From Ralph Bucks to Dani Dimes
To be clear, we don’t deserve Ralph Bucks because our debt just keeps going up under the UCP.
Also Dani’s Dimes are a better option than reducing the fuel tax.
The short and sweet version is that Albertans who made less than $225,000 (as an individual or household if you file as one) based on their 2025 tax filing, will qualify for a $100 rebate for the last quarter if they apply for it online. It’s actually impressive, politically.
For starters, I don’t think everyone who would qualify will bother. It’s $100. That’s like 3/4 of a tank of gas in the truck, or a small bag of groceries on a day you went without a list and only planned to pick up disposable dinnerware and cups (because the kitchen sink pipe is clogged), some crackers, and Pepsi. Would that $100 be helpful? Sure; but I also haven’t done my taxes yet. It’ll cost me more to do my taxes, and it definitely won’t get me ahead on replacing that pipe. Instead, I’ll spend my time justifying why Dani’s Dimes probably aren’t going to crash the GoA website on July 1— but that’s also that’s why it’s smart.
Finance Minister Jason Nixon explained that the legislation states either a reduction in gas taxes or a rebate are acceptable ways to protect Alberta taxpayers from paying for services provided by government. I paraphrase.
Since Donald Trump’s war on Iran happened after the start of a new fiscal quarter, Danielle Smith claimed her hands were tied on the rate reduction and that was fine. It wouldn’t have provided any relief anyway.
When Jason Kenney gave Albertans the “tax relief” it brought prices down for a couple of days and then the gas companies raised them again. Higher prices deter excess consumption. It is a free market tool that works.
Pierre Poilievre was demanding the Prime Minister give Canadians relief from the free market doing free market things. The PM gave him the “win” and the gas companies ate it up faster than Mr. Poilievre could verb another noun. Why? Because the gas companies weren’t gouging customers, they were using higher prices to signal a supply crunch and deter excess use.
Annoyingly, the AB NDP was also calling for the gas tax relief.
Government relieving tax on gasoline right now goes against the entire reason prices are high today— supply and demand. I shouldn’t have to tell any self-styled conservative this but for some reason, it keeps coming up.
Instead, on the same day that news broke the RCMP has requested documents from AHS over the procurement scandal the UCP has been trying to cover up (more on that later) the UCP announced that Albertans who qualify for the rebate can apply for it online between July 1 and September.
Albertans receiving AISH and seniors will receive it automatically.
The UCP knows hardly anyone pays attention to politics outside of an election, and there’s even less bandwidth for it during the summer. They’re basically having a sale on government rebates— for themselves.
I’m not saying $100 isn’t worth it, I’m just saying that $100 will not be worth it to everyone who qualifies, which saves the government money while also giving them credit for offering the rebate in the first place.
One more time; when costs rise due to lower supply, cutting tax on that item will not reduce the cost because the cost is set to reduce consumption.
Corb Lund’s Water Not Coal Petition will not be on October referendum
I know the UCP doesn’t want to deal with this anytime soon— they’re busy enjoying the corporate back rubs they’re getting from coal magnates— but as Corb Lund pointed out, it’s a choice. Danielle Smith could ask MLAs to work outside of when then Legislature is sitting, she’s choosing not to.
For her part, the Premier tried to bring out doe-eyed Danielle again. She doesn’t know what it means that he asked for a legislative proposal. She hasn’t asked anyone. This is the first she’s even thought of it. Eye roll.
Without thinking, Ms. Smith did say that the earliest a referendum on the question of no new coal mining would be the general election.
I don’t think she wants to give anyone who isn’t happy with her government reason to show up on election day— they might hand their vote to someone else.
Anyway, she's not sure what will happen next, because she’s just the person who makes all the decisions.
RCMP order documentation from AHS 18 months after former Deputy Health Minister fires AHS CEO and is named as her replacement
If I were a jaded type of individual who thought that Danielle Smith and the Premier’s Office colluded with then-Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and her office to cover up the procurement fraud scandal— allegedly perpetrated by a guy who had a lot to gain by investing early in her UCP leadership bid— I wouldn’t have much faith that the documents the RCMP is requesting from AHS still existed after the Deputy Health Minister allegedly fired the AHS CEO and was named as her replacement a bare couple of weeks before Danielle Smith and Adriana LaGrange lied to Cabinet to get them to sign off on firing the AHS Board.
If I were that jaded, I would probably go so far as to think that the former Deputy Health Minister, Andre Tremblay, was even installed as the CEO as a result of alleged collusion between the Premier and her office, along with the Health Minister and her office, for some reason.
I mean, if I were to have been so unequivocally jaded by that alone, it would probably have led me to wonder whether they were so desperate to change the channel that Danielle Smith introduced Bill 54 in hopes that it would cause a provincial unity crisis, and maybe even a national unity crisis, just to get Albertans to stop asking about it at all.
If I were that jaded.
Mr. Tremblay, Adriana LaGrange’s former Deputy Minister, took over for Ms. Mentzelopolous— retroactively— and has been in charge of AHS since January 2025.
Minus that medical leave of absence, of course.
It’s so weird that the former CEO claims she was told multiple times to drop her investigation and was fired before she could meet with the Auditor General. It’s even weirder that the Premier eventually admitted she knew there were allegations, and the Health Minister knew there were allegations, and the Premier’s Office knew there were allegations, and Executive Council knew there were allegations months prior… yet the RCMP wasn’t notified until after the story broke months later.
So weird.
Anyway, the RCMP have requested documentation and hoo boy— you would hope they receive the same documentation that was allegedly held onto by the former CEO, and that was also leaked to members of the public already or some people might just start getting pretty antsy over there.
Allegedly.
Alberta Chiefs want Danielle Smith investigated for treason
Chiefs from Treaty 6, 7, and 8 voted unanimously in favour of a resolution that calls on the RCMP to investigate the Premier and her party on suspicion of treason. As expected, she was hella mad that anyone dared think she should be held accountable for stomping all over their rights. She even said that they should show her government the same respect she’s shown them.
Yes, Danielle, words have meaning; even if you remove them to help the separatists, or to try and get around a judicial decision to help the separatists.
I know she and her muppet friends like to say it’s a “difference of opinion” but that is just the talking point of people who have nothing to lose. If they get what they want, they’ll choose to stay. If they don’t get what they want, they can still choose to stay. Or maybe they’ll finally put their money where their complaints are and leave. Apparently, they really like it here in Canada and just want to be counted as a complainer.
It’s not a “difference of opinion” to people who don’t want to leave. If the separatists get what they want, if they actually had enough support to separate, it would force anyone who didn’t want to leave Canada to leave Alberta.
A “difference of opinion” is whether to order Brooklyn Pepperoni pizza or regular pepperoni. It’s whether to have parmesan crust or stuffed crust. In the end, everyone in that discussion still gets a pepperoni pizza with cheese somewhere on the crust. No one really loses anything. That’s a “difference of opinion”.
The discussion Danielle Smith and the UCP have forced offline and into our communities is not the same.
Separatists are threatening our homes, our jobs, and our citizenship because they don’t want to be part of Canada anymore and they’re making it our problem.
Danielle Smith and the UCP are making a 30 per cent issue 70 per cent of the population’s problem.
It’s almost as if there was a very good reason the Citizen Initiative Act used to have* a clause prohibiting Charter rights from being put to a gawddamned vote.
*The UCP removed clause 2(4) from the Citizen Initiative Act in December 2025, via Bill 14, and moved it over to the Referendum Act. It simply adds that the governing party who officiated the referendum isn’t required to implement the outcome if it violates s1-32.1 of the Constitution Act… but the way I read that is they can choose to.
Obviously, I don’t trust Danielle Smith any more than I trust I can throw my house, and I believe she definitely dabbled, if not went for a relaxing soak, in traitorous territory— because her version of libertarianism is to not GAF how her actions affect others— but treason is a very specific charge that is going to be really hard to prove.
High treason
Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46
(1) Every one commits high treason who, in Canada,
(a) kills or attempts to kill Her (update required) Majesty, or does her any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maims or wounds her, or imprisons or restrains her;
(b) levies war against Canada or does any act preparatory thereto; or
(c) assists an enemy at war with Canada, or any armed forces against whom Canadian Forces are engaged in hostilities, whether or not a state of war exists between Canada and the country whose forces they are.
Treason
(2) Every one commits treason who, in Canada,
(a) uses force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province;
(b) without lawful authority, communicates or makes available to an agent of a state other than Canada, military or scientific information or any sketch, plan, model, article, note or document of a military or scientific character that he knows or ought to know may be used by that state for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada;
(c) conspires with any person to commit high treason or to do anything mentioned in paragraph (a);
(d) forms an intention to do anything that is high treason or that is mentioned in paragraph (a) and manifests that intention by an overt act; or
(e) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) or forms an intention to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) and manifests that intention by an overt act.
The feds should probably sit down and think about what sort of behaviour would be a chargeable offence in defence of our sovereignty, however, because based on what I’ve seen over the past few years, it will almost certainly need to be properly addressed in the future.
With friends like these…
I can’t remember a conversation I had three days ago, but this hot mess? Burned into my memory.
Filling in the blanks for anyone who couldn’t pull that out of their head on a whim; Bruce McAllister was a Wildrose MLA under Danielle Smith when she was Wildrose leader. He was one of eight MLAs who crossed the floor to the governing PCs— with the leader— in December 2014. After it appeared that Danielle Smith’s decision to cross the floor wasn’t popular, Preston Manning wrote an op-ed apologizing for “his role” in encouraging her to do that. It’s a ridiculously shallow pool in Alberta’s Conservative politics but someone’s bankrolling it, so...
Former Premier Jim Prentice caved to members of his party prior to the floor crossing (who were also freaking pissed) and made them all contest the nomination. Danielle Smith lost. Bruce McAllister won because his only challenger, Jamie Lall, was disqualified “with no reason given”. Mr. Lall refused to take that lying down and decided to run as an independent, earning 1096 votes.
Newly minted PC Bruce McAllister lost the seat to Wildrose’s Leela Aheer by 222 votes.
He could be a poster man-child for the oppressed Albertan who fails up and still turns to racism to “fight the power” imbalance.
He should be an embarrassment to the governing party of Alberta but somehow isn’t. He is a staffer, not an elected official, and Danielle Smith’s decision to let him represent the Premier’s Office with his whiny embittered bullshit is a choice. It’s a choice the Premier of Alberta makes every single day that he still has a job.
Final thoughts
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She does do doe eyes very well anymore. There's a lot more beady in there than doe.
Unless you mean dough eyed?
Democide…it’s a word!