Not long before he left office, former UCP premier Jason Kenney signed a co-stewardship agreement with the Manitou Asinîy-Iniskim-Tsa Xani Centre to return the Manitou Asinîy, a 145-kilogram iron meteorite that landed long before history in what is now eastern Alberta, from the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton to its original location near Hardisty (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta).

Say what you will about Jason Kenney and his ideas, he made progress on persuading First Nations communities to buy into his vision of Alberta’s future. 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has blown her predecessor’s relationship with Alberta’s First Nations to smithereens (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

Danielle Smith blew it all to smithereens in 64 days.

That’s the length of time between the day Ms. Smith was sworn in as Mr. Kenney’s replacement to the day the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations declared it was clear from their discussions with Alberta’s new premier about her Sovereignty Act that she “does not understand our Treaty or our inherent rights nor does she respect them.”

While most of the rest of Alberta includes the territory of Treaty 7 and Treaty 8 First Nations, it is highly unlikely at this point that their view of their relationship with the premier and her party is any different. All have condemned the so-called Sovereignty within a United Canada Act

Winning over communities that did not traditionally support Conservative political parties was long recognized as one of the former Alberta premier’s talents.

As a Conservative MP in Ottawa and one of prime minister Stephen Harper’s key lieutenants, Mr. Kenney was given the job of winning the hearts of Canada’s most recent immigrant communities. 

Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin MLA Rick Wilson, Indigenous relations minister in both Mr. Kenney’s and Ms. Smith’s governments (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).

As the National Post, the Pravda of Canada’s Conservative movement, put it in 2011: “Politically, he has succeeded in out-Liberaling the Liberals, charming ethnic communities by attending thousands of banquets across the country.

“The massive effort paid off as the Tories broke through in a number of heavily multicultural urban ridings in the 2011 election, especially in Greater Toronto,” the Post’s writer continued. 

Even a harsh critic of Mr. Kenney’s career must concede that this is largely true. 

After he entered Alberta politics in 2016 and soon succeeded with his plan to unite the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservatives and defeat the governing NDP, Mr. Kenney turned that charm on Alberta’s First Nations.

He clearly understood that he could not succeed with his dream of Alberta at the centre of a spiderweb of pipelines moving ever outward without significant buy-in from the First Nations whose territory, recognized in treaties with the Crown in the 19th and 20th centuries, encompasses all of the province. 

In Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin MLA Rick Wilson, premier Kenney chose an Indigenous relations minister who was an empathetic and sincere listener. 

Veteran Alberta political reporter Graham Thomson (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).

“We’ve really been active in trying to promote working with Indigenous people, making sure that we do become those partners in prosperity that we talk about,” Mr. Wilson told a reporter.

Then Ms. Smith with her Sovereignty-Association talk won the leadership of the UCP in October, after Mr. Kenney had effectively been pushed out by the radical Take Back Alberta PAC.

She soon bigfooted her way into the former premier’s efforts to cultivate a relationship with First Nations with a string of patronizing commentary, a much-doubted claim to have Indigenous ancestry, and statements about tearing up constitutional ways of doing business with Ottawa that obviously caused deep disquiet among First Nations leaders. 

“By using the word ‘sovereignty’ in the name of this proposed Act, Premier Smith should not pretend to have authority over sovereign First Nations,” the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations said in a news release back on Nov. 23.

“Treaty is the highest law to govern the land now known as Canada, its resources, and our Peoples,” that news release continued. “We understand the proposed Act as a ploy to access resources and extract them at an unrestricted rate, leaving the land unprotected.”

But the chiefs’ pleas to reconsider the act barely received a response, let alone meaningful consultation. 

Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron (Photo: Assembly of First Nations).

Indeed, while Ms. Smith kept Mr. Wilson on as minister, an unnamed official in his department revealed to media that Indigenous Relations was cut out of the process completely from the get-go. 

The breach created by Ms. Smith culminated with the chiefs’ statement Wednesday that “We do not agree that an invitation on the day of the Throne Speech is an inclusive approach to hearing Albertans and Indigenous voices in a meaningful way for such a dangerous piece of legislation.”

As veteran Alberta political reporter Graham Thomson argued in a thoughtful column in the Toronto Star Thursday, in Alberta’s First Nations Ms. Smith “has finally met a political foe she cannot ignore, ridicule and demonize.” 

This is true. Although we mustn’t count on her government not to try all three if she can’t persuade First Nations leaders to change their minds upon hearing a few glib promises.

This breach is sure to have been made deeper by the fact Bill 1, the Sovereignty Act, passed by the Legislature on Dec. 7, was given Royal Assent on Thursday. So, for the moment, it is the law of the land – at least until the courts get to take a run at it.

Chances are good Alberta’s First Nations will play a significant role in giving the courts that opportunity. 

Meanwhile, in Saskatchewan, where a conservative government that often takes its lead from Alberta has also introduced an unconstitutional bill similar in concept to the Alberta Sovereignty Act, First Nations chiefs warned that if the legislation is not scrapped, there will be a sharp response in 2023. 

“If all else fails, we will blockade,” said Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Chief Bobby Cameron.

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27 Comments

  1. Turns out this is the Game of Thorns for Danielle Smith. She will not be trusted. Words and actions have meaning. Turns out this is not a game at all to treaty nations.

  2. A few days ago David wrote a column about the video Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides made. In that video Dr. Nicolaides hailed former Alberta premier John Brownlee as a hero for managing to get Alberta control over its natural resources.

    That made me curious enough to read the Wikipedia article on Mr. Brownlee. It seems the way he got Ottawa to cooperate was by being cooperative himself, helping to support the Liberal Prime Minister’s minority government. Its too bad Nicolaides couldn’t have also taken away from his research the value of playing nice – a lesson Ms. Smith could apply to her relations with indigenous people. Rachel Notley also used playing nice to get Justin Trudeau to buy a pipeline.

    Brownlee, incidentally, is also the premier who dismantled the Alberta Provincial Police, and replaced them with the RCMP, as an austerity measure.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Brownlee

  3. Danielle Smith sure has a knack of angering and alienating people. She doesn’t seem to learn. Her claims of Cherokee ancestry were easily debunked. In addition, she upset those who have Ukrainian ancestry, with her remarks on the war between Russia and Ukraine. Her own accounts of her Ukrainian ancestors experiences in Europe are contradictory. Alberta has lots of people with First Nations ancestry, Metis ancestry, and Ukrainian ancestry. Who else will Danielle Smith anger? Danielle Smith can’t be trusted, and neither can the UCP, because their bad policies are costing Albertans billions of dollars. We certainly never saw this level of ignorance under Peter Lougheed, who actually did have First Nations ancestry.

  4. Let me say the UCP/Smith base position out loud: First Nations people are unworthy of consideration. Of course, they would put it in less formal and less printable language. Her core base is likely applauding her for putting down indigenous people.

    1. David A., I don’t like Smith’s politics or her attitude, but I’m not prepared to tar her with that wide a brush. Smith is impulsive, ignorant and easily (mis)led, but neglecting the implications of the Sovereignty Act on First Nations is a sin of omission on her part. Barry Cooper the political scientist and Derek From the lawyer specializing in charter and constitutional issues, however, should have known better.

      Still, you’re probably right about her Base.

  5. Here’s my best advice for members of Alberta’s First Nations: Vote. And by that I mean vote against the UCP, when you get the chance.

    Organize now to get as many First Nations eligible voters to the polls when the election is called. Vote out the racists.

  6. Danielle Smith will do what’s best for all Albertans and anyone that is afraid of that is not a true Albertan and should leave now.

  7. Picking fights with First Nations peoples these days is bound to be popular with certain voting bases, namely the perpetually angry and grieving. Of course, it must be exhausting to remain that angry all the time, but this bunch seems to be addicted to their rage. And it’s Danielle Smith who will happily be the dealer for their favourite drug.

    Given the recent news regarding MMIW, as well as the residential schools and the on going troubles over that history, there seems to be bizarre need to insult the First Nations. For one thing, telling their leadership, as Smith did, that all the grievances are the same, which they clearly are not. For one thing, Smith is a white woman who happens to be premier of an extraordinarily rich province. Worse yet, she claims to be Cherokee, though how much is up for debate. (I say maybe 7/10th but I could be wrong.) This is the level of nonsense that we find ourselves in. Worse, with the situation in Winnipeg concerning the recovering the remains of two FN women from a landfill, the insults are being piled on.

    While the harm applied to FN relations is growing, Smith’s base of crazy is satisfied and excited that they are getting what they want, another hit of their favourite drug.

  8. Blockades, Convoys, and the Emergency Measures Act:

    Convoy supporters may be interested to know that Canada’s tiny community of “actual leftists” strongly opposed the EMA in real time and continue to do so, as they see it as A)unnecessary, B)confirming criticisms they’ve been making about Canadian Policing for decades, and C)creating a precedent that will very easily be weaponized against groups Canada considers “undesirables,” such as environmentalists, land defenders and striking workers.

    IMO the use of the EMA makes it legally easier to use organized police violence next time there is a blockade – it created a precedent, those are very important in law, and the power to do what you like is also the power to do what you don’t like.

    However, it is going to make it politically more difficult. There have to be big brains inside Canadian Policing institutions telling them how many of the quiet parts have been said out loud in the past few years, and that they are losing the trust and consent of an increasing amount of Canadians who aren’t white Conservatives – hell, even the Calgary Police Union “reluctantly” took off their definitely-not-white-supremacist “thin blue line” patches (TLDR, that’s yet another story about Canadian Police that sounds bad, and gets worse upon closer inspection). There are reasonable Canadians who don’t call the Cops, ever, unless they think someone might be shot, because they know if the Cops show up, even for a wellness check, someone might be shot. If you are shot by a citizen, you can reasonably expect them to face justice – if you are shot by a Police officer they will almost certainly get away with it. Historically, their “punishment” is being put on paid time off until the heat dies down and/or being transferred to a part of the country that, hopefully, doesn’t know about them. They write the report, and unless there is literal video evidence otherwise, the judge will always believe them over you.

    Culturally and politically, however, deploying Police against a blockade will not be saying the quiet part out loud, it will be shouting it from a megaphone with the whole world watching, because the double standard of how Police treat white Conservatives and white supremacists vs everyone else that has existed as an everyday reality for all of Canadian history will, once again, be on international display in a way that is impossible to ignore or defend.

    IMO a hypothetical Police action vs a blockade (provided the blockade is there in good faith) would be yet another pyrrhic victory that the Police won’t recognize as pyrrhic until a decade after the fact. The Rodney Kings and George Floyds never “win” against the Police, but the Police certainly can and do “lose” against them. Kinda. Sorta. Eventually. Maybe? Hopefully. Sure do hope the Police never “lose” like that against me.

      1. D&G, can you please explain what it is about Neil’s commentary you do not agree with? Glib 2 word responses do nothing to advance the conversation.

        I actually agree with the vast majority of Mr Lore’s comments and find them very well articulated. This particular post was no exception.

  9. It isn’t hard to understand why the former MLAs I got know considered Reformers to be the worse enemy they had. They have proven over and over again that there is nothing conservative about them, yet these stupid Conservative parties somehow came up with idea that they should allow them to join their parties and eventually take control of them. You can’t be any dumber than that, can you?
    Well try to explain that to these stupid seniors who hurl their sarcastic comments at those of us for trying to stop these idiots from destroying us. They believe every lie they feed them and are too stupid to understand that they are in fact helping them destroy us by helping the rich steal our oil and tax wealth and somehow that makes them a lot smarter than us, that’s how stupid they are. Being a former Royal bank manager, who has visited Norway and Alaska and talked to the people about what their oil wealth has done for them I know what we have lost. Now these same fools are whining about the high increase in property taxes, but are too stupid to understand that you don’t allow your politicians to cut $9.4 billion off corporate taxes to benefit their rich friends in an effort to buy votes without it showing up in your property taxes, someone has to pay for it. There is no question that Rachael Notley was on the right track by wanting to increase corporate taxes and royalties back up to the Lougheed levels to get us out of this “Horrific Mess “ as Lougheed called it.

  10. This article got me thinking about the beliefs of some right wing extremists and how they justify those beliefs, which after some wiki-walking lead me to some polling re: “Trash Can Dani vs The Less Pretty Half of the Notley/Trudeau Alliance.” CBC has an article about it but I highly recommend this:

    https://abacusdata.ca/alberta-politics-deep-dive-december-2022/

    I found it really informative to scroll around and compare various graphs and results with others. A few things really jumped out at me:
    -Can you believe that 25% of Albertans are undecided? “So, like, UCP policies are flaming toxic unconstitutional garbage that will, like, lead to a forever war we can’t win against Ottawa over trumped-up BS, but the NDP is, like, Communist, or woke, or allied with Trudeau or something?” (for full comedic effect, you gotta read that in valley girl and imagine a bunch of people in the background shouting “Woooo! Spring break!)
    -NDP > UCP by 9 points, however Notley > Smith by only 4 points. I find it really interesting that Albertans appear warmer to the dreaded socialists of the NDP (dun dun duunnnnnn!) than to Rachel Notley, who, to my knowledge, has far fewer scandals and gaffes on her record than I would expect of a politician with her length of service or of a politician who has weathered so much well organized and funded agitprop over such a long period of time. Wow, spell checker likes “agitprop,” I’m impressed. (haha Why doesn’t the spell checker like the Leafs? Because no one else does either. BAM!) Anyway, “impressions of X leader” has Notley > Smith by 22 points, but “voting intentions” only has Notley > Smith by 4 points. What gives? If this is the NDP brand bringing Notley down, why is the NDP ahead of Notley by 5 points? Is Notley bringing the NDP brand down in Alberta? That seems… inexplicable. I am confused.
    -21% of Albertans are unsure whether the province is on the right track or not! This is barely a better situation than 21% of people being unsure whether water flows downhill or not. This tells me that one fifth of Albertans do not have the character, background education and critical thinking skills needed to be responsible participants in a democratic system. This isn’t left vs right, this is reasonably competent adults vs the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is a big problem, and implementing an internationally ridiculed regressive educational system will likely make it worse. Haha and that is a legacy of the “competent” UCP.
    -The UCP are seen as more likely to be good for “managing the Alberta economy” by 13 points which is almost hilarious. What reasonable adult would choose to hitch their wagon to this clown car? Why do Canadians think right wingers in general are good stewards of the economy? I’ve been alive since ’81, only PM I ever saw balance a budget was a Liberal. Don’t take my word for it, here’s the freaking Fraser Institute confirming the same thing with a bunch of the standard partisan “but our debt was good and theirs was wasteful” line redressed as “debts ’caused’ by recession/war are good, it just so happens that explains away all of ‘our side’s’ debts.”* I’ve seen Conservative PMs cut taxes on the rich while slashing services and running deficits to “create jobs” that are inevitably and revealingly worse than the ones white boomers had, but I’ve never seen them create widespread prosperity (yes I’m including Mulroney/NAFTA, which IMO made our place as drawers of water and hewers of wood who don’t own our own resources or control our own country official). If Alberta had good fiscal stewardship, they’d be set up like Norway! Was it “right-wingers” who set up Norway? Of course not, the right isn’t about shared prosperity, it’s about tricking a bunch of poorly informed rubes into voting for their own poverty and disenfranchisement so they can “own the libs.” SMH
    -“Cost of living” is the top concern again – I would think that in a “free” society there wouldn’t be so much despair over how much it costs to live, but no matter how I try, I remain unable to convince Canadians of this.
    -Only 50% of past UCP voters have a positive impression of Smith – you’d think that’s gonna be some rough sledding.
    -There’s a neat bit towards the bottom showing a high correlation between feelings and voting intentions that seems to support my long-held pet theory that 80% of the important choices humans make are made based on feelings.
    -There’s also a bunch of really interesting stuff about ‘reluctant UCP voters’ which I find analogous to ‘reluctant paste eaters.’ “Mom didn’t cut my sandwich diagonally the way I like, maybe I should eat my glue instead, it’s so hard to decide.”
    -I am, for the umpeenth time, deeply amused by the similarities between Albertans and Quebecers. If I had to pick two groups of Canadians eager to fight anyone and everyone for their right to cut off their own noses to spite their faces, it would be them. haha I dunno how to say “My nose had it coming!” in French, but in English it’s “I support Danielle Smith!”

    *https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/examining-federal-debt-in-canada-by-pm-since-confederation-2020.pdf – while the graph on page 6 does show debt reduce for a short time after Harper takes over, IMO this reflects that a govt is a big ship that steers like a cow – it takes a couple of years before the cumulative impacts of policy changes are felt. Note how it took the Chretien/Martin govt a while to halt, then reverse, the trend when they were elected. I offer this source in particular because it of its infamous partisan leanings, this being the internet I could have googled up something that said whatever I wanted it to as long as it was halfway reasonable or popular. I lightly skimmed the text, sorry this is bad scholarship but I’m a wageslave, not a scholar, I do this in my leisure time, and I just ran out of that. It’s time, once again, for me to freely choose between being ready to obey my boss so that I can pay my landlord, finding a different boss to obey so that I can accomplish the same, or being evicted. Yay freedom!

    1. Neil, it’s a shock, a refreshing shock to be sure but a shock nonetheless, to read comments by an erudite, knowledgeable, thoughtful and socially aware person from Alberta. In other words a normal and reasonably educated person.
      I don’t know what is more jarring; discovering that there are in fact such people in Alberta or just reading and savoring the commonsensical words and thoughts about the nut-jobbery and plain foolishness extant in the land today.
      I think many of us were ‘there’ at some point in our lives. Personally, I’m just worn out; the fools and the ignorant, who are legion, will never learn, and the evil and criminal, who seem to be attracted to Alberta like flies, will always fight to the death for their own sorry hides.

  11. Oh-oh. Danielle has run out onto the road from between two circled wagons without looking both ways first. Or over her shoulder, either. Now, way past her rampart and glacis of butter, she has entered the stage of far-right ‘doe-in-the-headlights’ whilst traffic tarries at the stop sign of her Alberta Sovereignty Act. With engines revving, clutches about to be dumped, and tires spinning enough smoke to obscure even the bitumen distilleries of Albetar, the Kill-Bill-One Convoy is about to screech out of the blocks, making pounds into tons and bearing bigly down on Heels-Dug-Into-Her-Ears, she’s going to find out all about the many complexities contained within the federation’s highest law, its Constitution, and of course those complexities which will start streaming out after Alberta’s A-political, One-Perecenter premier deigned to skewer it as if casually lancing a boil. But she forgot to look both ways and over her shoulder.

    From simmer to boil in less than a fortnight, Smith’s Sovereignty Act is in a hurry to catch JT’s federal Liberals turning left on a red, but as federal minister Dom Leblanc said in some well-played street corner talking, the feds are content to wait and see how well Danielle plays the return volley to her cheeky provocation—that is, from the outside looking in.

    Oh, dear! Things aren’t going quite to Danielle’s plan: she thought she could cast whomever she wanted into Barry Cooper’s constitutional psycho-drama—but now the extras are about to strike.

    Dang!—laments Danielle: who wrote these guys into the script? Well, actually it was the Constitution that did it. Well!—she prickles: it’s time for a rewrite!

    And I dare say she’s probably correct—just not in the way she thinks she is. That’s because she doesn’t know what the Constitution is, what it says, the complexities involved in armouring its shrine, or its perpetual head of steam. She thought her petard was thrown far enough away—Barry said it would be safe. But is it safe? Is it safe?

    Life should be so simple, Danielle. But incredible, isn’t it?Constitutional complexity requires only spontaneous whack-a-mole with a simple phial of clove oil— like a little Dutch boy plugs eleven leaks in a dyke, Lucille Ball stuffs her face full of chocolates as the conveyor brings them faster than she can box, Mickey Mouse tries to catch eleven drips from the ceiling with only ten pots, Olive Oil stamps out spot-fires on a sleeping leopard’s back. Barry’s Hero’s Journey has become Danielle’s Comedy of Errors, sure to be assailed by all sorts of unintended and unanticipated consequences.

    Can’t say she wasn’t warned when she started to pump the ASA (Within a Canada United Against It). Tellingly, it was punditry that initially kept the ball within Alberta-versus-Ottawa bounds, not the feds (as mentioned, they are content to watch this hell-bound train-wreck from a safe distance). But reaction to the Saskatchewan First Act, a milder version of Smith’s Act, which similarly reiterates provincial jurisdiction but refrains from openly defying federal law like hers does—should have been a warning that the other shoe was about to drop—or, perhaps I could say, ‘the other moccasin’ because it came from a constitutionally formidable polity of Saskatchewan indigenous nations which negotiated a treaty with the Crown long before the two landlocked charters were confederated to Canada. Danielle should have known that the validity of FNs’ complaint with regard the milder Sask-First Act meant the inevitable First Nations complaint about the stricter Alberta Sovereignty Act would be, a fortiori, at least as valid and certainly much stronger in detail. But the matter is not merely a head-butting contest playing to Danielle’s sole strength, her extraordinarily thick skull: rather, it broaches an extremely testy issue hitherto kept discretely timid.

    As I understand it, the legal concept of “meaningful consultation” derives from SCoC decisions with respect competing sovereign claims between a given First Nation without a treaty and the Crown, but not so much between the Crown and any FN with a treaty which, by definition, extinguishes that FN’s claim to sovereignty. Thus, the consultation due treaty FNs with respect disposition of natural resources—the central metric of both Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s Acts—is different than disposition of natural resources in traditional FN territories not covered by treaty (such as almost all of BC, for example). As aspirational as Sask FNs’ reference to themselves as “sovereign” might seem, it contains a very compelling case that their legal sovereignty should justifiably be returned because the Crown has effectively abrogated its treaty obligation. It’s a much different position than that of most BC FNs where the larger issue was the Crown unconstitutionally trying to absolve itself of its obligation to treat with FNs, a matter which only scratches the surface of remedy. At least the SCoC’s 1997 “Delgamuumkw” decision overturned the Crown’s former position, and the 2014 William (“Tsihlqot’in”) SCoC decision detailed how disposition of natural resources which are effectively co-owned by both sovereign claimants will thenceforth require “meaningful consultation” between them, interim to treaty. (Another comparison is between protocols required of Crown and FN in the Site-C Dam case, located within Treaty Nº 8, on the one hand, and a number of BC cases like Delgamuukw and Tsihlqot’in: FNs opposition to Site-C Dam on the Peace River is not a sovereign claim because the settlement of Treaty Nº 8 extinguished those indigenous claims in 1899; on the other hand, resource projects like the Taseko Mine and the Northern Gateway Pipeline were thwarted by FNs availing sovereign rights the SCoC found for them precisely because they have not yet settled their respective sovereign claims—that is, they have the right to meaningful consultation about resource disposition with an FN’s co-claimant, the Crown, interim to treaty and before resource development may proceed.)

    Briefly, treaty FNs no longer have a sovereign claim to these resources like non-treaty FNs have been awarded by way of SCoC interpretations of the Constitution (particularly the Royal Proclamation 1763 which instructs agents of the Crown to negotiate treaties with FNs in order to extinguish sovereign claims competing with the Crown’s, the Common Law protocol instituted by King William I of England after the Norman Conquest in 1066). As much as provincial governments would like treaties to be a done deal and FNs’ former sovereignties forever extinguished under these terms, the unfairness of bad-faith negotiation on the Crown’s part cannot be papered over by the letter of these treaties —which most Canadians recognize, even if begrudgingly, as deeply flawed and harmful to indigenous nations and people. Nor can trite, “official apologies” and ham-handed “sins-of-the-father” or other quasi-historical excuses.

    In the interest of remedial justice for the Crown’s past sins, it would appear, ineluctably, to recommend revisiting these treaties in light of rights FNs should have gotten (for example, provincehood, the investiture of Crown sovereignty in a territorial polity like an FN). And since treaties started being settled from even pre-colonial times (that is, between the time of commercial and strategic first-contact in the 17th century and the influx of colonists in the 18th), a long, sorry, well-documented period of the Crown’s double-dealing and, as officially acknowledged, cultural—sometimes actual— genocide of indigenous people and their respective nations, provable damages are cumulatively huge. In other words, if you want to poke and prod the Constitution, you soon find plaintiffs aplenty who would equally seek remedy much bigger and complex than a crisp five-dollar bill once a year, an impoverished reserve year-round, and centuries of race-based discrimination. Such a deal! (Not!!)

    And if that ain’t mind-bending enough, just imagine what full-on secession would precipitate in legal, political and constitutional terms with respect existing and as-yet negotiated treaties with indigenous nations.

    Betcha neither Danielle nor her po’ sibling Scott Moe figured on initiating that little inconvenience with the big name: COMPENSATION. And I bet she didn’t think how puny and hackneyed her own people’s supposed persecution would look against real, centuries-long injustice. It’s a matter of competing claims of a different kind—and poor performers are, as I’m sure Smith’d have to agree, rightly put out of business as a fundament of the psephological ‘market place.’

    Yo! Way to go, Danielle! (D’oh!!) Y’all gone need ten pots, a prehensile tail and a good set of teeth to keep THAT fat from hitting the fire.

    (D’oh!)

  12. Yes, for someone who was quite rigid in his views, Kenney actually seemed quite flexible in reaching out beyond those who traditionally voted Conservative. I suspect Smith never really seriously thought through the implications of her Alberta Sovereignity bill on First Nations or other groups that do not make up part of the traditional conservative base. She seems to me to be a political gadfly, capable of entertaining various unusual ideas and persuading herself of the merits of some of them, but not really rigorously thinking through everything that they entail.

    So UCP MLAs, members and supporters are like hostages on plane, one that under Kenney was headed in a more conventional conservative direction but has now been abruptly diverted to a more unusual destination by the new pilot Smith. There is considerable unrest and unease amongst the passengers, but there is party loyalty and besides, what can they do? Some are trying to convince themselves they might actually like Bangkok better than Toronto. Maybe some will, if they ever get there however, they could encounter unexpected severe electoral turbulence to this new destination.

    Kenney had a long career in politics to refine his ideas and strategies, some of which were successful. Smith has spent the last several years mostly talking on the radio, saying whatever sounded good at the moment. One gets the sense she is not a deep thinker, with deep convictions, but more inclined to go with whatever sounds good at the time. However, what is fashionable can suddenly become unfashionable. Blockades and bitcoin seemed fairly popular less than a year ago, now not so much.

    1. Dave, I’m inclined to doubt that Danielle Smith thought through the implications of trying to replace Jason Kenney as “The Leader”—much less anything since. In fact, I wonder why she decided to throw her hat back in the ring. Was it her own decision, or did someone put her up to it? We’ll probably never know.

  13. It seems Smith has thrown herself heart and soul into the Free Alberta Fantasy. We’ll see after Christmas if she can shake free of the self-imposed focus on her horizons (very distant, murky horizons) and attend to anything closer to home. Specifically, inflation and health care, which are the most important things to Albertans about now.

    It’s amazing that Smith has alienated the Postmedia columnists in Calgary so thoroughly. Rick Bell used to be a consistent UCP cheerleader, and yet….
    https://calgarysun.com/opinion/columnists/bell-danielle-smith-pivot-already-pivot-warning-this-is-a-rant

    Smith will be hard-pressed to win an election, unless she heeds Bell’s warning. She’ll have to rise above the petty “dare-me” politics of the Sovereignty Act. With almost as many undecided voters as supporters for EITHER party, Smith’s next whim may well determine who wins the next election.
    https://abacusdata.ca/alberta-politics-deep-dive-december-2022/

    By the way, I do hope Lt. Gov. Lakhani will explain why she assented to the Sovereignty Act. Maybe she decided it was best left to Smith et al to overstep in a blatantly obvious way. Then, the Supreme Court would have a reason to rule on the matter. Of course, if the Act is never promulgated, it won’t matter. Time, as usual, will tell.

    1. @Mike D Considering what Lt. Governor Lakhani had to say about the Sovereignty Act in early September, yes, I want to hear her reasoning too.

      If I have read the legislative assembly website bill status correctly, the act went into force on royal assent.

    1. The question has to be asked Bret, how do you know this?
      There is little evidence that you understand politics or know anything about developing relationships.

      1. I may a living at it, I must be doing something in an appropriate fashion. Danielle smith is trying to do things differently because that’s how you get better. Don’t take my word for it, check out what the chief of police had to say. (Yes you will have to use google)

  14. The Calgary School and the Reform Party, the Fraser Institute and all it’s shifty little friends, were founded for the explicit purpose, among others, of alienating First Nations’ treaty rights.

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