite no information being available aside from the fact that Mr. Kirk was fatally injured. It seems appropriate to include the first 24 hours here.
Founded in, but far from, fact
I’ve written about the narrative of “the NEP caused the 80’s recession” before. The too-long-didn’t-read version is that the 1980’s recession was global. It was caused by the oversupply of oil in the global market and felt in every oil producing jurisdiction; the U.K., Canada, as well as the United States; something that Canadian legislation simply doesn’t have the capacity to effect. Now, had it been Canadian oil that was flooding the market instead of Saudi oil, ordered by the federal Liberal government of the day, there would be a case for blaming Canadian government legislation. That didn’t happen.
What did happen was a lie repeated so often as to reach mythical levels that are impenetrable by facts. It’s a reasonably good model to start from because most everyone in Alberta has heard it, or is still hearing it in certain circles today.
While I didn’t get to follow along with that one, I was around for the next: when Sarah Hoffman made the ill-fated snark during question period during an exchange with Jason Nixon, Wildrose MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre.
Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, our province has struggled for almost two years under the NDP reign. In that time the Premier has told Albertans that they are our country’s embarrassing cousins. She said that a hundred thousand families who are wrestling with unemployment and ballooning prices from the NDP’s disaster of a carbon tax are simply Chicken Little who need to, quote, make better choices. Premier, your policies are devastating Alberta families. For a government that has shown such gross incompetence, when is the Premier going to ask herself to make better choices?
The Speaker: The Deputy Premier.
Ms Hoffman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In a tough economy it’s so important to ensure that our government continues to have the backs of ordinary families that are working to make their life better. We’re creating jobs. We’re cutting school fees. We’re freezing tuition. The members opposite just want to keep jacking those things up. We’re focused on hard hats. They’re spending a lot of time with sewer rats.*
Alberta Hansard, March 13, 2017; page 205-206
It should be said that Oral Question Period is not for the faint of heart. In the most charitable of descriptions, it’s a time for the Members of the Legislative Assembly to let their creative prose and theatrical skills shine in a thrust and parry with their opponents… almost as if it’s supposed to be “fun”.
This back and forth demonstrates the wit, savvy, and sharp tongues of the members and it has, in comparison to the earliest Hansard documents from the late 1800’s from the House of Commons, always been this way. Perhaps what has changed, is that people not in the chamber have been brought into it, thereby allowing what is said within to be used against them.
In answer to the third question from Mr. Nixon, Ms, Hoffman adds another detail identifying an outside target of her ire.
“While he has people that he is being closely aligned with calling the fight for feminism an equivalent to cancer, those who live in glass houses decorated with hate should not be throwing stones,” she said.
That refers to an email from the Wildrose Campus Club at the University of Calgary advertising a movie night to watch a documentary called “The Red Pill”. It began with the statement “You and I both know that feminism is cancer…”, which received a lot of backlash from within the club as well as outside of it. The Wildrose Party distanced itself further from the campus club after the incident.
At the time, the Wildrose was also appearing on episodes with Rebel Media, and in certain partisan circles, it was widely accepted that Ms. Hoffman had been referring to them with the “sewer rats” comment. Not everyone has their foot in both, however.
It escalated quickly.
In a news release from the Wildrose later that day, Mr. Nixon said, “the NDP has called us ‘embarrassing cousins’ and now they’re calling Albertans who do not support their agenda ‘sewer rats’.”
The Rebel took it and ran, expanding it to specify “farmers, ranchers, concerned parents, small business people, oil and gas workers and every other normal person who does not agree” with the NDP.
A byline on a CTV article the following day that is available in the search engine results, but not the article itself, claims Ms. Hoffman “called anyone who opposes the NDP government ‘sewer rats’.”
Days later, at the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta’s leadership convention, there were buttons courtesy of the Jason Kenney-aligned third party advertizer, Alberta Can’t Wait.
It popped up here and there, mostly online, over the next year but I was especially surprised to hear it referenced at the then-United Conservative Party’s inaugural convention in May of 2018 by guest speaker Brad Wall, the former Premier of Saskatchewan.
Mr. Wall is an engaging speaker and a better storyteller. As I watched his speech from the adjoining “overflow” room at the Capri Hotel and Conference Centre in Red Deer, I found myself marveling at the fact that while I knew Ms. Hoffman had not intended to encompass a majority of Albertans in her comment, the way Mr. Wall wove it with his own words was compelling enough that even I almost believed she had done exactly that.
Those words have effectively reached legendary status, not that supporters want to believe it. The words floated around again on social media in 2024 during the party’s leadership race, demonstrating to me how strongly tied they were to the former Health Minister and Deputy Premier. Many longtime ABNDP supporters were truly gutted when Ms. Hoffman placed third, receiving only 4.2 per cent of the vote, barely half what Calgary-Mountain View MLA Kathleen Ganley did.
The words got away from Ms. Hoffman, carried on the sails of social media campaigns, political narratives, and independent entertainment and infotainment sites, as well as conservative influencers. What began as an “off the cuff comment” during Oral Question Period, is now a fixture of the political narrative in Alberta, not unlike the 80’s recession tale. Both of these things happened, but that’s where the facts end and the story began.
An emerging narrative
In the early afternoon of September 10, 2025, at the first stop of his “American Comeback Tour”, religious Republican influencer Charlie Kirk was killed after being shot in the neck by an as-yet unknown person. Within either minutes or hours, fans and supporters of Mr. Kirk were calling for “war” against “the left.” Despite having no additional information, the narrative was being created: he was killed for his views.
Although that may be the case, from the shooter’s perspective, we don’t know what those views the shooter may have specifically taken offense to.
Days earlier, another republican influencer, Laura Loomer, had taken to social media to claim in a since-deleted post that Mr. Kirk no longer represented the “Make America Great Again” movement that supports Donald Trump’s presidency. In recent days, Mr. Kirk had also stated that the “Jefferey Epstein Files” should be released, a promise that Mr. Trump and his Administration are now reneging on, causing friction within the small and cult-like maga movement.
Mr. Kirk often quoted scripture online but also had public outbursts that were less “what Jesus would do” and more what a racist, sexist, homophobic prick would do. Though I also agree that people shouldn’t face the death penalty for having ugly or differing beliefs and attitudes, there’s not exactly a shortage of people he pissed off, either by design or inadvertently; which means that guessing at the motivation for what appears to be a lone gunman is nothing more than an exercize in bias.
Despite having no suspect, many republicans in the U.S. and Canada have decided they know exactly why he was killed: because he was conservative.
It ties in nicely with an already established narrative that conservatives face “cancel culture” for their beliefs and are discriminated against for caring about faith and family, rather than the less than stellar views some publicly hold that not everyone deserves human rights.
It ignores the fact that a Democratic Speaker in Minnesota was murdered, along with her husband, less than two months ago in what we know was a partisan attack based on the fact that the perpetrator was caught.
It also ignores the fact that the young person who attempted to kill Donald Trump during his campaign was himself a registered republican who came from a family of maga supporters.
With that being said, there is a long history in the United States of politically motivated killings, republican and democrat. In a vast majority of the cases, the actor was a “lone wolf” though conspiracies abound.
Targeting people for their political views is neither new, or unique, to either “the left” or “the right”.
Unfortunately, in the United States, targeting people for any reason at all is neither new nor unique either. The country has a long, solid history of gun violence generally, and a dedicated, bipartisan refusal to do anything about it, something Mr. Kirk himself claimed was worth the price to maintain the absolute freedom of their constitution’s second amendment.
While the early messaging had a lot of consensus — this was a politically motivated based on his views —as the narrative continues to unfold, we will get further from the previously mentioned facts. The event has happened, the narrative building has begun. Their president declared Mr. Kirk a martyr for the conservative cause, and their republican influencers are calling for war against their American neighbours.
Where do they even go from there?
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!
Thank you for this very intelligent column! I will share it with friends.
Have shared this very nicely put together piece. As for Kirk, well, just like that the Epstein file begins to fade. Hmmm …