Having announced Monday it would spend $9 million cooking up a fanciful provincial railway “masterplan” that includes a public transit component, the United Conservative Party Government yesterday informed Edmonton and Calgary it is ending its contribution to their low-income transit pass programs.
The mayors of both cities appear to have been gobsmacked by the unexpected notice they received of cuts of $9 million to Edmonton and $6.2 million to Calgary for the subsidized transit passes for seniors, students and residents living in poverty, which the government did not bother to announce to the public.
City officials ought not have been surprised. The cuts are both vindictive and calculated, and as such, were entirely predictable.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, posting on the social media platform previously known as Twitter, said far too politely that “at a time when Edmontonians are struggling to afford their basic needs and demand for this program has increased 150 per cent since 2016, the decision to defund this program in Edmonton and Calgary shows that the Province’s priorities are in the wrong place.”
“This program has been incredibly successful,” he said in the short tweet thread. “It reduced stress, removed barriers to transportation and reduced social isolation for program participants. Over 250,000 Ride Transit Program passes were sold in 2023, an increase of approximately 20 per cent from 2019.”
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek struck a tougher note. “I have been informed that the Government of Alberta is slashing funding for the Low Income Transit Pass in the midst of an affordability crisis,” she said in a statement given to media. “I am appalled.”
In a tweet thread, Mayor Gondek said “this provincial government continues to burden big cities by walking away from their commitments. … Rather than spend $6.2 million to help low-income Calgarians and seniors get around now, this provincial government would rather spend more time dreaming about private-public partnerships for trains decades from now.”
Like Mayor Sohi, Ms. Gondek noted that the 119,000 passes issued in Calgary by the end of March this year enable “Calgarians to travel around the city to attend medical appointments, work and school.”
“This is a much needed and well-used program that provides transit access to Calgarians living below the poverty line,” she said. “It is an insult to the lowest income Calgarians who are already struggling to get by.”
Of course, none of these things are necessarily seen as benefits by Ms. Smith, her close political advisors, or the party’s rural-dominated caucus in the Legislature, not to mention its MAGA base.
Nevertheless, it’s quite possible the poor are merely collateral damage in Premier Danielle Smith’s buildup to a fiscal and political war on Edmonton and Calgary.
No sooner had the mayors responded to the announcement, than both were attacked on social media by what appeared to be Conservative bots.
Edmonton and Calgary have found themselves in the UCP’s crosshairs of the government for two reasons:
First, electors in both cities have the habit of electing too many progressive councillors for the UCP’s taste, and the party’s strategy of dealing with any electoral threat is to engineer a conflict with someone to shore up the party’s base and punish and provoke its enemies.
Readers will recall that in a conversation with Calgary Sun columnist Rick Bell before the 2023 election, Ms. Smith boasted that she didn’t need to win more than 10 or 15 seats in the big cities to form a government.
And, sad to say, punishing cuts for Edmonton and Calgary might well turn out to be politically popular in rural Alberta.
After the election, the premier told the annual Canada Strong and Free Network clambake in Ottawa that Conservatives needed to find a way to win the hearts of voters in big cities. Commentators might have imagined this would mean the UCP would adopt a kinder, more generous approach to Alberta’s cities.
Most wouldn’t have guessed, though, that instead the party would adopt a strategy of making it as hard as possible for city councils to run their cities while introducing municipal political parties in hope voters could be stampeded to support the UCP’s Edmonton and Calgary farm teams.
And if that doesn’t work, the UCP can always use the power it is giving itself to fire city councillors in absentia after a short, secret cabinet hearing.
Edmonton Journal columnist Keith Gerein summed it up nicely: “UCP plan seems obvious at this point. Defund cities to increase misery, blame it on the councils, restrict their ability to take recourse, tell voters that parties will fix everything, and if that fails, give yourself the power to remove councillors and revoke bylaws.”
The second reason Ms. Smith is ginning up a Special Municipal Operation, as it were, is that the UCP’s war with the Trudeau Government will have to end soon if Pierre Poilievre becomes the prime minister.
Could the Smith Government even function without a Main Enemy to attack every time it encountered difficulties with its own policy prescriptions?
Well, no one is ever going accuse Ms. Smith of being a premier for all Albertans! Least of all folks in Edmonton who elected a mayor who used to be a federal Liberal cabinet minister.
No, this is a party in the mold of MAGA Republicans south of the Medicine Line, who divide to conquer and enjoy watching the pain they cause. The cruelty is often the point.
A statement to media from the press secretary to Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon touted provincial funding for homeless shelters and blew off complaints about the surprise cuts on the grounds “transit is a municipal responsibility in the two big cities.”
However, Alexandru Cioban did say that “Alberta’s government is investing $5 million to support transportation programs for low-income Albertans in rural communities where transportation options are limited.”
There’s nothing Marlaina loves better than kicking poor people. Sickening.
No surprise. SOP for the TBA government. Alberta voters are getting what they deserve.
So you’re suggesting that anyone who didn’t vote for that Godless party deserve to suffer? You must be one of the Conservative bots that David’s article mentioned then.
Debrah: In this case, I am pretty Cool Xenu is putting words in the mouth of the Take Back Alberta MAGA faction of the UCP to make a point opposite to the way you interpreted it. I’m pretty sure CX is not a bot. Agruably, the comment was ambiguously worded, but I can’t edit everyone. DJC
I sure hope your assessment is accurate David. I just can’t help these days, from getting the impression that all the things that used to make me proud of being Canadian, are disappearing as quickly as the dew on the grass in our warming climate. I used to be proud of being a peace keeper nation, our reputation for being a polite society, for caring about the down trodden….and having it suggested that all of Albertan’s are getting what we deserve with this current horrible government is just providing certainty in my mind that our best is behind us. I hope not.
On another note, I don’t think there’s another government in Canada that provides as much fodder for commentary as the TBA/UCP bunch with Smith at the helm. You must be overwhelmed with topics to choose from at times. Thanks for the good work you do, it’s much appreciated.
Thank you, Debrah. Yes, it is hard to keep up sometimes. DJC
While I feel a responsibility to help those in need get around, I draw the line at helping low income workers get to work. Far too many government programs (all levels of government) enable corporations to underpay their workers and subsidized public transit is one of these programs. Spend taxpayer dollars looking after those that can’t look after themselves but put the onus on the employer to look after the needs of their workers. The CEO of Tim Horton’s is the highest paid in the country and I feel no obligation to help his employees get to work (no disrespect intended, only used Tim’s as an example to make my point).
Cornell: I think this is a problem many of us have. You will remember David Cameron’s “Big Society,” perhaps – what a dumb-ass slogan for the fakery of kinder, gentler conservatism. The idea being that we should take over core functions of the state personally to ensure our neighbours survive and so that our tax dollars can go where they are really needed, financing boondoggles and propping up the petroleum industry. In Alberta we have a burgeoning Charitable-Recovery-Industrial Complex (I’m still refining this term) of charitably financed feeding and sleeping stations for the indigent poor like those operated by the Nixon Family, quack drug recovery programs like those the new Recovery Alberta entity has been established to finance and coddle, and the deeply entrenched food bank industry. You watch, if they aren’t already, all of them will seek charitable donations – just like Contentment Social Services was doing. But do they exist to save the addicted and feed the hungry, or to ensure a comfortable life for their executives, some of whom have tight connections to the UCP Government and its separatist backers? DJC
This this this and this. Charitable industry recovery complex is very spot on imo, and I’m old enough to remember Jason Kenneys brother (was it?) having to FLEE the COUNTRY for abuses that occurred in the facility he ran in Kelowna ?
Now government officials are reportedly circling the drain in Italy chasing personality cults in order to – you can’t make this up – build out the “troubled teen industry” probably the most abusive export of MK ULTRA (CIA) research ever ?
You literally couldn’t make this up if you tried. It’s absurdity bordering on parody.
Bird: I don’t believe Mr. Kenney’s brother fled the country. He left British Columbia after a damning report on the private recovery agency in question. He relocated to Ontario and, more recently, to Alberta. DJC
So we should force companies to pay a living wage so we no longer have to subsidize their poverty wages, I agree. Raise the minimum wage.
You don’t feel any responsibility??? How about, if we enable the less fortunate to keep their jobs, feed their families, etc., that means fewer people on welfare living on handouts and raising kids with no hope at all, who are then even more likely to succumb to the lure of criminality.
My mother was abandoned by her husband, leaving her with two small children and a grade 8 education. Thanks to the social programs this country had back in the 60’s, she could go to welfare, get help with upgrading and a minimal level of training so that she could become a secretary. That was her leg up and she could move off the handout’s of welfare. She went on to move into sales and from that, managed to become a property owner and today in her golden years, owns four properties and has paid her high taxes all these years. That’s what helping one woman did.
How many people like her, does your kind of attitude shut out of any possibility of moving up in their own lives and from a dollar efficiency perspective, start paying taxes and carrying their part of the social burden?
I’ve always thought of Canada as being a family and we reach out and help those who need the help and when it’s our turn to need a leg up, they respond with outstretched arms and are ready to meet our needs in the moment. But I feel like that less and less, the more I read comments like yours was and the more I listen to the ‘average Albertan’ complaining about absolutely everything as they play the victim. Frankly, I’m glad I’m old. It means I don’t have to listen to that kind of attitude for the next 60 years! Forget ‘polite Canadians’. We’ve turned into something I don’t recognize.
It’s as if a punitive parent thinks they can get the kids to behave by spanking them harder, then kicking them to the curb. The kids end up couch surfing at their friends’ houses. Highly dysfunctional parents should not try this if they have 2.7M children. It’s unlikely there are 2.7M spare couches to surf on. While the golden child will no doubt be pleased, the odds are not in the abusive parent’s favor.
Too true and the cost to that abusive parent down the road, will be even heavier than what they’re trying to ignore.
I suppose this should not be a surprise, as the only thing the UCP hates more than big city elected officials is people that are not well off. So two birds with one stone for them here.
Anyone who still believed the UCPs often professed concern about affordability just before the last election should now realize that was all just talk. After all this is the same government that recently raised provincial fuel taxes at exactly the same time while criticizing another level of government for doing that.
I suspect municipal leaders have also already realized not to expect anything helpful or good from this current provincial government that throws around its weight and bullies those less powerful, well because it doesn’t like them and just because it can.
Too often in Alberta, which at times has verged on being a one party state, a common response has been not to stand up to bullying and just silently take it. Of course that does not work well in the long run.
No doubt the UCP will try to punish individual municipal leaders who try speak up or protest against them, but if enough of them challenge the provincial government in a coordinated way, it will be hard for the UCP to do that and the Wizard of Oz facade of power that Smith and crew are working so hard to project may quickly start to crumble.
Collateral damage. Yes. In the pursuit of her vengeance against the cities, Queen Danielle intends to harm anyone and everyone who didn’t have the foresight to kowtow to her superior wisdom and will, and get on board her crazy train. It’s pretty clear what she wants: Smith wants the heads of the mayors and all the councillors of Calgary and Edmonton delivered to her on silver platters. This is her only and final demand. Then, failed UCP candidates will be installed and peace will be restored. It’s the price to pay to keep the cities’ dignity.
We have heard Skippy Polivere echo similar sentiments, by loosely proclaiming ‘je suis l’état’ when announcing how he intends to deal will any and all social ills. I’m not sure where the la garde du roi is going to come from to pull this off, however. Things are so bad that extraordinary powers must be handed to CONs so they can have an easier time wrecking everything? Worse, it looks like the voters are ready to hand it to them.
PMJT and anyone else left standing pretty much handed the destruction of society to the vandals by being too cautious and too expensive in their efforts to keep everything stable. Now that everything is perceived as being broken, everyone is willing to let the strongmen take over. The demand for fascism hasn’t been this potent since the 1920s.
I guess everyone forgot to be careful for what they wish for, because they are about to get it.
Another interesting column, David, thank you for writing it. The whole ‘we need an enemy’ theme seems like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. I am sure if Edmonton and Calgary do get into line and elect conservative councils, the province’s finances will suddenly improve and there will be money available to restore the various programs they have cut recently. At that point the conservative municipal councils will, of course, tout their superior money handling skills and perhaps even lower the property tax a bit.
The success of this plan, however, is contingent on the residents of the big cities not seeing through it.
I am wondering if Mr. Poilivre and his CPC friends could wind up being collateral damage. Lots of people have moved to Alberta in the past few years, and they haven’t necessarily left their progressive voting habits back in their home province. Stephen Harper was really frustrated when Linda Duncan won Edmonton Strathcona in 2008, putting an orange blight on an otherwise sea of blue on the Alberta electoral map. He was then annoyed when Ryan Hastman was unable to dislodge Ms. Duncan in spite of some dirty tricks on Harper’s part, like having Hastings on the stage at a funding announcement in Strathcona, while Ms. Duncan had to watch from the audience. I think it is safe to say that Edmonton Strathcona is now one of the NDP’s safer seats.
Meanwhile, Alberta’s non-CPC seat count increased to four in the last election, while a more moderate seeming Erin O’Toole was leading the party. Next year the election will be between an unpopular Liberal leader and a more extreme CPC leader who rose to prominence by pandering to Covid protestors, and yesterday got himself kicked out of Parliament for using language a long term MP must have known was unacceptable. Combine that with residents in Edmonton and Calgary feeling annoyed with Poilievre’s alter ego and biggest booster for the treatment she is dishing out to cities and I can definitely see some anti-CPC backlash.
Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon posted this on twitter at Easter time: “On this Good Friday may you feel blessed and full of hope as you remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” Does this seem like a christian someone who emulates how Jesus treated the poor? Jesus was the one who indicated: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Does this tell us that Jason Nixon is a bonafide sincere christian? No. Shame on him for peddling the Smith/Parker UCP/TBA vengeful cruelty on Alberta’s two largest cities.
Happy May Day, comrades! The AB NDP is going all out: https://twitter.com/RachelNotley/status/1785699123402019020/photo/1
Good construction jobs! For CLAC! For heaven’s sake. DJC
When people are already down, the UCP knocks them down even further. Heartless.
Urban Albertans are target practice for Smith&Parker.
Fast and fascinating reversal of such an awful policy.
It would be instructive to find out whether there’s a bit of an internal war within the UCP over its spate of negative announcements.
Yowser! Broken News!!111!!1! The clown car just hit a moose! Jason Nixon was dazed but not seriously injured! Dani remains confused! More news at 6:00 pm!
It has been rescinded. The power is with the Seniors!
I saw a clip on the news at noon, that Minister Nixon has reversed this after talking to the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary. Maybe he should have talked to them before jumping on this?
I see an Edmonton Federal NDP has introduced a private members bill in Parliament to require 2/3 of the Provinces approve any Province (Alberta) from exiting the CPP. I can imagine Dingy Smith’s blood must be just about at a boiling point by now!
Well, that didn’t last long, they turned tail this morning. Was it Rick Bell’s column criticizing them? Maybe he’s useful sometimes.
Today Jason Nixon says he didn’t know his department talked to the cities about this and he claims the program is the cities’ responsibility. Is he lying to cover his butt, or is he just too damn lazy and stupid to do his job?
And Mayor Gondek pointed out that this is about income supports therefore it is a provincial responsibility, not a subsidy to the cities.
I’d believe her over Nixon.
Then I nearly choked at Smith claiming they don’t like to surprise people with their announcements. Liar.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-government-low-income-transit-pass-funding-1.7190657
Valerie: As I said in tonight’s post, I don’t believe for a second Rick Bell’s column had anything to do with it. It’s pretty bold of Mr. Nixon to try to insist transit is the cities’ responsibility when his government also insists accurately that cities are entirely creatures of provinces under the constitution. Mayor Gondek’s argument also makes sense. I think Mr. Nixon knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, but any ole port in a storm will do. I agree that Ms. Smith’s commentary is both pathetic and hilarious, or would be if it all weren’t so troubling. DJC
I think Bell is a useful mouthpiece for Smith as well as a canary in the coal mine of Alberta opinion. And she doesn’t like CBC and probably isn’t fond of CP so what other MSM can she manipulate?
I’m not in a position to have heard any outcry; I hope you are correct that it was large and loud.
Added to that is the backlash the UCP is getting over Bill 20 from all the municipalities including the rural ones. They sound pretty angry in this article:
https://www.cochraneeagle.ca/local-news/rural-leaders-say-bill-20-a-hammer-to-undermine-municipal-autonomy-8683598
Both Valerie, too damn lazy and stupid to do his job.
UCP recalls Bill 20, replaces with Bill 21 An Act Requiring Po Folk to Stand on Public Transit. Bill 22 will amend hunting regulations to allow for the hunting of puppies, while Bill 23 will empower Cabinet to direct municipal fire departments to only select house fires.
Film at 11.
Bill 24 and a half, will require cabinet ministers to either carry a jar of Vaseline or a pound of warm butter wherever they go. Pass me my hat, I’ll show myself out!
The UCP’s Recall Act requires that an application to recall an MLA feature the signatures of 40% of that riding’s electorate.
There are three or four provincial ridings in the north of Calgary in which the UCP incumbent won the last election by less than 200 votes.
A justification for recall in any of these ridings would be that their UCP MLA is part of a government working against the interests of its electorate.
This might not be enough to eliminate the UCP’s majority in the Legislature, but it would send a message.