This week in AB: August 5, 2026

EPS, PSA, FML

Yankee Doodle Dani directs Edmonton Police to react to violence, not prevent it

Danielle Smith baiting people on X with her freeze pecahiness

Welcome to Alberta, Canada where we have both a Premier and Public Safety Minister who are ready to stand up and defend your right to make people feel unsafe in their communities.

Ms. Smith and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis responded to the Edmonton Police Service’s public safety announcement on X (that they deleted) letting the public know that they can report hate-motivated incidents.

EPS describes a hate-motivated incident as:

a non-criminal action motivated in whole or in part by the suspects bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor. An example of this could be a dispute over a parking spot where a person calls another person a racialized name.

I spoke with the founder of StopHateAB.ca, Dr. Irfan Choudhry from McEwan University, back in 2018. At that time, the site collected personal reports with the intention of tracking these non-criminal actions so law enforcement, non-profit, and/or government partners could better target resources to respond to increases in hate-motivated incidents. Unlike the Premier’s suggestion that police services just focus on reacting only after violent crimes are committed, the Edmonton Police Service has made it their mission to also seek to prevent violent incidences in Edmonton communities when they can.

Tracking hate incidents is one way they do that. Radical, I know.

Violence is not typically the first act of a hate-motivated person but the result of an escalation that begins with ignorant, if non-criminal acts; like airing their bias, prejudice or hate directly at a target. Even that act is likely an escalation from private expressions, or within a safe space that encourages more public expressions of hate.

It’s possible the Premier and Public Safety Minister are more familiar with the statistics gathered by Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith which follows reports of non-criminal incidents of hate targeting Jewish people, which they said in April of this year is a “national concern”.

Perhaps the walking embarrassments who are our Public Safety Minister and Premier can manage to extrapolate from that report why law enforcement would seek the opportunity to monitor non-criminal incidences before they turn violent.

The question before us is not whether antisemitism exists; we know that it does. The question is whether we have the collective will to confront it. We believe that we do. And we will not relent until that belief is matched by action.

After all, the safety of one community is inseparable from the safety of all. (emphasis mine)

Simon Wolfe, CEO B’nai Brith Canada

Evergreen post, really.

Friendly advice to commentators; no serious person in Alberta is asking the Liberals to show up on the separatist issue

My favourite political podcast is by Albertans. My second is by Ontarians and a Sasky who I think spends a lot of time in Ontario. I’m not saying the latter doesn’t get Alberta but sometimes… they do not seem to really “get” Alberta.

So let me say this as clearly as possible: literally no serious person in Alberta wants Prime Minister Mark Carney to step in front of Danielle Smith on this issue. Not one.

The only people asking for that are trying to activate the Conservative fail-safe of “fighting Ottawa” or whatever the grievance du jour is that takes the focus off holding a provincial government accountable.

This isn’t like Quebec where a party leader told the public they would hold a referendum on separation and then got a mandate to suspend their economic prosperity for a generation. That’s not what happened here.

Albertans did not vote for a party to push a separatist referendum on us. I mean, obviously some did, but not because Danielle Smith and the UCP were campaigning on it.

Neither Danielle Smith nor the UCP campaigned publicly on helping the separatists get a referendum.

They weren’t elected by a majority of Albertans to help the separatists get a referendum.

Albertans did not agree to that.

So, please; we don’t need the rest of the country, let alone the Prime Minister, offering to help clean up Danielle Smith’s mess.

We’ve got this.

Who does Alberta’s flag belong to?

When Sobey’s decided to throw up an Alberta flag to denote extra‑Canadian products in some of its Alberta stores, at least one person felt the company was signaling support for the separatist movement. And who can blame them? The flag has been dragged into the same performative grievance vortex that briefly swallowed the Canadian flag during the convoy era. Now, it’s lawn signs, billboards, and merch for people who desperately want “Alberta. Strong and free.” to be a personality.

And therein lies the problem: for many more Albertans than there are separatists, it was.

It’s great branding — for separatists— but for the 70–80 per cent of Albertans who aren’t separatists, it’s a warning label.

It also reminded me of Common Ground Politics and their work discovering “Joe”, and how many Albertans don’t feel included in the definition of “Albertan” unless they match a very specific archetype: Joe. Their research isn’t (that) new. The separatist sentiment isn’t new. The movement to inflate it isn’t new. But something changed in 2026 — and it changed only here.

A Leger poll in June found Alberta was the only province where attachment to the province over country fell. It fell by 11 points, down to 34 per cent, barely above the high‑water mark of separatist sentiment.

It’s more than a crack in the foundation; it’s a political culture buckling.

Jack Jedwab, pres­id­ent and CEO of the Asso­ci­ation for Cana­dian Stud­ies who commissioned the poll, suggested it might be pushback against the separation movement. Maybe. Or maybe pushing Albertans to the point where they’re forced to choose between their province and country doesn’t just damage communities and relationships— it causes Albertans to question what it means to be Albertan.

The tragicomedy that is Danielle Smith just keeps giving.

If anyone could blow up the conservative political machine carefully constructed by generations of Conservative leaders to secure their own political futures— and take Alberta’s political culture down with it— it’s Danielle Smith; tearing through it with the enthusiasm of a five‑year‑old on Christmas morning.

In the same Leger poll, 59 per cent of Albertans rejected outright the idea that they’re more attached to their province than their country.

It’s something I didn’t even think was possible a decade ago.

On second thought, back then it probably wasn’t possible.

Snicker.

Final thoughts

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