When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith mused in the midst of debate over her government’s new funding turf war with Ottawa that “we could also establish our own research programs” to ensure ideological balance in academic research, many Albertans suspected they understood precisely what she had in mind.
They thought the United Conservative Party’s Bill 18 is about more than just keeping the Trudeau Government from getting credit for helping Alberta municipalities, starved for cash by her government’s policies, and Alberta students and researchers who qualify for federal grants.
The so-called Provincial Priorities Act, many also thought, was intended to ensure that what research gets done in Alberta reinforces the UCP’s ideological preferences for unbridled markets and climate change denialism and against vaccines and effective public health measures.
The Toronto Star’s Alberta columnist, former Calgary Herald managing editor Gillian Steward, even accused Premier Smith of adopting the strategy of Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orban “to quell any ideas that he disagreed with.”
And it’s not like this hasn’t happened before, the CBC’s Jason Markusoff reminded his readers – former UCP premier Jason Kenney’s notorious Alberta Energy War Room and Ms. Smith’s more recently announced Recovery War Room are examples of “research” offices intended to produce only propaganda to support government policies.
Now, thanks to The Globe and Mail, we have another, more troubling example.
Yesterday, the Globe reported that soon after Ms. Smith became premier, she set up “a little known task force” to review how Alberta’s health care system had handled the COVID-19 pandemic and hired a physician to lead it known for his discredited claims the province manipulated statistics to justify infection mitigation restrictions.
In 2021, Alberta Health Services condemned Dr. Gary Davidson, a Red Deer emergency medicine physician, for his “completely false” claims made during COVID’s deadly fourth wave.
Now we learn that last year the premier put the same Dr. Davidson in charge of figuring out if “the right data” was collected by AHS and public health authorities as they struggled to cope with the pandemic.
Dr. Davidson, Globe journalists Alanna Smith and Carrie Tait reported, was allowed to pick the other members of his “task force,” which was given a $2-million budget. Unsurprisingly, its membership includes other physicians who challenged the consensus on public health during the COVID crisis.
This is, of course, entirely on brand for Ms. Smith, who as a right-wing talk radio host before her return to politics enthusiastically boosted COVID conspiracy theories and advocated quack cures like the now notorious veterinary deworming paste known as Ivermectin.
Ms. Smith’s Q-adjacent views and desire for revenge for public health restrictions during the pandemic are undoubtedly among the principal motivations for the UCP’s policy of breaking up Alberta Health Services into four bureaucratically top-heavy “pillars.”
Busted yesterday by the Globe’s report, Ms. Smith doubled down.
“I needed somebody who was going to look at everything that happened with some fresh eyes and maybe with a little bit of a contrarian perspective because we’ve only ever been given one perspective,” she told reporters during a scrum at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton.
She also defended the government’s effort to ensure the Davidson group’s efforts were not publicized, saying “we wanted them to do their work,” The Canadian Press reported.
Arguably, this is a more serious effort to gin up research supporting conclusions the government has already reached, since the report is clearly intended to appear to be a legitimate study. Then again, this kind of thing happens all the time with research by economic “think tanks,” so really all that’s new is it’s being extended to medical research.
This may not bode well for patients, but it’s par for the course for right-wing governments that put ideology ahead of evidence.
“I believe the Earth is round, and I don’t think that the people of Alberta should be paying for people who believe it’s flat to be engaging in the conversation,” NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley commented.
To be fair, we don’t know yet what Dr. Davidson’s panel will come up with, but we do have the results of Ms. Smith’s other $2 million COVID panel – the one run by Preston Manning, the superannuated godfather of the Canadian right.
Last November, Mr. Manning’s “Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel” called for more attention to be paid to “alternative scientific narratives,” the government to be “expressly forbidden” from halting in-person school classes during a public emergency, and amendments to the Employment Standards Code and Health Professions Act to make it easier for anti-vaccine health care workers to endanger their patients and co-workers in health care facilities.
We’ll have to wait till next month to see what Dr. Davidson says.
Meanwhile, getting back to Alberta’s plans to interfere with federal academic funding, the Canadian Association of University Teachers has vowed to consider legal challenges once Bill 18 becomes law.
Eventually, though, Ottawa is going to need to find a way for its research funding agencies to finance Alberta academic researchers directly, without involving the provincial institutions that administer their grants now. Perhaps one way to do that would be to pay a university or two in another province to administer the grants to Alberta researchers.
Dr. Davidson may have been contrarian about covid, but he was also a failed UCP nomination candidate in 2019. So of course Smith picked him for this partisan exercise. I guess he transferred his allegiance from Kenney to Smith. https://www.reddeerexpress.com/news/chief-of-emergency-medicine-gary-davidson-announces-nomination-for-ucp-in-red-deer-south/
It literally makes zero logical sense and its been demonstrated the MORE shots you get, the MORE likely you are to catch Covid. We ALL know folks with 6 or 7 shots now getting sick multiple times a year. What was the definition of crazy again?
Loretta Koch: Extra aluminum foil for a big hat, would help.
Nut job alert!
” … its been demonstrated the MORE shots you get, the MORE likely you are to catch Covid.”
Source or is this your UCP opinion?
I know no one who received 6 or 7 shots. And who or what organization demonstrated a correlation between number of shots and likelihood of getting Covid? Please double and triple check your sources before posting. You risk serious embarrassment.
Evidence, please?
Either you are lying to us, or someone has been lying to you, and you find their lies delicious in your ears. Either way, you have some explaining to do.
Baloney. I’ve had 7 shots and never caught Covid as far as I could tell. Certainly the vaccines did me no harm and they most probably protected me from selfish idiots who believe internet liars and grifters.
Aside from it being anecdotal, and therefore questionable evidence of anything generally applicable, no, WE ALL most certainly DO NOT KNOW people with 6 or 7 shots that are now getting sick multiple times a year.
You got a citation for that?
Wrong. https://www.fau.eu/2024/03/05/news/research/researchers-investigate-immune-response-of-a-man-who-received-217-covid-vaccinations/
It turns out that Davidson did not win the UCP nomination for 2019, Jason Stephan did, and then was elected.
Davidson’s wife Pamela has run for various things with rightwing support.
https://daveberta.ca/tag/gary-davidson/
As a health care provider in Alberta for 30 years, I 100% support this task force. Enough of the mainstream narratives and NDP spin! This needs to be looked at with fresh eyes from a respected MD on the frontlines of Covid. Too many lies, falsehoods and coverups about cases, death counts, vaccine safety, lack of vaccine efficacy, and the horrendous treatment of any and ALL people who chose bodily Autonomy AND medical privacy!
Too late !
Nut job is here, served with a side of nutz.
That’s freedumb.
Loretta, you cannot prove anything you type, therefore you have zero credibility. That’s a problem with alt-rights, they don’t know how good faith and facts work.
Too funny. Sounds like UCP spin and a covid denier. Fyi, the AHS is not run by a political party.
Disturbing, tragic even. You really should know better. Assuming you really are a health care provider.
“Spreading misinformation does not align with a physician’s professional responsibility to their patients. While we are unable to speak to individual cases, CPSA has a responsibility to Albertans to investigate regulated members who are sharing inaccurate and potentially harmful information.”
https://rdnewsnow.com/2021/09/24/ahs-calls-red-deer-doctors-claims-false-and-disappointing/
The location was a barn, which reflects on the output. Enough said.
He’s not all that respected and he is obviously a partisan rightwinger. His eyes are not all that fresh.
Smith is a fool, nobody believes her pre-biased inquiries.
Sure, look into it, but not with a biased researcher who doesn’t have the proper background to do a proper analysis. A “respected MD” probably doesn’t have sufficient background without some qualifications in doing scientific research. And when it’s done, do it openly and transparently, not secretively.
I shake my head in disgust, because of how the UCP are running things. They put lives at risk, and they line the pockets of their rich friends, while so many struggle in Alberta. Preston Manning is a great example of this. He has no medical expertise, has been a lifer in politics, and was the one who gave Danielle Smith the wrong advice, by telling her and multiple other Wildrose MLAs to cross the floor to become part of Jim Prentice’s Alberta PC party, which resulted in Danielle Smith getting defeated. The political pension Preston Manning has is quite large, and Danielle Smith rewards him with $253,000 and a $2 million expense account, to produce a report on how the UCP looked after the Covid-19 pandemic in Alberta (which was very badly). The Covid-19 report Preston Manning created was likely done in advance, and probably copied from an earlier report on it that he had done. It was leaked to other political parties. The Covid-19 report that Preston Manning created was garbage. Preston Manning is 82, and isn’t struggling like other seniors in Alberta are. There are seniors in their 80s, and 90s, or even younger, who can’t easily live on a limited pension, and they could use money like that. I wonder if the UCP will get sued over their negligence, from putting people’s lives at risk. I recall Ralph Klein’s government being sued when people’s lives were put at risk, from his healthcare cuts. Covid-19 rates in Alberta were the greatest in Canada, on a per capita basis, and even were the greatest in North America, on a per capita basis, around three years ago. The UCP wants to put strain on the public healthcare system in Alberta, just so they can have the excuse to privatize it. Putting Gary Davidson in charge of the Covid-19 pandemic data task force is an insult to those who suffered from Covid-19.
Not only does Preston Manning have no medical expertise, neither does Danielle Smith or her Cabinet, yet they have given themselves the authority to decide what a public health crisis is, what measures will be taken to address it, and what medications or vaccines will be made available to Albertans. Lets hope the Bird Flu doesn’t become easily transmitted by humans! If it does, lets hope the Federal Government will take measures to protect it’s citizens in Alberta!
Paul Squires: Leaving medical decisions up to the UCP government, is going to have a very bad outcome. If someone breaks their leg while skiing, they could go to a UCP MLAs constituency office for treatment.
It should be obvious -but for the bubble!
Is there a chance that Alex Jones could find an appointment in Queen Danielle’s ever-weirder governance?
Since they are both so closely aligned, I can’t wait. At least Jones won’t have to pay his own legal bills. You’re welcome, Alberta.
Maybe a majority of Albertans agree with Premier Smith. Could it be a majority of Albertans who followed the rules and allowed themselves to be injected with an experimental vaccine that had no long term testing (don’t worry it’s safe and effective because the nice people on the TV said so) are feeling a little squeamish.
It all got so confusing after awhile. First they were telling the unjabbed to get the jab because the jab works. Then they were telling the jabbed to get a booster because the jab didn’t work. All while telling everyone the unjabbed were putting the jabbed at risk because they weren’t getting the jab that didn’t protect the jabbed.
Now do measles.
And don’t forget polio.
Voila.
Like that killed a million people…
Have you noticed athletes droppin like flies? Oh right hard to see when your still asleep.
Sonja Farrell: The UCP sheep are clearly still asleep. Time to wake up to reality.
You’re right, Sonja Farrell, not a million. The measles vaccine averted 57 million deaths between 2020 and 2022. I think we can both agree that 57 million is more than one million.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles#:~:text=Measles%20vaccination%20averted%2057%20million,the%20age%20of%205%20years.
Also, there is very low uptake of the MMR vaccine in some pockets of southern Alberta. During the 2013 measles outbreak, the province held special vaccination clinics in these locations. This doesn’t appear to be in the works in 2024. Add to that the doctor shortage. Outcomes could be much worse this time. As 11 years have elapsed, many young parents who have neither been infected nor vaccinated could fall ill while tending to their sick children. I hope anyone who is not fully vaccinated makes a vaccination appointment now.
Voila.
There is proof that Covid caused cognitive decline.
Maybe a majority of albertans believe the moon is actually a giant marshmallow; it wouldn’t have any more influence on objective reality, also they don’t. Also referring to the plethora of vaccines on offer, from all corners of the globe as “the jab” signifies you as a basic muppet doesn’t it Ron? Feel like the last time I tore a strip off you for such BASIC IDIOCY you fled the blog for a few months, and I really hope you spent those precious weeks offline, sipping tea with your loved ones, because it’s very clear the internet is a bad fit for you.
Bray on, I don’t think a lot of folks are listening tho
I am with you.
Probably the thing I most admired about Rachel Notley was that she appointed Tzeporah Berman AND Dave Collyer as JOINT Chairpersons for her royalty review. Getting both sides of a discussion to the table is very productive but slanting reviews like this with one-sided input is nothing but politics.
There is no particular reason for funding research in any Albaturda university. They are a nest of anti-democratic, neoliberal, trouble makers. It’s not possible for an even and well balanced individual to do rational fact based research in this jurisdiction as long as the UCP nut jobs are acendant.
Oh, and she is studying nuclear reactors, what could go wrong. Perhaps drinking a few isotopes from nuclear waste will be healthy. Not far off when 4 years ago a US president wanted to inject bleach to kill Covid. Crazy town will continue to get worse.
It’s almost as if the Coutts blockade, set up to protest Covid-19 rules and restrictions, was useful in some way to Danielle Smith. It’s almost as if her telephone conversation with a certain pastor was a prelude to this “task force” with its pre-drawn conclusions. (Whatever happened with that CIDA appeal and the deferred judgment in that case?)
This won’t do much to appease the men found guilty in the Coutts case, nor will it pass peer review, but whatever. It might bring the rest of the anti-vaxxers back into the fold at a time when so many of them seem ready to turn on her like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That’s what counts.
‘because we’ve only ever been given one perspective,” she told reporters’
Personally, I think the government’s new perspective on science should also take a look at revising the laws of gravity too.
Yes, it is really strange. I had no idea science was based on, “perspectives.” I thought it was based on observable evidence, logic, deduction and induction. You know, scientific method, of which vaccines are a part that is well established in scientific understanding. Anyway glad to know Marlaina is into lucky charms, and spells or such like. Maybe she still thinks illness is caused by excess humours?
…and yet the left continued to gaslight us and give their very unscientific versions during the Pandemic. Every aspect was captured. Medicine, politics, Big Pharma, Journalism. Seems to me WEF was the winner in it all.
I feel sorry for your pharmacy customers, Loretta, clearly you are a dangerous conspiracy lunatic.
And we have a winner! You are the first person in this thread to mention the WEF! Do some very basic research and you’ll discover that the WEF at its core is a very right wing body, supporting pro-capitalism anti-society positions on just about every aspect of life. Even the so-called Great Reset is simply a mishmash of ideas from Ms Rand, the Chicago School, Reagan-Thatcher and so on.
Please explain how a coterie of CAPITALISTS (the WEF) represents “the left”.
Science is based on consensus. Can’t even debate how the experts come up with the data. But if the results serve political means well… That’s how we got climate change, global warming or whatever next they come up with.
Science is based on the weight of evidence. You can debate the experts, but you can’t lie about their findings. I know the difference will probably escape you.
Politics is based on consensus, science doesn’t give a damn what your opinion is.
Actually, not always. Relativity was a radical idea that didn’t initially garner a consensus from the physics world of the early 20th century, but evidence supporting it emerged gradually over time and the scientific community eventually accepted it as a better description of the universe than the Newtonian physics that preceded it. Einstein once said, when told of the book, ‘A Hundred Authors Against Einstein’ , “Why a hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough”.
This is a great thing Premier Smith is doing, it will reveal the truth about how much cover up and false information was provided during this Covid period. Thank you Premier Smith
Lyle Ewanchuk: This isn’t a great thing that Danielle Smith is doing. It’s adding insult to the suffering many Albertans had, after getting Covid-19. Time to dump Danielle Smith and the UCP, and let an adult take charge of the province. Phony Conservatives and Reformers don’t care whose lives they jeopardize with their reckless policy decisions.
Thank you. Someone has to start revealing the lies we were told about covid and the vaccination. People are dying all over the world, and there are thousands and thousands of side effects, and yet no one talks about this. Way to go, Premier Smith, we need people to know the truth.
Lois Halls: The lies are from Danielle Smith, Adriana LaGrange and Preston Manning. If they said that skydiving without a parachute was good, their supporters would go along with it.
Jeronimo!
Can you direct me to where you’re getting so high !? I been getting a lot of mids since legalization
With regards to academic funding, I heard a comment from someone in the academic community yesterday say that funding is granted to the researcher, not the institute. Thus if an academic is granted federal funding, and the Smith government blocks the funding, the researcher can take his/her funding and move to a non-Alberta institute.
It feels like the academic reputation of Alberta’s universities is destined to become collateral damage in this woman’s juvenile battle with Ottawa. It appears Alberta universities will either not engage in research, since the provincial government won’t approve the funding, which hurts their reputation, or they can engage in quack science, which the government will approve, and see their reputation hurt that way.
Bob: It is true that funding is granted to the researcher and not the institution. The federal government, however, relies on the institutions to provide oversight to ensure that legal requirements are met (for example, animal cruelty laws in some kinds of research, human rights legislation in hiring decisions, and proper procedures for filing equipment expenses). Post-secondary institutions for which the researchers work are best placed to provide this service without undue bureaucracy and at the least cost. That is why the same process is used throughout many nations, not just in Canada. There is also the matter of time limits for applying for grants, which will be so unwieldy in Alberta that many researchers will be deprived of support because their applications simply can’t be processed in time. Now that the UCP has intentionally sabotaged that sensible relationship, any solution is going to cost Canadian and Alberta taxpayers more. I hate to say it, but probably the most sensible response by the federal government would be to tell Alberta, “Fine, you go ahead and run your own research program. No federal funds will be provided for research in Alberta.” The UCP, of course, would construe that as a fairness issue to advance their separatist program. Handing over the funds to Alberta would not be possible because it would all be used for flat-earth research and oil industry subsidies. DJC
Another NDP lynch piece. Odd how the critics care not about actual truth. Sickening piece of trash writing attempting to tarnish any and all efforts by Premier Smith.
BL: This isn’t an NDP lynch piece. The incompetence and negligence of the UCP has harmed many Albertans. The Best Sumer Ever, wasn’t that at all, and for the Albertans who got Covid-19 very badly, it was the Worst Summer Ever, followed by the Worst Fall Ever. The UCP botched the Covid-19 response very badly.
I got Covid …still here nothing but a bad flu. But now I’m immune. Our bodies are a work of genius.
Sonja Farrell: Covid-19 is not a bad flu. The long lasting damage it does to people is really bad. Danielle, Adriana LaGrange and Preston Manning, have no medical credibility.
Covid immunity fades and the covid virus mutates. Kind of like flu, where the scientists come up with a new flu vaccine every year to deal with whatever flu variants are most common in Australia before it arrives in Canada.
They’ve had a lot of practice making vaccines. I’ve been getting the flu vaccine every year for almost 20 years and never heard anyone shrieking about it not being tested enough.
And a bad flu is one which kills you. Like the 1918-19 one.
You can stand truth ? , This is an example of a government that does not believe in science and is just interested appeasing the their far right rural voters
Present evidence that it’s a “lynch” piece or limp out the side door. No one is going to listen to such pathetic nonsense.
Pretty odious language also, comparing a journalist to that. Pretty cowardly imo.
My husband and I fully support Premier Smith expenditure to get to the Real truth about the pandemic and the lack of testing done on the vaccines. We need to get to the bottom of this and stop killing people and ruining their immune system. Rachel Notley wanted to force vaccine every individual!!
Margo K Kaufmann: Danielle Smith is incapable of telling the truth. She isn’t a medical expert either, and neither is Preston Manning. Way back when, Danielle Smith was a scab columnist for The Calgary Herald, and she had a column written that made the case that smoking cigarettes was okay. Danielle Smith also had a false belief that E-Coli contaminated beef was safe to ingest. When there was a large batch of beef that was contaminated with E-Coli, and needed to be disposed of, Danielle Smith suggested that the less fortunate could have the beef. Also, Danielle Smith made an insensitive and erroneous claim that advanced Stage 4 cancer is within a person’s own control. The last persons that should be giving medical advice are Danielle Smith, Adriana LaGrange and Preston Manning. The $253,000 and $2 million that Danielle Smith and the UCP gave to Preston Manning for a Covid-19 report that lacks truth, and exonerated the UCP of any wrongdoing, should be paid back, and Danielle Smith should resign as premier of Alberta. The red tape reduction scheme of the UCP is also what caused over 300 kids to become sick, after getting E-Coli at daycares in Alberta. Danielle Smith and the UCP also didn’t act on this right away, and made things worse.
Then she talked about sending longterm patients to hotels to free up hospital beds. Later we learned that wheelchair patients were being sent to cheap motels where at least one could not get into his bathroom for a week.
Where do you get the idea that the COVID 19 vaccine is killing people and why haven’t you been listening to what doctors have been saying? This vaccine wasn’t an experimental drug as you have suggested? My sister was a Lab Technician for about 20 years and I suggest you google the truth.
“ True Fact: COVID-19 vaccine was 20 years in the making”.
That’s not true; and they’re still running data on “the vaccine,” of which, there were SEVERAL.
Covid deniers, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, Take Back Alberta zealots, Free Alberta Fantasists, QAnon sympathizers: all of ’em armoured from ear to ear.
Name caller. No debate means no knowledge of the facts. Keep you fingers in your ears and eyes closed.
Is it name-calling when it’s the truth?
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was a long winded name for a 2019 Cold Virus Variant of the 2003 SARS Cold Virus. There was NO Pandemic in Canada or anywhere else on our Planet Earth from this 2019 Cold Virus Variant that no longer existed by end Summer 2020. Being SICK with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID 19) was being sick with a rough Cold Virus.
Master Corporal Kelly Carter: Covid-19 isn’t a rough cold virus. A cold doesn’t hospitalize someone.
Nor does a cold virus kill a person!
Fear does and apparently 2 or 3 comorbidities.
Sonja Farrell: Danielle Smith, Adriana LaGrange, and Preston Manning have no medical credentials. Alberta needs grownups in charge, and we aren’t getting that with the UCP.
Wow, I was completely unaware that the Canadian military is now putting their non-commissioned members through university to become epidemiologists. Thanks for your service, Master Corp….err, I mean Dr. Carter!
DJC, you know you wrote a good article when the kooks, nuts, trolls and bots are out in full force. Schmidt’s Alberta is quickly turning into a nighmarish hellscape. Either way, keep fighting the good fight, you’re clearly doing the public a service with this blog site.
Of course it was just a bit of flu. Those refrigerator truck morgues and the mass graves on Riker’s Island in New York City just were theatre.
And yet SO MANY workers died it’s still impacting the global supply chain.
How can both of these things be true ; outside of your ego ?
I keep waiting for that popular show hosted by Juan G on CBC Radio to decide it’s time to change the name. The earth may be round to most of us, but the letter Q is mostly round with a cute tail hanging down like your favourite doodle mix. The letter P has some bio connotations while the letters R, X, KLM, IBM, et al are spoken for. I see a contest, CBC, whaddya say?
This panel is just another excuse for Marlaina to dole out taxpayer cash to her friends. How many more sole-source contracts for $70,000 (the limit under the law) will it take for Albertans to realize that the UCP only cares about filling their pockets as fast as possible? The corruption is becoming more blatant by the day.
By chance have you seen any of the testimony of the National Citizens Inquiry? Eye opener if ever there was.
We watch Alberta’s UCP from the relative safety of British Columbia. I say relative because the toxins emitted from Alberta are seeping into BC at a steady rate. This has caused an upsurge of neo-conservatism, challenging the BC United Party (B-Cup) and the ruling NDP. We sometimes feel like our backs are against the sea by the avalanche of populism and misinformation. I wish Alberta could objectively review its anti science agenda. No possible good can come out of this.
Cecil: You are right that no good will come from this, or that any good is unlikely, anyway. Having grown up in British Columbia, though, I would say that the virus always lingered there in certain geographical regions – the upper Fraser Valley, in particular. What’s different now is the pernicious effect of social media and the near universal access to it. The ability of bad actors to screen out accurate information (an accusation I realize all sides of any debate now make at each other, just look at the comments section of this morning’s post) and the anti-communitarian impacts of social media platforms’ algorithms are very destructive of our sense of community. All that said, you are still better off in B.C. than we are in Alberta, where the tide of MAGA hate is swamping everything. DJC
During the pandemic, Alberta health services, eventually quit posting statistics for hospitalizations of unvaccinated versus the vaccinated. What would be the purpose of this other than to hide the fact that the vaccinated were consuming hospital beds? I believe Smith is doing what is right and it is important that we have someone look at both sides of the narrative, and if they are able to use scientific evidence and statistics to prove that how the pandemic was handled was inappropriate people need to know about this. A lot of lives were negatively influenced by the lockdowns, as well as by vaccination policies in the workplace. Maybe the globe should post vaccine injuries from the Covid vaccine it’s purely based on statistics and it’s very concerning.
Ashley Steeves: Alberta never had any lockdowns, and the vaccinated weren’t the ones consuming hospital beds. Danielle Smith and the UCP are not doing what’s right for Alberta at all.
Wut? The AHS wasn’t hiding vaccinated hospitalization rates…they were instructed to obstidicate all the numbers because the UCP government wanted to ignore COVID (evidence? Go check out how the gov now reports RSV, the flu and COVID – in this order and with inconsistent axes scales).
And global injury statistics are readily available, and minuscule when compared to the harm from contracting COVID – but we know you aren’t discussing any of this in good faith.
So, instead of facts, can you share the source of your fears and distrust? That would help us understand why you need to keep in with this non sense.
This is a smear article , science is not science unless it is tested. It is essential we analyze data and procedures for future decisions, also information is not true in this article, ivermectin is not a horse medicine as the lawsuit in the court caused CDC to retract all information calling it a horse paste.
Susanne Mitchell: This is not a smear article. Danielle Smith and the UCP are not telling the truth, and don’t care about how their bad decisions harm Albertans. No medical expertise are found in Danielle Smith, Adriana LaGrange, the UCP, or Preston Manning. It’s time the UCP were fired.
Susanne Mitchell, the last time I was at Green Hawk, a Canada wide supplier of goods for horse owners/riders, I passed through the medical supplies section. Amongst the syringes, concoctions for horse fly spray, and arthritis pain relief for horses was to be found Invermectin. It was in a tube just like toothpaste. It could be had unflavoured or in apple flavour, and the label clearly stated it was for deworming horses. Further the dosing information mentioned “lines of paste.” Invermectin is a veterinarian medication for horses, not humans.
Sorry, I am wrong Invermectin does have a pill form for humans, which is used to treat ring worm parasite in people. Again my apologies to S. Mitchell and other blog readers.
It is both. I believe here in Canada we are only likely to see invermectin in horse-size doses. In Africa, where there are a lot of intestinal parasites from things like contaminated water, it is something of a miracle drug in human-sized doses.
Oh course why one would expect a de-worming medicine to cure a respiratory disease is an interesting question. I suppose penicillin will cure your broken leg if used properly.
This is a smear comment susan. Presupposing there was one type of injection makes you a LIAR.
“the UCP’s ideological preferences for unbridled markets”
The UCP has no interest in unbridled or free markets. D. Smith’s libertarianism is a myth.
The UCP likes nothing better than to put its thumb on the scales.
O&G industry subsidies are called “investments”.
The UCP are busy trying to revive coal mining on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. “Pristine viewscapes”?
Scheming to funnel billions of royalty (RStar) credits to laggard O&G companies for cleanup they are already legally obligated to do.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s renewables moratorium was followed by restrictions that apply only to renewables.
Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs is anathema to the free market.
At the front end, the public is increasingly forced to pay for and backstop new projects. Trans Mountain pipeline. Carbon capture. SMRs in the oilsands. Investment in upgraders and refineries.
At the back end, taxpayers are forced to cover industry’s business expenses (e.g., emissions reduction, carbon capture, cleanup and reclamation).
Smith’s consistent interventionism on behalf of the O&G industry and repression of renewables is the opposite of free-market libertarianism. Smith is a rank neoliberal and corporate welfare queen.
BTW, Ivermectin goes great on toast (white bread only, please). Sprinkle a little UCP fairy dust on top, and you’re all set. Yum!
P.S. Anybody know what happened to Herald columnist Don Braid? Was he retired in favor of Rick Bell’s prairie poetry? Was Braid not sufficiently obsequious to the UCP? Not cantankerous enough towards Ottawa?
Geoffrey: You make a good point about the UCP’s qualified preferences about markets. However, as shorthand for what you have explained in more detail, I think it can stand. Your question about Mr. Braid is interesting and I’ll see what I can find out. Like a toothache that has mysteriously (and probably temporarily) gone away, I hadn’t really noticed that he was gone, just that I inexplicably felt better. DJC
“Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs is anathema to the free market.” Indeed.
Wow. Lots of name calling and no evidence to back up the claims of this article. Looks like Globe and Glove and Mail want to become the next Toronto Star. Let’s see what evidence comes out next month
Marie: There is no name calling. Exposing the UCP for their utter negligence and incompetence has to be done.
And in other breaking news, a truckload of last seasons fall turnips have fallen off the Turnip* Truck, and we are being inundated with turnip mush.
—-You can’t tell a Heinz pickle nuffin’ —–
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*( sincere apologies to actual rutabagas) lol
Randi-lee: I’m very protective of the humble rutabaga. It’s the only word that rhymes with Climenhaga, as properly pronounced. DJC
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Good to know.
Rutabaga is my safe word when I’m stuck in a boring conversation at a boring party. Spouse then drags me outside and we escape together.
DJC— I am a big fan of the humble rutabaga, especially roasted in beef drippings- yum…. but basically I was referring to the ‘turnips’ which are used (more so in Europe according to the seed catalogue) as cattle fodder, which seems more apropos in this case.
YYC Lefty— our family safe word is ‘Borscht’ / when it doesn’t mean lunch….lol
Shameful attempt at character assassination and false equivalency….believing that destroying small businesses while large buisness stayed open must = flat earth. Using a rational composed, scientific observational method like Sweden did =flat earth right wing conspiracy. Asking for a team to investigate that composed of skeptics who were silenced instead of a team that forced all of the lockdowns/mandates costing billions of dollars = heresy. Pretending a novel gene therapy is completely safe, completely effective and should be taken by everyone even those population groups not dying or at significant risk must be “scientifically sound” (yes risk is tiered, variable and was calculated yet ignored). Applying the rules/precautions enforced by law on every other medication is pseudoscience. Ignoring exponential increases in sudden death in young healthy people is “a waste of time” and the slow but steady increases in payouts around the world to the “vaccine injured” must be fake news because there couldn’t possibly be anyone injured…right? Telling and forcing the public to use millions of at home tests and then pulling them from the market because they have massive false + errors is an inconvenient truth and should be ignored cause “some of the tests were accurate”.
Everything done was perfect, made perfect sense and could not have been handled any differently….or maybe not.
joe public: There is no character assassination. The UCP’s negligence with the Covid-19 pandemic has put people’s lives at risk, and they need to be called out for doing it.
Sweden 2584 COVID deaths per million
Canada 1411
Wow, this post really brought out the loons, or as Charlie Pierce would put it, really wound up the great wingnut Wurlitzer. The attention paid to grammar should tell us something about their mental capacity.
Blame the blogger. From time to time he lets the Wurlitzer wingnuts post their bunkum to show he gets responders who believe the deck contains fifty-one cards or fewer.
Ivermectin in paste form is for horses. Ivermectin in pill form is for humans. It’s been on the WHO’s list of medications for humans for about 40 years. The paste for horses was developed after its use in humans. A US court case just concluded requiring the FDA to remove its horse paste ya’ll social media post for misleading information. I encourage all Albertans to use caution when trusting information from either political party or any institution. Trust but verify is a prudent approach for our times.
A smear campaign on Danielle Smith and Dr. Gary Davidson who has sworn to do no harm, and actually means it, unlike many doctors. I look forward to what this task force uncovers, and I sincerely hope that it will be able to be fully transparent on all aspects, and that we are finally able to have full accountability no matter who has to be held to account for the harms.
MH: Danielle is doing harm, along with the UCP. This task force will not only be a big waste of money, which the UCP does quite well, it will also exonerate the UCP of negligence. Preston Manning’s $253,000 salary, that came with a $2 million expense account, for his Covid-19 pandemic report, turned out to be utter garbage. There is no smear. So many seniors in Alberta are suffering on a limited pension, and this rejected career politician, with an enormous political pension gets this. That isn’t right.
For those of us who read studies and listened to docs and scientists on BOTH sides rather than just listening to the WHO’s, Pfizer’s, governments’… narrative parroted throughout covid while at the same time seeing people live in utter fear, lose their lives and/or livelihoods, have severe reactions, be bullied and name-called… it’s finally time we have all the research brought to light for all to see. Those who are so vehemently against all the data emerging might even be surprised and dismayed at what they didn’t know, at what was hidden… AHS said last year that they didn’t know why “unknown cause of death” was the number one killer in Alberta. Do they checked into why elite athletes have died in far higher numbers these last couple of years than ever before? What about the weekly, if not daily “incapacitation” of pilots worldwide… Have they seen autopsy reports of the massive blood clots that have never before been seen in human bodies? Are they aware that insurance companies have seen an absolutely unheard of 40% increase in deaths and disabilities among the working population – particularly among people who work for large companies. From what rock did this intense “turbo cancer” that is claiming so many people emerge? Why do I know one couple who have lost over a dozen family members in the last two years? Why do I know another person who has lost over 10? That is also unheard of. Have they seen the turn around in a covid patient’s health after being prescribed Ivermectin? Of course not. The CBC, Global… and all the other mainstream media have followed the prescribed narrative and they and their faithful following then name call (flat earther, climate denier, racist, homophobic, mysogenist…) to those who have differing opinions when they have no scientific argument to make back in response.
To the “journalist” who wrote the inflammatory article, I say, calm down honey. You have no idea what will come off this task force. Emotionalism and fear is not good for your health.
D Shaver: What is in that UCP Kool-Aid?
Looks like many of today’s posters avoided the vaccine but drank the Kool-aid.
87% of Albertan’s agree with Danielle’s stand against draconian mandate measures and are entirely aware that the Covid jab was never safe nor efficacious.
Nicholas Kasper: A fake survey. Lots of Albertans don’t agree with Danielle Smith and the UCP.
If that figure of 87% is true, which I sincerely doubt, then 87% of Albertans are morons.
I am tired of it all
I want to go back to the future
We are not in Kanas anymore I want to click my heels 3x
and go back to the nice Alberta
What is the reality. People did die.
Did the vaccine cause heart attack heart problems and other serious medical problems
Did it cause my husband of 50 yrs Parkinson s. When there is no cases in his family generation after generation
Am I worried on how it may affect a womens pregnancy and the resulting child. Yes
Was I worried when I got the vaccine. Yes Why Because nothing was said about TRANSMISSION until a town place in USA had a high % vaccination and had an event with outside people coming in and that’s when the Big Realization hit that the vaccine did not stop transmission. so if I could turn back time ⏰ would I take it I don’t know. If I was working as an RN and not retired/ disabled maybe Yes as I would want to protect my patients and my co workers Properly due to how I was trained back in nursing school in a religious hospital when
the patient always came first Nursing then where I trained was seen as a vocation a calling
What happens if it happens again have we learned anything Has Canada done a review the UK has been dissecting and discussing this in its parliament with past politicians and drs or scientists having to back up or explain why they made the decisions they did and what they withheld when they knew differently and why. Has this been done in Canada and I missed it
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya just won a major prize from one of the most powerful right-wing foundations in America. The Bradley Foundation is a patron to right wing causes. Dr. Bhattacharya pushes the narrative of “no vaccine, mass infection to create natural immunity”. The prize is worth $250 000.
I’d be fighting against any kind of covid investigation too, especially if I had potentially played a role in destroying lives. Shouldn’t our goal as a society be to dissect and learn rather than to blindly hold onto narrative that many were driven to by fear? The more transparency the better – even if people go to jail.
Nod to the bourgeoisie right crashing this page.
Shut your mouth, none of this is on offer and we; your actual betters are prepared to fight you tooth and nail, and we aren’t soft like you.
If I was you, I would be scared.
Amen brother!
The current UCP government seems determined to put a chill on thinking that does not align with its. This reminds me of the bad old days not so long ago of the Alberta one party state when certain past provincial governments became both arrogant and over sensitive to critical thought and comment.
Like a good one party state, lots of people initially went along with it at least on the surface, but in the end support for the party that became so overbearing became more perfunctory and less enthusiastic.
I do suspect people will find creative ways to work around this provincial government, such as for things that involve Federal funding. Ironically this may end up giving the province even less control over these things.
I also feel a big mistake of Smith is trying to blindly copy another province’s approach to autonomy. Its power does not really come from particular laws, but the unique cultural and political position it occupies.
holy cow! Parker must have instructed his cult members to mobilize.
Another politician that is driven by her own agenda. Her hate for the federal government and the way the truck convoy and Coutts resulted is still on her very open sore. The whole Covid thing is what keeps her motivated. Hate. In the words of Forest Gump. Crazy is what crazy does. Time for this one to leave. Embarrassment.
The breakdown in communication from either side IS the intention of design. By infighting amongst ourselves, we will fail to see what is truly happening. The UCP don’t care about Albertans. There hasn’t been a “conservative” leader, aka Premier serve a full term, since, hmmm, Ed Stelmach was elected in 2006. Rachel Notley served her full term. The gag with UCP is that their puppet leader pushes a bunch of agendas and becomes unpopular, so then another puppet is installed to complete the globalist agenda checklist. Oh, but it’s the NDP bogeyman that continues to be blamed. And Trudeau. But it sickens me how yet another UCP puppet is voted in as some sort of solution when the entire party is corrupt and misleading. They priotise the rich, the corporations and their friends, but for reasons unknown to me, Albertans continue to elect them in the hopes that “this time will be different.” No, it won’t. They will say whatever needs to be said to gain votes. There is an occupation dedicated to exactly this task. Then, another occupation dedicated to spreading misinformation that the rest of us recognise as propaganda. The WEF forum agenda is real. Look it up. UCP are working with them. See it for yourself. Oliu, an ATB product is rolling out digital ID for all Canadians. After all the federal government information meant to trigger more hatred for Trudeau, it is designed to have people stop there. But keep scrolling down the Oliu page and you will see ATB branding. Look it up on Google: Oliu is owned by ATB. Either side of the political aisle can agree that China and Saudi Arabia are not the champions of freedom and rights, but that is the WEF goal and is repeated on that webpage link (click the small 2 reference above the map). We have a serious problem that needs to be solved without this stupid fighting between us. The right needs to fact check their sgit without getting emotionally triggered, and the “left” (welp, they aren’t even really left but more centre, it’s just how far the right has swung…) the left needs to listen to the rights concerns because the Pharmaceutical companies that created the COVID vaccine have used a lot of shady practices to date. One being the 99 year gag on their data, their lack of accountability (thank Trump for gifting them zero liability), and the insane profits they have made. I do believe that vaccines work, and are necessary but this was an extraordinary situation. Canada was poised to create their own vaccine, but we can thank Pierre Poilievre for ensuring that we secured the American brands. Seriously, it was Pierre who was banging his fists on his desk upset that Trudeau didn’t secure vaccines from the Americans. Look it up in the Hansard, 2020. As an added bonus you will see it was Pierre who recommended a Canadian company for rapid testing that turned out to be a failure and cost taxpayers a few million. National Post ran the headlines blaming Trudeau, but the entire time it was Pierre. Again, in the Hansard. This is what a good publicist does: recommend what to say to sway the popular vote. He doesn’t do what is right, but what he needs to win. Garbage. No values. Highest bidder mindset. This is dangerous stuff. If politicians don’t have your back, no one does.
http://www.travelhellberta.ca
Here is a link to back one of my claims:
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-government-lost-20-million-in-pre-payments-for-ottawa-based-spartan-biomedical-covid-19-test-that-never-worked-as-promised
Here is one, quickly accessible, reference of Pierre mentioning that he was at Spartan Bioscience and was talking their praise. This company was given $20 million on Pierre’s recommendation, but is was Trudeau who got blamed when it was revealed that this company was a sham. Poilievre could have spoken up and take responsibility, but he won’t. What a great attribute for a future Prime Minister, right? A good craftsman always blames their tools for their shortcomings, right? Lol.
All of Canada’s major news networks, including radio, tv and newsprint, are owned by Postmedia, a conservative pushing viewpoint. Yeah. But somehow, the “fake news” is always Rachel Notley.
https://openparliament.ca/debates/2020/4/11/pierre-poilievre-15/only/
Once upon a time, in the early days of the Internet, there was this unwritten rule that the first person to cite Hitler or Nazis in any online discussion had lost the argument and that the discussion was over; this became known as Godwin’s Law.
Well, in recent years, especially from the Trump Presidency of 2017-21, that law can fairly be described as repealed, since fascism and Nazism are fair comparisons to modern threats to democracy. This is one such case in point.
In the 1930s, in the early years of the Third Reich, university faculties in Germany were nazified: professors with “non-Aryan” ancestry were fired, and those with leftist ideological leanings were suppressed, and only certain kinds of research were permitted. Books by “degenerate” authors were burned and curricula were skewed to teach students only what the Nazis— few of who, I might add, had themselves ever received more than a rudimentary education — believed they should be taught.
The UCP government’s insistence that there needs to be more conservative views coming out of academia are disturbing echoes of 1930s Germany.
I heard Naheed Nenshi say he uses an evidence-based decision making model, while the UCP uses a decision-based evidence-making model. This is the perfect example.