It’s hardly reassuring to learn Alberta’s new Danielle Smith Government is apparently so inept it didn’t know that it needed a minister to oversee the administration of the province’s labour laws.
Leastways, that’s what the government wants us to believe is the reason it failed to mention which ministry would be responsible for the Alberta Labour Relations Code and the Occupational Health and Safety Code when it published its order in council Monday divvying up the work of Premier Danielle Smith’s huge new cabinet.
“This omission was inadvertent,” Becca Polak, Ms. Smith’s press secretary, told media yesterday.
Naturally, there are some who see more nefarious motivations. “There’s no recognition that workers have rights and that they need protections in the workplace,” said Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan. “They’re almost inviting employers to ignore standards and exploit workers.”
But while we can’t put that past the United Conservative Party Government, you’d think that if they were that deceitful they’d come up with a more creative excuse than, Uh, we forgot!
“Jobs is another word for labour, and that’s where the labour components of legislation are going to reside,” sniffed Premier Smith.
That is to say, the responsibility lies with Jobs, Economy and Northern Development Minister Brian Jean, Ms. Smith’s unsuccessful rival in the recent leadership race and the man who played Marcus Brutus to former Premier Jason Kenney’s Julius Caesar.
That’s probably a good place to put it. If Mr. Jean is going to concentrate on anything, it’s likely to be northern development, so the potential for mischief is somewhat reduced.
Meanwhile, busy campaigning for a seat in the Legislature in the Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election, Ms. Smith also apparently forgot that the Elections Act doesn’t permit cabinet members without a seat to campaign off government announcements when they’re running in by-elections.
At any rate, she showed up at the grand opening of Medicine Hat College’s new Co-op Wellness Commons on Tuesday, either unaware of or blithely ignoring the prohibition on such appearances. The by-election is set for Nov. 8.
This time, Ms. Smith opted to brazen it out, telling media that “I was invited to come here.”
Also on the by-election trail, Ms. Smith and Health Minister Jason Copping were observed yesterday door-knocking in … Drew Barnes’s Cypress-Medicine Hat riding! General hilarity ensued at her apparent inability to read a riding map.
Taken together, these events suggest incompetence is the spectre haunting the Smith Government.
Danielle Smith has a chance to change the channel
Nathan Cooper, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, announced yesterday he has received notice the Legislature will be prorogued on Sunday and a new session will begin with a Speech from the Throne on Tuesday, Nov. 29. The first day of the Fourth Session of the 30th Legislature will be Nov. 30.
This is an opportunity for Premier Smith to change the channel on the foolishness that has bedevilled her government since she was sworn in on Oct. 11, not to mention the sins of the Kenney government.
“This is Danielle Smith hitting the reset button with a Throne Speech,” tweeted veteran political columnist Graham Thomson. “An opportunity for her to distance herself further from Kenney with her own vision for the future. … Shrewd move.”
But another keen observer of the Alberta political scene, former NDP leader Brian Mason, responded: “Only shrewd if she uses it shrewdly. I’m not holding my breath.”
Leela Aheer says she won’t be running for UCP in next election
Leela Aheer, the only UCP leadership candidate not to get a seat in Premier Smith’s cabinet, announced yesterday she “will not be running for the United Conservative Party in the next provincial election.”
Does that mean she’ll be running for another party?
First elected as a Wildrose Party candidate in the Chestermere-Rocky View riding in 2015, Ms. Aheer was Jason Kenney’s deputy leader in the heady days after the UCP’s victory in 2019. Premier Kenney named her Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women.
But as MLA for the redrawn Chestermere-Strathmore riding, it was soon apparent she had serious differences with Mr. Kenney, and he fired her from cabinet in July 2021 after she publicly criticized his notorious mid-pandemic Sky Palace patio party.
Thanking her supporters, Ms. Aheer said, “I hope that the contributions that I have made both to my riding and our province have resonated with you.”
Alberta COVID deaths top 5,000
COVID-19 deaths continue in Alberta, despite the efforts of the government to give the impression the pandemic is done and dusted.
After recording 28 more deaths last week, it was announced yesterday Alberta had become the third Canadian province to surpass 5,000 COVID deaths in the pandemic.
According to the government’s latest statistics, there are now 1,118 current hospitalizations and 28 people in ICU with COVID. There have been 5,011 deaths.
Yes, a Throne Speech is usually full of earnest statements about what the party really believes in – a great opportunity for Smith to put her foot in it once again, don’t you think?
Unfortunately, she is a person with no experience in governing, leading a party with a history of shaky judgement, so all these mistakes make sense. Of course, Mr. Jean doesn’t really know any more about the Labour Ministers responsibilities than her, so this is partly how that ball get dropped. Any current or past UCP Ministers or MLAs who knew better were likely content to let the supposed new smartest person figure it out or not, as the case may be.
Likewise with the byection campaigning, this is particularly odd given Mr Barnes has not been welcomed back as eagerly as independent MLA Loewen. Perhaps it was the same sort of ambivalence that led Barnes to not helpfully clarify constituency boundaries for the new, apparently hapless Premier who is having trouble with constituency boundaries. One can see how confusion and ambience does seem to build on itself.
Another odd, but important thing is the role of Mr. McIver, the dutiful high profile veteran Calgary MLA who managed to keep things on track and avoid most of Kenney’s controversies. The cabinet is big, but apparently there was not enough room for him. However, he is now expected to take on some sort of important but unclear key ad hoc role to win back Calgary, before quietly riding into the sunset, or something like that. Good luck with that.
As for Ms Aheer, who is a smart, articulate, likeable and passionate person, but certainly not in sync with current UCP thinking, she has just added to the confusion and ambivalence with her statement. However, I could see her statement as sincere. Its pretty clear she is not welcome in the party now, maybe she hasn’t figured yet out where her political future lies or if she wants to continue. I suspect some other parties would be eager to have her, if she would be comfortable with that.
So the only consistent things so far for Smith is all the confusion and ambivalence that seems to follow much of what she does in wasting, ignoring or misusing what talent and knowledge the UCP does have.
I can aptly put it this way. Nero is fiddling, while Rome is burning. All sectors of it are burning. That photo looks like the worst get together with inlaws that family members don’t get along with, or a bad class photo. The UCP can see they are on borrowed time with Danielle Smith, and they know it. There are some UCP MLAs who have left the party, like Doug Schweitzer, or who will be leaving, like Leela Aheer. They surely know the UCP is a lost cause. The UCP brand was already buckling and cracking for at least two years. Danielle Smith is going to further neglect the serious nature of the Covid-19 pandemic in Alberta, blame AHS, and when the proverbial poop hits the propeller, it will be an epic disaster. A prorogued Legislative Assembly, is further proof that Danielle Smith is in damage control mode, because her next slip up isn’t going to fix her already damaged reputation. It also shows that Danielle Smith and the UCP are lost, don’t support democracy, and can’t face scrutiny for their very bad moves and major mistakes. Danielle Smith will still find a way to shoot her mouth off, without thinking, or she will do something stupid. Whatever limited support she has, is likely going to lessen. This just goes to show that these pretend conservatives and Reformers can’t be trusted, and others who also read this blog know that.
Anonymous: My, that photo is unfortunate. My first thought was, “They look like it’s a funereal speech.”
Mike J Danysh: Come to think of it, it does look like a photo of people at a funeral procession.
This is all too funny. Like I said before it does not seem like Dingy Smith has a clue to what she is doing. The adventures of each day so far keeps supporting that idea. Maybe someone should have taken her aside and explained the rules to her, instead of her trying to re-invent everything.
Further down on the Graham Thompson link, I love the little clip of Rachel Notley tweeting about door knocking on doors in the correct riding.
So it’s Alberta Politics, but also Covid news? Odd. Anyway, the premier attending events is pretty normal, so… moving on. Since you just report general news now, I find it strange you opted out of weighing in on the Nazi-statue/Duncan Kinney affair. Not bothered by a Nazi statue or intrigued by Kinney’s actions at all?!?! Or that the government (oh look, this IS related to alberta politics) paid to save the statue from “hate”? I’m not sure what’s more strange, the statue, the incident, or you ignoring it.
Actual: Interesting questions. The matter is quite insignificant. From a legal and journalistic point of view it is barely worth commenting on. The charges have not been proved in a court of law and the accused has been a prominent critic of the Edmonton police, so we don’t really know what Mr. Kinney’s actions were. Due process suggests we should wait to see what the courts determine has actually happened. I disapprove of statues to Nazis in Edmonton – whether they memorialize members of the Galacian SS or a prominent and enthusiastic participant in the Holocaust. I think both statues should be bulldozed, even though they are on private property. I think fighting Nazis was and is a good thing. I also understand that sometimes the right thing to do is against the law and those who do the right thing anyway can expect to take their lumps. I have my doubts about the value of petty vandalism as a political statement, however, although a Nazi memorial is certainly a more appropriate target than a van Gough painting, in my opinion. It is preposterous for the police or the media to try to portray vandalism against a Nazi statue as a hate crime. This is my personal blog and I write about whatever I feel like, including the occasional non-political topic. I doubt the sincerety of the implication of your question because your fake email address and IP address suggest you are a frequent and offensive right-wing commenter on this blog whose worthless comments normally go straight to the trash, where they belong. DJC
I still can’t forget the Edmonton police arresting and illegally strip-searching young women on the pretence of vagrancy for the apparent crime of returning from university study halls after dark in the winter, when it’s dark at 5 p.m. You know it’s bad when female university students have to arrange to travel in groups from the library to the dorms in order to keep safe from the police, not random pervs. Not to forget the worry and anguish they caused friends and family of these suddenly-disappeared young women, who were held without the mythical phone call (not a requirement by law then). That was several decades ago.
More recently, they decided to go easy on truck protestors and hassle residents protesting the noise and disruption in their neighborhood. So, that’s who they are. My opinion has not changed.
Covid deaths in alberta is alberta political news, you’ve just made it your whole personality and can no longer see reason, so you just keep trying to gotcha your friends family and even strangers so you can feel some form of validation of how you’ve thrown most of your personal relationships on the fire of your own ego.
Isn’t November 29th a Tuesday ?
Michael: You are correct. My mistake. It’s been fixed. To apply UCP standards to this error, however, more than 62 per cent of the incorrect day was correct. DJC
“Danielle Smith’s latest fumbles suggest her government struggles with ineptitude”
“Struggles”???? They have it down to an art form.
For the record, when I asked, “Who could be worse than Jason Kenney?”, I was being rhetorical!
Sadly, Bob, I think you were being prophetic. Please, PLEASE, don’t ask who could be worse than Danielle Smith!
Jason Kenney, comparing himself with Daniellezebub, must know now how George W. Bush felt after The Donald got elected in 2016: “yay, I’m no longer the worst POTUS — oops, Alberta Premier — in history!”
Welcome to hell…….can’t wait for the December happenings when everyone is on holidays,He’ll is so exciting
So many more things could go wrong. Should someone tell the UCP that it would not be prudent to invite a convicted-murderer- ex-politician to attend the throne speech? Nah.
https://regina.ctvnews.ca/convicted-wife-killer-colin-thatcher-at-tough-on-crime-saskatchewan-throne-speech-1.6126924
It’s hard to believe that the despised bureaucrats wouldn’t provide a list of ministerial duties and positions that have to be filled. Or did Queen Dannie just ignore it? “Minister of Labour” would seem a pretty big portfolio to just overlook.
Oh well. At least they admitted it was an honest mistake. That much honesty, plus a Toonie, ought to buy coffee at McDonald’s.
When the hatred of government is so extreme, there are deliberate efforts to break even by those within it. Yet, those same insiders can’t believe how good their government gig is, they refuse to see their own hypocrisy.
Ineptitude comes in many forms, but typically it can be borne of the inexperienced or the willfully malicious. In the current UCP cabinet, we have various shades of both.
When the next crisis hits — and it will — will anyone seriously believe any of these people will do anything right?
The United Chaos Party always did claim it hated too much bureaucracy. Maybe that explains the disappearance of complete ministries. But it is contradicted by the appearance of all these new cabinet positions, oh dear. As to the photo, it looks as if to a person the cabinet members have swallowed some very bitter substance. Or is it a gathering of hoodlums? Not sure. I rather rather think Danielle Smith has perfected incompetence, as riding maps are surely available in detail on the internet to consult- snicker. Oh wait, that is the work of satanic socialists and one world government types. Can’t possibly consult the devil’s work then.
Ah, the comedy surrounding not having a map. Smith’s campaign volunteers have been left to the four winds to determined what the hell they are doing.
As for the map, I suspect the favored one has written in its margins “There Be Dragons”.
Everyone hates bureaucracy. It wryly amuses me when politicians of any stripe act as if being angry at bureaucrats makes them special or remarkable somehow.
For those who think they have a better answer than bureaucracy – please share your wisdom with us!
With Danielle Smith pushing for party unity under her personal rule, policy and party platform will directly reflect her alternate reality, I am thinking. With that in mind there was a peer-reviewed study published a journal on applied cognitive science last year which delved into the mindset of those who fervently subscribe to conspiracy theories and conspiracism:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acp.3790
I cannot help but wonder if her obsession with the WEF and COVID conspiracy theory is just the beginning.
That photo is worth 37,000 words.
Leela Aheer is the Prophetess.
“I will greatly increase your pain of labour…”
The Assembly has been prorogued so Danielle can work on her Keystone speech…assuming she doesn’t run a bye-bye election in the wrong riding.
I’ll omit the remaining 36,962 words.