Elections Alberta struggling to hire staff for Danielle Smith’s separation referendum
Elections Alberta (EA)— an apparent punching bag for Danielle Smith and the UCP of late— tried to soften the blow of asking for workers from other provinces to help count the grotesque number of ballots the Premier is throwing at us for her upcoming separatist-friendly referendum.
EA said they were just looking to bring in more experienced election workers but they’ve only managed to hire 24,000 Albertans so far— a third of what they’ve said they will need to count as many as 20 million ballots within the 48-hour timeline the Premier ordered.
Voting will take place in a 12-hour period on October 19, with Albertans filling out 10 separate ballots. Each.
Remember; special ballots are available so you too can avoid having to wait in line as elections staff provide instructions to voters over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over… and over again. That line is going to move more slowly than a queue at the bank on payday in the 1990’s.
I do have to wonder why job postings in a province with the third-highest unemployment rate in Canada are going unanswered.
Alberta’s labour market has been sputtering for years, and somehow the government that brands itself as “the party that can manage the economy” hasn’t managed to reverse the trend.
Also, no offence to New Brunswick, but how are we on par with them? How does Alberta have a higher unemployment rate than half the maritime provinces?
I know the UCP would never bother bringing it up but surely there’s a political party willing to talk about it during a by-election at least…
Calgary-Shaw by-election called for September 14, 2026
Ah. I remember when Rebecca Schulz gave her Dear Dani letter to the UCP back in December so that she wouldn’t have to play a part in “working with the feds if they’re Liberals”. Of course, she didn’t forego collecting her government cheque. That’s the benefit of being an elected official in a governing party that doesn’t care about wasting public dollars— they’re more than happy to keep paying their friends.
Mike Derry defeated Ward 13 Calgary City Council Dan McLean for the UCP nomination. “Elected official” isn’t supposed to be a stepping stone to more lucrative elected roles, people— if you don’t want to do the job you get, don’t run; you’re giving us whiplash.
Kyle Campbell has the NDP nomination and Liberal leader John Roggeveen are challenging. No word yet on whether the guy who sold our voter information to multiple buyers, Republican Party leader Cam Davies, will be running (we know B.C. conservatives really want his party to do something in the province for some reason), or who will be the Alberta Tory party candidate.
It is a by-election, so be sure to send a few dollars towards the candidate (or candidates) you want to help put up a fight.
Healthcare scares
As I pointed out back in June, tying our Personal Health Numbers to driver’s licence/government ID meant that our healthcare coverage suddenly has the opportunity to “expire”. The UCP stated quite matter-of-fact-ly that we might be responsible for paying for health services— that are fully covered under the Canada Health Act— if we let our government-issued ID expire.
I know they can’t get away with that but not everyone who may get a bill from the government does.
Some people might pay that bill and the UCP can’t be trusted to admit the error was a violation of the Canada Public Health Act. They’re looking for ways to make Albertans pay for their services without being the big mean adult in the room who says “dude; you’re not special— public services cost money,” but they’re no Ralph Klein coming in with a plan. At least, not one they want to be up front with Albertans with.
With that being said, there are other problems we can point to today.
An Alberta family is suing the UCP government for $200,000 (plus legal fees, I imagine). They took their daughter to a surgeon in New Jersey after being told their daughter was too old to get the surgery she was waitlisted for in Alberta. It cost them just shy of $200,000. Alberta Health is refusing to pay the out-of-province access fees, and their appeal was denied.
This seems like a pretty textbook case of provincial health mismanagement. First, aging out of a waitlist seems like a pretty obvious problem with the waitlist process, which the UCP is responsible for (because they’re the ones who wanted the job). Second, according to the family’s lawyer, it’s not that surgery cannot be done— it’s that it cannot be done in Alberta, or Canada, because no surgeons currently have the skills to perform it.
There’s some logical friction between the family’s appeal being denied on the basis that she could have kept waiting.
Either the surgery was unavailable in Canada and the family had to seek care elsewhere, or the surgery was available in Canada and their daughter did not “age out”. Both of those things cannot be true.
In any case, the waitlist is a provincial management problem to solve. Moving surgeons from the public system to the private system (as the UCP has mandated with Bill 11) isn’t adding more surgical capacity— it’s just moving the same surgeons to a different building.
Today, we have the ability to access services and specialists in other provinces but what happens if the separatists win the referendum and every specialist not living in Alberta is “out of country” for the next family?
Seriously; that’s not a hypothetical in a separate Alberta— it’s a real-world consequence.
Who asked the feds to step in, anyway?
Danielle Smith has long been a fan of two-tiered healthcare; it’s as if she fundamentally understands the value of paying for things, but only if fewer people can benefit. While I fully believe she is breaking up Alberta’s healthcare system to sell it off for parts, I have nothing specific to point at other than what she’s doing would make that outcome easier.
At this point, she’s not running afoul of Canada’s Public Health Act. Private ownership of clinics who bill the province for their services is allowed. It’s the same set up that Quebec has.
My personal opinion on privatizing service delivery is that governing parties do it so they can say “hey, that wasn’t us! It was that awful company who promised to deliver top-tier services for bottom of the barrel rates and we totally don’t understand how it didn’t work out!”
I can only point to the DynaLife labs privatization failure, and the company the UCP contracted to leave vulnerable patients in Edmonton motels (who they didn’t bother paying), and Alberta Surgery Group’s sweetheart contract— the publicization of which forced the UCP to double the AHS rate cap on the surgeries they were performing so as not to look like they were in on the AHS scam— but other than that, I have nothing.
Point being, I don’t think the federal government needed to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for Danielle Smith and the UCP ahead of a referendum that is focused on keeping the feds in their own lane, but also permitting the provincial government to start veering out of theirs. I know that certain people (*cough* Edmonton-Strathcona MP Heather McPherson, AFL president Gil McGowan) have asked the federal government to intervene but to what end?
In this moment, the UCP is not running afoul of the Public Health Act; Ottawa can’t intervene when the law is not being broken.
If anything, federal interest only gives the Premier a soap box to “fight Ottawa”— and that doesn’t help us, in this moment, if at all.
A final wtaf
Danielle Smith told UCP supporters at a Lethbridge town hall that a binding separation referendum could be held as early as the spring of 2027 if Albertans vote for option B on her separatist referendum.
The Premier said that she was basing it on the major projects office timeline to get approval for TMX 2.0.
According to Smith, it would take "at least" two and a half months to fulfill their consultation requirements, and then she would need the federal government to approve the referendum question and ensure it complies with the Clarity Act.
"I'm looking at what Dawn Farrell is doing right now with the major projects legislation," Smith said.
She said she needed two and a half months to do what she felt was appropriate consultation on that pipeline, so that it would withstand any court challenge.
Because, obviously, a pipeline approval is the same as leaving Canada. Why wouldn’t you wrap up “consultation” on the future of your citizenship in two and a half months? It legitimately takes more time to get a temporary work visa approved— and that’s not even permanent.
This is just one of the reasons why I cannot fathom how anyone could possibly believe this woman isn’t a separatist; no one who cares about their country is that cavalier about giving up their citizenship.
EVEN THE PARTI QUEBECOIS ISN’T THAT CAVALIER.
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon announced Tuesday that if elected, they will not hold a referendum until Donald Trump is out of office.
The separatist party.
In all fairness, Quebeckers demand a minimum standard of consideration from their government or they will be voted out. They aren’t pawns for anyone.
Vive le Canada!
Final final thoughts
There’s a petition to declare Pete Hoekstra “persona non grata”. Feel free to add your thumbs up.
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!
Perhaps Elections Alberta can hire some temporary foreign workers to count ballots after the referenda. Since tabulators are forbidden, by the voter suppression laws this government passed, this should placate the UCP base. Not.
Smith wants the referendum to be chaotic. She is setting Elections Alberta up to fail - so that she can continue to sow seeds of doubt in our electoral system. She is the worst.