Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in a recent, more optimistic, moment (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta).

All of political Alberta was agog yesterday at the revelation 77 per cent of adult Albertans disapprove of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership according to a recent online survey by ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc.

The premier’s approval rating, which the Calgary-based polling company characterized as tumbling, has now reached 22 per cent, said ThinkHQ President Marc Henry, prompting the pollster to comment in the spirit of the pandemic moment that “Jason Kenney is a leader on life-support, and his prognosis is not good.”

ThinkHQ President Marc Henry (Photo: calgarycvo.org).

Indeed, the pandemic has plenty to do with it. “There is no doubt that COVID-19 is the origin of much of Kenney’s troubles,” Mr. Henry added, noting accurately that “in many respects, he has been the architect of his own misfortune.”

“The political gamble that was ‘The Best Summer Ever’ is now taking a punishing toll both politically for the leader and in real human costs for Albertans and the health care system,” Mr. Henry went on, to which one can only add a hearty, No Kidding! 

“We have not seen a sitting premier with numbers this low in almost a decade,” Mr. Henry observed grimly on his company’s website. “Alison Redford resigned the day it was revealed her approval at the time had dropped to 18 per cent. That’s a ‘margin of error’ difference from Kenney’s results today.”

So there you have it, folks. It’s at least semi-official. Premier Kenney is now down there in Alison Redford territory and you can almost hear the whistle of the axe heading for his neck. 

But at 22 per cent, I have to say I was surprised that many Albertans still approve of Mr. Kenney. 

I’m not kidding. Matt Wolf and all the other United Conservative Party “issues managers” using a variety of aliases must be members of the Angus Reid Forum panel Mr. Henry used to get a number that high! 

I’d bet you money the UCP’s own polling is considerably worse – at least, if they’re not so depressed they’ve stopped polling altogether. 

Alberta Opposition NDP Leader and former premier Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

Indeed, a Sept. 20-27 survey by EKOS pegged support for Mr. Kenney’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic at 11 per cent.

Now, you can argue that the two polls measure apples and oranges – approval of Mr. Kenney’s overall governing (very low) and approval of his efforts on the pandemic file (even lower) – but if you ask me, at this point the two questions are all but one and the same in the minds of most Albertans. 

You don’t need a pollster to tell you Mr. Kenney isn’t very popular any more. All you have to do to is join a socially distanced line up for a grocery store cashier or a bank machine almost anywhere in Alberta to hear what folks have to say about our premier – which can be characterized as deep and abiding contempt. 

Mr. Kenney was never an overwhelmingly popular premier, Mr. Henry noted in his commentary on the poll, which used a 1,116-member online panel and was in the field for three days from Wednesday to Friday last week. 

Well, he’s even less so now. It’s worth noting that according to ThinkHQ, 61 per cent of the respondents were in the strongly disapprove category. 

Perhaps worse, from the UCP perspective, Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley seems to be doing much better. “Kenney’s chief political rival … has seen public appraisals of her performance notch up slightly since July, currently sitting at 50 per cent approval (32 per cent strong approval) vs. 47 per cent disapproval (39 per cent strong).”

Former Alberta Conservative premier Alison Redford (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

And there’s no safe demographic for Mr. Kenney. City and country … Edmonton and Calgary … women and men … oldsters and young people … rich and poor … nobody much likes the guy, according to ThinkHQ. 

Well, these kind of numbers add up to existential-threat territory for the UCP, so despite the fragile truce Mr. Kenney cobbled together on Sept. 22 to keep his job, various factions of the disunited party will be sharpening their knives in hopes of saving their own hides. 

Unfortunately for them, what might save an MLA’s skin in vaccine-refusenik rural Alberta isn’t necessarily the same thing as what could work in vaccine-affirming Calgary. 

“The UCP is an electoral creature, sewn together from two rival conservative parties primarily to unseat the NDP government,” Mr. Henry observed in his commentary. “In the face of this prolonged and punishing pandemic, the creature is tearing itself apart at the stitches.”

Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the re-animation of the Wildrose Party as a well-funded right-wing threat to the Progressive Conservatives after the 2008 provincial election has created a permanent rift in Alberta’s conservative movement never really went away.

With the NDP increasingly established in the minds of so many Albertans as the party of the sensible centre and the cautious and competent Rachel Notley still at the helm, that could be very bad news for the parties of the right. 

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38 Comments

  1. “But at 22 per cent, I have to say I was surprised that many Albertans still approve of Mr. Kenney.”

    That’s because at least 22% of Albertans are fecklessly stupid. If the New Democrats somehow managed to manoeuvre “Conservative” onto their nameplate, they’d be elected in a heartbeat.

    1. CovKid: In my heart I hope, I pray, that 22% is a little high. But you may be right. I have said the same thing about the Notley party’s name in this blog several times. The Progressive Conservative Party might be a good option. DJC

  2. Democratic Conservative Party
    Prior to the NDP success Brian Mason s platform was about word for word Peter Lougheed

  3. Good news, bad news for Kenney here, although to be frank even the good news for Kenney at this point is not so great.

    First of all, the good news – Kenney is not the only recent Premier to have such low approval and the other one I am thinking of actually survived as party leader. The bad news for them is they didn’t do so well in the following general election and their party was reduced to a third party rump in Ontario.

    The bad news for Kenney is I doubt voters, and perhaps even party members, here will be as loyal as in Ontario. You might think at least the UCP wouldn’t be reduced to third party status in a two party system, but it is showing signs of possibly breaking apart under all the ongoing stress. I already have a feeling which rump Kenney might try cling to if that happens. It will not be good.

    However, I also suspect that 22% level of support is on the very generous side for Kenney. It might be hard for pollsters to believe how deep and wide spread the animosity for Kenney is, because they have likely not often seen anything like it. I suspect he has actually already surpassed Redford in dislike. Of course, the PC’S were a more practical party focused on staying in power, so the process of getting rid of her was fairly quick and not too drawn out. Kenney on the other hand still has a number of loyalists in key positions and the UCP party is to a large extent his creation. So it could take a heck of a lot of force to get him out and I don’t sense he is inclined to go very willingly.

    If he can keep his party from splitting apart, perhaps he can hang on until the leadership review. If it becomes clear to him he will not do well in the review, he will probably resign a bit before it.

  4. It is as simple as this. Albertans didn’t heed the warnings that these pretend conservatives and Reformers in the UCP were no good to begin with. Had they listened to those of us who were saying that the UCP were bad, we wouldn’t be in this horrific mess. It was the same way with Ralph Klein. Peter Lougheed didn’t like these pretend conservatives and Reformers. He knew what their agenda was, and it wasn’t good.

  5. I have to say that all this chatter about conservatives and conservative parties is at best just deflection, at worst just plain stupid. There are no conservative parties in Alberta; they are all authoritarian parties to one extent or another. Of course, that means the chances of bumping into a conservative-minded person is slim to none. I can’t imagine the nonsense and bulls&*t coming out of the mouths of these idiots to justify their politics. It’s all populism tending to authoritarianism.

    So that means Racheal and her gang are non-authoritarian, and that sounds about right. As far as democratic, let alone ‘new democratic’, that remains to be seen. Soon, I hope.
    Her last gig on the throne – and make no mistake; the Premiership of this Province is managed as Royal Rule – didn’t go so well for the commoners. She was then, and apparently still is, in thrall with the petro-lords in the Province. No good will come from this sector, except to a few shareholders, until these petro-corps are cast into the mainstream business community. No subsidies, no special non-regulatory oversight, no special tax breaks; they either make it by providing a safe and legal product that people want or they go bankrupt.
    It’s highly doubtful that Rachael would agree to any of this.

  6. “So there you have it, folks. It’s at least semi-official. Premier Kenney is now down there in Alison Redford territory”.
    I note that, just the other day, that you wrote “Alison Redford, chosen to lead Alberta’s Conservatives a decade ago, doesn’t look quite so bad in hindsight” hmmm 🙂

    Kenney will be given no such (even half-hearted) forgiveness.

    1. Patrick: This is an accurate observation. But there is nothing mutually exclusive about these two true assertions. DJC

  7. Good morning Sir, if anything we can be thankful for the pandemic, it fell on the premiers watch. I’ve despised the man since he was in Ottawa and considered him a huckster leading the remaining hucksters in reviving the conservative parties into one. Hopefully it will collapse the big tent. The problem, as I see it, is if they excuse their unpopularity on the the mishandling of Covid on the premier. Once he’s gone they will revert to their overhaul of economy into the free market system. Trying to convince people these economic policies are being handled appropriately. With the surge in oil prices it may give them the edge they need,

  8. You do have to feel sorry for poor Jason’s timing.

    The arrival of Justin Trudeau on the political scene thwarted what he saw as his natural ascendency to the prime minister’s office, after Stephen Harper retired. As a result, poor Jason was forced to accept the premiership of Alberta as a consolation prize.

    Then he became premier when oil prices were low, and they kept dropping during his premiership.

    The primary plank in his campaign to become premier was to abolish the carbon tax. Once he banished the evil carbon tax, he scheduled a press conference to gloriously announce to the world the carbon tax was gone. Sadly for poor Jason, though, the skies were so filled with smoke from climate change induced forest fires he had to cancel his presser.

    Covid, of course, came along just when he was set to impose his agenda on us.

    And now, two weeks before the great referendum, where he can lead Albertans to show their contempt for the rest of Canada, help from the Canadian Military, and the Red Cross, has arrived in Alberta to help clean up the mess Kenney has made of Covid.

    Germans have a word for the special kind of sympathy I feel for poor Jason: schadenfreude.

  9. I also doubt the 22% but agree that in Alberta it is possible. I have met people that still approve him.
    Why? Because they are in a cult of right wing crap. They are not just stupid, they cannot see 1 inch in front of their eyes.
    Only in Alberta hey?
    The fact is that those 22% continue to run the show and we the other 80% watch and do nothing and that is also only in Alberta.

  10. Off topic here, but I’m wondering if David or anyone knows if Kenny ever responded to Trudeau‘s comment that if Kenny is unhappy with equalization he should ask his younger self why he set it up that way – I’ve not been able to find a response when I search, but I figured combative Kenny must have made one somewhere.

    1. Bruce: Desoite the enjoyable passion of Andrew Nikiforuk’s Tyee article, there is no way on God’s green earth that charges of negligence or negligence causing death could be successfully brought against a Canadian government for policies enacted while in power. It’s great rhetoric, but it’s simply not in the cards. DJC

  11. Redford was more effective in uniting the various factions in the province in their contempt for her. Bumbles needs to do a bit more work in that direction to achieve that nadir of success.

    While 22% is a bad number for Premier Bumbles, it is grim number of Albertans. Even if the premiere were to have a road-to-Damascus epiphany and devise a sensible plan to get us out of this mess that placed lives over ideology or his own political preservation, he would not be able to execute the plan effectively. With popularity numbers that low, he can’t be anything other than a very weak leader. I wish Bumbles would come to the realization that his time is up before he is forced to jump, as he surely will be, to minimize further damage.

  12. The question now is, who’s going to play the part of Brutus and plunge the first knife in?

    Expect Kenney to bargain desperately with the UCP caucus, his cabinet, and the Base for “just a little more time.” But if one hospital, anywhere in Alberta, is forced to close its ICU, Kenney’s best option will be to resign in disgrace–and run.

    This episode will go into Canada’s history as a political case study in how NOT to govern. Kenney has achieved a kind of immortality: he’s the best bad example we have. “See what he did? Don’t do that.”

    Now we’re just waiting for the inevitable. I don’t believe Kenney will go quietly. He’ll try to hang on to what prestige he has left–I’m not sure if he and his most faithful minions have much power left. (I can readily imagine deputy ministers, the top bureaucrats who really keep the government operating, telling LaGrange, Madu, Copping–even Kenney himself–to “butt out, we’ll handle it now.”) Any attempt by Kenney to keep “his” party from breaking up will only make the crash bigger.

    Could somebody else keep the UCP from becoming the “Broken Conservative Party”? Within the party, there are only Doug Schweitzer, Travis Toews and Jason Nixon; maybe Nathan Cooper (if he doesn’t quit to join Drew Barnes in some Alberta-separatist fantasy or other).

    (See Dave Cournoyer’s blog post from April, for more names and details:)
    https://daveberta.ca/2021/04/who-could-replace-jason-kenney-as-leader-of-the-united-conservative-party/

    I don’t see the UCP lasting more than a year past Kenney’s ouster; less if they have to kick him out. But they’re gonna do a lot of damage before the implosion. Never mind popcorn; stock up on first-aid supplies and survival rations. It’s gonna get worse—yeah, you just think it can’t—before it gets better.

  13. I reject the premise of one man holding the power of life and death over 4.4 million Albertans.

    I reject the premise of one man using the power of life and death against 4.4 million people.

    I reject the premise that Jason kenney’s pride comes before the deaths of hundreds of Albertans.

    I reject the premise of my province turning into The Killing Fields.

    I reject the premise of July 1, 2021 as Alberta’s Day of the Dead.

    I reject the premise that the bodies must pile up until April 2022 in order to satisfy one man’s ego.

    I reject the premise that Jason Kenney is the premier of Alberta.

  14. “…you can almost hear the whistle of the axe heading for his neck.”
    Or the downward rumble of the guillotine.

  15. It’s no secret that Rachael Notley campaigned on praising Peter Lougheed for what he had accomplished for Albertans and promised to get our corporate taxes and royalties back up to the Lougheed levels and that’s what she started to do by increasing taxes by 2%. She realized that with the oil industry being in such a horrible mess due to the large surpluses of oil she would have to gradually do it.

    When oil prices crashed in the 1980s and Albertans were blaming Pierre Trudeau, Peter Lougheed, and Don Getty for what happened the American oilmen I was involved knew exactly what happened. The Vietnam war ended in 1975 and the oil industry didn’t cut back production and by the 1980s we had a huge surplus.
    It happened again when the heavy fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq ended and once again the oil industry didn’t cut back and in fact Russian and Saudi Arabia got into a competition to see who could produce the most oil, which made the situation a lot worse.
    Now that the oil industry is starting to recover we should be gradually increasing taxes and royalties back up to the Lougheed levels , like Notley wanted to do, but of course Jason Kenney is trying to use it to buy votes from his rich friends, it’s all he has left to try to save his butt and the polls show it’s not going to work this time.

    His lie “We don’t have a revenue problem, we only have a spending problem” isn’t being believed anymore. Slashing taxes by 4% and promising to cut 11,000 health care jobs, and trying to make doctors, nurses, and teachers take wage cuts to make up for his revenue cutting stupidity and asking Ottawa to hand us equalization payments has destroyed him. His whining about what Ottawa has done to us while he wants them to help him with the covid disaster he created just proves how stupid this guy is.

    1. ALAN K SPILLER: You are so right. Texas has had oil problems before, and they still do, to a certain extent. Their support leans towards the Republicans. They have no National Energy Program in America. An MLA, and cabinet minister, from the Peter Lougheed days, was saying that Rachel Notley was very similar to Peter Lougheed. With the UCP, we are seeing the same horrific mess that we saw under Ralph Klein, and it is more intense. Healthcare, education, the needy, senior citizens, and rural folks aren’t being treated so well, while the rich corporate friends of the UCP are treated very well. Where’s the sense in what the UCP are doing? There still are Albertans who go bonkers over what Justin Trudeau and the Liberals do in Ottawa, yet never say anything about the worse way the UCP are governing, and the more pricey shenanigans that are happening in Alberta. It was the same situation under Ralph Klein. This is mindboggling how Albertans are like this.

      1. ANONYMOUS That was former MLA Allan Warrack who said it. He was the youngest member of the Lougheed government . My dad was really impressed with him.

        He made it clear that she was a lot more like Lougheed, and he wasn’t alone even former social credit and conservative MLAs pointed it out to me. They knew we had to get back to collecting proper oil royalties and taxes at the Lougheed levels. It’s a no-brainer but these reformers are just too stupid to realize it and their supporters aren’t any smarter. They don’t care what they have done to us.

  16. While Premier Crying & Screaming Midget’s poll numbers are subterranean in the depths they have fallen, imagine how high they would be if he doubled-down, continued to say COVID was an inconsequential flu, and said “open no matter what … or be damned.”

    The reality is that it was Kenney pretending to be the mature adult in the room, while pandering to his unhinged base is has done all the damage to his approval rating. Gaslighting can only get you so far. Once everyone knows you’re doing it, the harder it gets to keep the credibility good.

    Of course, maybe the UCP caucus is spoiling for a snap election to give Kenney the boot. It will be like that scene from the Ten Commandments, when Moses called upon the children of Israel to pick a side. I wonder who gets to be Moses and who gets to be the Golden Idol ?

  17. According to one pundit, the ‘approval’ is somewhat soft – only 6 per cent are ardent backers while 16 per cent say they ‘somewhat’ approve.

    I am surprised that 22 per cent of Albertans don’t realize that Nathan Neudorf was actually telling the truth when he claimed the approved ucp path forward for covid-19 in Alberta was the ‘Let’er Rip’ strategy. Kenney even included a reference on one of his always late broadcasts to Albertans. He said there were only two ways of dealing with covid – actually used the words ‘Let’er Rip’ and Hard Lockdown. He claimed that his approach was somewhere between the two……….while in truth almost all measures that had proved to be effective in previous waves were dropped or made optional.

    As I watched the poorly planned (almost non existent) responses from kenney/hinshaw from June onwards to the fourth wave, it became increasingly clear that Albertans were being left to their own devices to protect themselves. All of them, in my opinion – kenney, shandro and hinshaw should be charged with criminal negligence and dereliction of duty. Most of their responses to the fourth wave to date seem to be designed to ensure exposure increases rather than decreases. A pox on all their houses.

  18. Some points to think about:
    1) I have read (sorry, can’t remember site to add link) that Rachel Notley would have been at home in a Peter Lougheed cabinet and vice versa.

    2) Quarterly fundraising results should be released in about 2 weeks.
    Historically, abysmal approval rating combined with abyssal fundraising has lead to leadership changes – incumbent willing or not.

    3) I absolutely concur with Mr. Climehaga’s observation in regards to the deep and abiding contempt; anecdotally, I hear it regularly.

    Personally, I have to say Kenney is the first premier or prime minister I have actively hated, and I have been voting for 40 years.

    Unfortunately , I don’t live in the Calgary-Lougheed riding, so I cannot start a recall petition.

  19. Musing say Brian Jean maybe ready to strike at Caesar (Kenney) with a grassroots rebellion. Jean, why personally popular with many in Alberta, maybe considered no friend of the O & G industry, and it likely equally hated among others among the UCP donor base. The problem is, however, that these donors are not giving to the party in the numbers they once did. They see Kenney as a liability and a dead one at that. Time for a change? Even they seem to think so.

    Kenney, ever the optimist (because he says his prayers at every bedtime) will gamble on a snap election, in the faint gambler’s hope that he will triumph by screaming “PRO_LIFE!!!” at the top of his lungs. Is he willing to push the nuclear option, I say yes. He will.

  20. John Horgan must be thanking his lucky stars to have the horrific AB gong-show next door. Despite BC’s only so-so recent COVID performance compared to (it pains me to say this) Doug Ford’s Ontario, that’s not the standard that this province is usually being held to.

    It’s a bit like how Canada feels superior to the U.S. on various socioeconomic measures, conveniently ignoring that a wider international comparison reveals only middling performance.

  21. I must insert myself in this debate, regarding the branding of a party that is being led by the daughter of the Alberta NDP who is kind of also the daughter of Peter Lougheed. I think the Alberta NDP should label themselves as Alberta Democratic Party. The shine is off the rose. The national party needs a wake up call!

  22. 22% you say? Not bad for him considering what is happening in Alberta. Will this get Notley and the NDP elected next time? Don’t bet your pension on it. I can remember in B.C. between elections you couldn’t find any one who voted for the B.C. Socreds, but there they were re-elected time after time.

    Once the dying stops, he may bounce back. On the other hand, people do remember why their friends and family died and if the NDP run the right type of campaign it may be the end of Kenny in Alberta. Nice picture of kenny with some pics of the dead and a caption, these people died on his watch or something along those lines. although I did read 84% of those who died from covid in Alberta were not fully vaccinated, so who knows their families and friends might be o.k. with all of it and not blame Kenny. Having watched politics in Canada since the mid 1950s I wouldn’t count Kenny out just yet. There is just no accounting for taste.

  23. It’s no secret that Albertans are some of dumbest people on the planet and boy have they proven it. Where else can you sit and watch your government help their rich friends cheat you out of your oil wealth and tax base and still reward them a higher majority in the next election? They completely ignored Peter Lougheed’s comments to think like an owner, because this oil was owned by all Albertans. Where else would the people be so stupid they would watch Alaska and Norway creating their massive savings accounts and not ask why we weren’t seeing it in Alberta? While some of us tried to straightened them out we got called all sorts of stupid names. They were just too stupid to understand it. These reformers were their heroes and you had better not say anything bad about them I was told.

    The fact is the reporters did question why we were so broke and Alaska and Norway weren’t and Klein created the lie that it was because we have had to send billions to Ottawa in the form of equalization payments and of course some of our stupid fellow seniors still believe it.
    Now Kenny is using this lie that Ottawa is stealing all our money and we need equalization payments to make up for his revenue cutting stupidity. I said no when I voted there is no way the rest of Canada should be paying for stupid Albertans . Like the MLAs from the Lougheed era pointed out to me “None of these reformers are smart enough to suggest the obvious solution to our financial problem. Collect proper royalties and taxes like Lougheed did.”

    1. I feel your anger, but allow me a few points. Albertans can’t be the dumbest people on the planet simply by virtue of being Canadian, largest trading partner with the nation that has some much dumber people—and more of ‘em, too. I concede that many—but not all—Albertans were hoodwinked by a series of Latter Day Fallen Anglers of Lougheed’s ProgCon dynasty who depleted sovereign wealth to maintain the sainted Alberta Advantage—the graven image of it, I mean. And it did look pretty dumb when so many voters flooded back to the right after Premier Notley acquitted her government very well in extremely trying circumstances; yet there were plainly a significant number who were smart enough to continue voting NDP like never before. As a result, the party’s very well positioned —and I’d say this even if Covid hadn’t happened—for the next election. Good thing democracy lets citizens atone for mistaken voting and allows learning to be put to good use. That’s a good thing for Alberta.

      Yes, some are inclined to believe in very primitive narrative tropes that media sharpies are paid by petro-sharpies to tell, replete with ‘heroes’, ‘evil-doers’, and even Sasquatches. Supposedly pacifist religion can be successfully reverse-redacted with Dr Seuss-like skill when it’s already proved that low-lexicon fairy tails can be so easily ginned. I always thought the real reason the NDP got in was to punish the foundering conservative establishment—revenge being among the oldest of story plots. Again, the fact that so many voters realized that, hey!—this party ain’t so communistic as they’d been lulled to sleep with at bedtime for so long—is truly heartening. Then, of course, there’s the diaspora, accelerated now by Covid, which relays trustworthy refutations of UCP horror stories that Alberta is surrounded by enemies out to block bitumen from reaching some Emerald City somewheres —like Satan would do The Rapture’s front-row tickets to the Pearly Gates (I’m just an Earnest Tub fan, honest!) I also believe there’s substance to the theory that Wild Rose migrants to the east coast of the Big Island of Vancouver are soon disabused of rote voting for CPC MPs because now they ain’t anymore here: they’ve seen the light and I bet it does get back to Alberta. I mean, everybody eventually gets done believing in Santa Claus (especially out here where ubiquitous New Age faiths and philosophies are as old as Methuselah).

      Finally, Alberta is a sovereign province of the Canadian federation and, like citizenship, that’s all we need to know when helping out—that’s the whole point of confederation that even our family’s oldest sister knows, even if she’s a bit too bitchy sometimes to admit it (except in the privacy of the voting booth, nes pas?) We take care of family—even the dumb ones. And we all got some a them (churches in the Lower Fraser Valley have been fined for their anti-vaxxerism, but on the Islands the anti-vaxxers are more likely to sport dreadlocks, smoke killer bud and eat granola).

      But I get that it’s hard to not be angry with an electorate that’s been duped for so long it hurts. We all really hoping it’ll pass.

    2. ALAN K SPILLER: It is an astonishing amount of revenue we lost under the alteration of Peter Lougheed’s royalty regime for Alberta’s oil. $575 billion. An additional $260 billion is now needed to rectify the damage done by the oil companies in the province of Alberta. Ralph Klein sure did a number on us, and so many people were duped. Almost 30 years ago, Ralph Klein let foreign owned oil companies just take control over the oil we have here, and take the profits. The sad thing is that these seniors then fooled younger generations into supporting these pretend conservatives and Reformers. Some seniors knew better, but their words went unheeded. Around 18 years ago, an uncle of mine (who passed away in his 90s, two years ago), was taking me and an older sibling to his brother’s funeral. On the way there, we were talking about what these pretend conservatives and Reformers were doing in Alberta. My sibling told us that one day people will be getting up to get ready for work, and they will hear on the radio that the Heritage Savings Trust Fund will be gone. My dad, who is another senior, told me 30 years ago, about how crafty Ralph Klein thought he was by buying votes before the provincial election. I have other aunts and an uncle, also seniors, who thought Ralph Klein was so good. I didn’t see that.

  24. I’m starting to feel like I must be crazy. Why am I the only one I know calling for justice for our dead? Jason’s hands are dripping with the blood of Albertans. How can a reasonable adult dispute the casual link between “open for summer” and “a bunch of dead people?” Don’t those people matter? How can a reasonable adult argue that this should not have been foreseen? Why do we care more about the privileges of the privileged than the lives of Canadian citizens? Why is Jason Kenneys right to lie more important than the lives of our friends and neighbours? Why are we willing to attend an endless parade of needless funerals so we don’t have to wear a mask and get a vaccine? Why do we defend the rights of the Rupert Murdochs of the world to pour poison into the ears of people we love, then watch those people start to act on the ideas the world’s Ruperts were allowed profit off of giving them, and act like this is what “free speech” means? I have felt like a stranger in a strange land in my own country many times, but seldom as much as I do right now.

    *long, sad sigh*

    Anyways, just read an article on cbc I wanted to share that touches on this a bit: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6186034

    1. We ain’t never done it that way before.

      That is the plaintive and consistent cry of true Albertans everywhere. I don’t know if it’s fear or stupidity but you’ll never get ‘real’ Albertans to do something different.

      Never have. Never will.

  25. Most people in secondary school primarily try to pass and to a lesser extent try to get laid. He chose to try and make other people die alone. Guess it’s his turn.

  26. Those Albertans who fear the demise of Premier Kenney, or any other right wing government come the next election can take solice in remembering the “Ten Second Socreds” here in BC. Back in the days when the Social Credit Party, led by W.A.C. Bennett ruled the provincial roost, they were continually derided and threatened with extinction between elections. However, when the voters picked up their pencils in the voting booths those complainers just naturally endorsed the local Socred candidate. When push came to shove they were saving British Columbia from the godless socialists. In Ten Seconds, all across the province, the good ‘ol boys had their snouts safely back in the trough.
    The same thing could easily happen in that bastion of free enterprise and incompetence next door. I could go on, but I sense you and your readers get the picture.

  27. It seems hard to believe now, but Kenney’s obstinate tenacity used to be his forte. Now he hangs on by his finger- and toenails to the two halves of his creation that don’t want each other anymore. That’s the lesser of his problems, the greater being that neither half wants him anymore either (because neither do over three-quarters of surveyed Albertans). It’s probably the wrong kind of miracle that the only fabric keeping the head and nether regions—of either the UCP or its beset leader— from renting asunder is that he can plead, probably rightly for the moment, that without him neither half can defeat the heir-apparent NDP on its own. But that’s a time-sensitive thing. If K-Boy’s watching his tanking popularity, he will likely maintain his utterly unapologetic mien—the sound of trouser buttons popping and shirttails ripping from garters notwithstanding.

    But they ain’t no way outta this one—not even for Chief Whiggum who, if adult animation characters can’t be UCP leader, at least animates K-boy that no other but he is heir apparent. By default. For now. Or as Homer would say: D’oh!

    The only reason I remember BC premier Gordon Campbell plumbing unpopularity with 9% approval is that it was said he tied with Gallop’s lowest rating ever, that is, for Richard Nixon in the depths of Watergate. Gordo’s caucus fired him immediately at the news. prime minister Stephen Harper was at least as culpable as Gordo in trying to sneak a harmonized sales tax upon British Columbians after Campbell had specifically promised not to do so during the election campaign that had so recently given him his third—and last—mandate. But Harper, who was soon to campaign for his own last mandate, didn’t have to wear any of the outrage British Columbians aimed at Campbell—all 91% of them: he went on to win lots of seats in BC. Instead, he appointed Gordo to the plumb patronage job of Canadian High Commissioner in London, England, apparently so the hapless ex-premier could quench his scorched butt after taking Harper’s share of the heat for the HST lie. Campbell had weathered many scandals before, but single-digit polling numbers effectively bunched his karma—which then ran over his dogma.

    K-Boy might not be at single-digits yet, but I bet he is or soon will be a lot closer than this latest survey estimates. It’s hard to imagine what good news could be spun of of his tangled, self woven web.

    One wonders what Steve could do now for Jason if he gets axed by his own caucus. Co-write the screenplay for “Firewall II” or something? Maybe? (No point in practicing your Austrian-accented “I’ll pea beck”, Jason: Pierre ‘the hare-pelted’ Poilievre has already been cast and shooting starts as soon as he loses the next federal election—scenes, that is.)

    *************************************************

    Fifty percent is certainly pretty good polling for the NDP, but it shouldn’t be taken like it’s gonna be a cake-walk in a year-and-a-half from now—a way looooooong time in politics (like about 72 ‘eternities’). Socialism is one of the only things the ‘reactionaries’ and/or orphaned ProgCons can weaponize—excepting maybe their own leader(s?), whomever [‘them’] is. But we know how nasty conservative leadership contests can be and time’s awasting as the Big Day nears; [‘Them’] wouldn’t want to kick off a general election campaign looking all hoarse and scuffed up as if just arrived from a churchyard anti-vaxxer protest. Appearances being at least significant, I should think the Dippers don’t want to look too smug about their government-in-waiting status in these circumstances: there’s plenty of constructive opposing and criticism to do in the meantime before the mean times really start—and what any governing party would do about Covid’s ramifications is pretty much already cast, anyway. Any rational party, that is. At least that won’t change much, even 72 eternities from now.

    I don’t expect to hear “Alberta: Open For Summer” from any faction anytime soon—well, at least not from any that fancy winning seats where they count (like, not where bald prairie winds blow trail dust in cowboys’ bandana-ed faces, and single-seat tractor isolation, anti-socialist distancing, and satellite dishes are a way of life—except on Sundays, of course).

    It remains to be seen if the political hole Covid has dug, socio-economically, is bigger than the accumulation of boneyard holes short-staffed sextons are digging right now during the UCP’s maiden undertaking. Suffice to say, it’ll be comparable. I expect Ms Notley will deftly deploy her native coolness under fire. Still, this is Alberta and there’s plenty of gin to splash around the flames, how- and wherever they ignite. Yet, name-calling is easily parried by a party which could just as easily assume any name, so long’s it’s progressive…

    The safer y’all are, my Alberta friends, the quicker these nightmares will be over—or, as Jason Kenney would say: it might be too tough for some, but just right for us. All the best in these too-interesting times: we’re all rooting for you!

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