One thing you can count on is that the United Conservative Party never gives up on a bad idea.
Take the notion of dumping the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and setting up an Alberta provincial police force, for example.
Very unpopular.
So you might have thought that was why the UCP appeared to dump it back before the provincial election in May last year.
And you may have been relieved when you heard Premier Danielle Smith hadn’t put it in her new justice minister’s mandate letter last August.
After all, even if you’re not a fan of the Mounties, you have to know it would cost a fortune to set up a provincial police force and there would be a danger it would end up acting as a partisan political enforcement agency for the UCP.
But bad ideas never really go away when the UCP has them. Sometimes they just rest for a little while.
So, yesterday afternoon, the UCP tabled Bill 11 in the Legislature, which comes with a non-descript title, the Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2024.
But if passed – which, of course, with the UCP’s majority, it will be – it will permit the provincial government to create a “new, independent police agency.”
While the government’s news release was carefully composed to obscure the obvious, the obvious is that this will be the start of the provincial police force that the UCP said it wasn’t going to start.
According to the news release, it will establish “a new organization that would work alongside police services across the province. Officers in the new agency would take on responsibility for police-like functions currently carried out by the Alberta Sheriffs.” (Emphasis added; eyerolls all ’round.]
Now, that’s just boilerplate bureaucratic pish-posh, designed to misdirect.
As for “Public Safety” Minister (a title that deserves scare quotes if ever one did) Mike Ellis’s canned quote from the news release, he said “these changes are part of a broader paradigm shift that reimagines police as an extension of the community rather than as an arm of the state.”
Can’t make this stuff up! What’s the hell is that supposed to mean? Armed vigilantes? Tonton Macoutes?
Mr. Ellis also noted that Alberta will start using ankle bracelets to monitor people facing charges who manage to get bail. Ho-hum.
The government’s change that matters, explained Dean Bennett of The Canadian Press, will “elevate its sheriff service department into a new stand-alone police force.”
Mr. Ellis insisted to reporters that “this legislation does not create a provincial police service in replace of the RCMP.” (Sic.)
Right. OK. But it sure makes it easy to set one up in a hurry the next time having the RCMP around seems like a major inconvenience to the UCP, doesn’t it?
Or to put that another way, we’ll keep the Mounties till their contracts run out in 2032, then we’ll have a provincial police force ready to go.
As Edmonton Journal columnist Keith Gerein observed on social media, the UCP is “creating new police service with mystery mandate. … Essentially, the province is tabling a bill to create a new provincial police force, but can’t say what the force is actually going to do, how big it will be, what its jurisdiction is relative to other police, and what it will cost.”
NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir called the bill another broken UCP promise. “An Alberta police force would be extremely costly for Albertans. Municipalities made it loud and clear they don’t want it, Albertans don’t want it, but Danielle Smith, yet again, doesn’t listen.”
Well, surely by now we know better than to expect anything else.
The idea of replacing the RCMP with a provincial police force hearkens back at least to the Stephen Harper gang’s notorious Firewall Letter, the 2001 indépendantiste manifesto penned by a small group of ideological right-wingers associated with the University of Calgary who were sour about the Conservative loss in the federal election the year before.
“Start preparing now to let the contract with the RCMP run out in 2012 and create an Alberta Provincial Police Force,” the group of sore losers grumped in the letter to Conservative premier Ralph Klein. “We have no doubt that Alberta can run a more efficient and effective police force than Ottawa can – one that will not be misused as a laboratory for experiments in social engineering.”
You know, like having the make-up of the national police force reflect the make-up of the nation.
There were several other terrible ideas in the Firewall manifesto, too – including replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta pension “giving Alberta control over the investment fund;” setting up the province’s own tax collection agency; and getting out of the Canada Health Act to make it easier to destroy public health care.
At the time, all that went nowhere. Now-sainted premier Klein, recipient of the epistle from the then president of the so-called National Citizens Coalition and his five sidekicks, nevertheless sensibly stuffed it in the recycle bin the instant the Gang of Six were out of sight.
Mr. Harper, of course, dropped it in public like the proverbial hot potato the instant he realized he had a chance to become prime minister … of Canada.
But there were other connected, influential guys in the Firewall Gang, too, and they presumably kept talking it up at their School of Public Policy lodge meetings.
One of them, Professor Ted Morton, became the worst premier Alberta never had. Another, Professor Tom Flanagan, was Danielle Smith’s campaign manager in the 2012 election – the one that Alison Redford won.
No doubt coincidentally, the Alberta police force and other Firewall follies didn’t reappear on the Alberta Agenda until Mr. Harper was defeated in the fall of 2015 by another Trudeau, Justin – who, by coincidence, was in Alberta yesterday to exchange meaningless talking points with Ms. Smith.
Before long, Alberta’s first United Conservative premier and biggest Brexit fan, Jason Kenney, has set up his “Fair Deal Panel” to put Mr. Harper’s 2001 sovereignty-association screed back in the microwave, give it a couple of spins at low power, and serve Firewall leftovers barely warm.
By June 2020 it was obvious that the Fair Deal Panel had listened to only six people other than Mr. Kenney himself: Mr. Harper, Dr. Flanagan, Dr. Morton, Rainer Knopff, Andy Crooks and Ken Boessenkool, the original manifesto signatories.
But by July 2021, sensible Albertans again thought they could breathe a sigh of relief, when Mr. Kenney announced he was giving up on his police force and pension schemes.
That only lasted till the fall, though, when the whole thing resurfaced again as part of the Free Alberta Strategy, promoted by Ms. Smith’s former Wildrose Party House Leader Rob Anderson, now the director of her Premier’s Office.
The outright separatist scheme even had a toxic new idea added to the brew – the Alberta Sovereignty Act, also known as the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act.
It, in turn, disappeared from the UCP’s official agenda again in the lead-up to the 2023 election, and has now resurfaced in its wake.
And it will never go away, unless the UCP is required to leave office.
Until then, bad ideas never die. They just go to Alberta and hang around.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
Just what we Don’t need, an Alberta provincial police force. And an Alberta Pension Plan for good measure, a good idea Not.
Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador already have their own provincial police force.
Were you decrying those, too, as bad ideas when they were created, or is your complaint merely racially, religiously and/or politically motivated?
Also no need to kill 20 $billion in renewables, have a new social studies curriculum which is contrary to all recommendations, continuing coal mining on Grassy Mountain, political parties in municipal elections, and ignoring the forest fire hazards by hiring a 100 but not training them until fire season out of control. And lots more. Every week an issue or 2
Marlaina isn’t doing anything more than what she said she was going to do, she just said ‘not now” before the election. Like d’rump— listen to the words!!
What I do find amusing is that when I read late last night that PMJT was coming to Calgary to meet with Marlaina; shortly after, it was announced that she will meet with him and then she was going to Edmonton to make an announcement– so that’s what it takes for the Premier to show up in the capital of the province? I was under the impression that ‘Cal-ga-lago South’ had become her main headquarters; especially since she’s giving them 12 new schools etc. etc.. And with everything else that’s going on, has anyone else noticed that “We’re all in this together, so tighten the belts”— no tax breaks for current Albertans, but “$5000* tax breaks” for new people moving to Alberta for the tech and construction sectors— meh! who needs Dr’s and nurses !( *instead of the $1200 cash incentive ***I guess too many people read the fine print about ‘if you qualify ‘)
“The Alberta government has introduced new legislation that would redirect $10 million from this years budget towards luring more workers to the province….
Premier Danielle Smith’s government now says it will amend the ‘Alberta Personal Income Tax Act’ to introduce the Alberta is Calling Attraction Bonus, to allow for a $5000 refundable tax credit.
Hmmm, I wonder if that’s going to apply to the new police/ sheriffs/ minions ??though I’m thinking that they would want/get a bigger incentive…… Purple Coveralls maybe??
I have different opinions and theories as to why we are seeing this latest development by the UCP. The timing of this is a little more than coincidental, and it is also quite suspect in nature. The last leader of the UCP was under investigation by the R.C.M.P in regards to his leadership status, and how he arrived there. This is why the UCP wanted to establish a provincial police force. If some nefarious activities go on with the UCP, the R.C.M.P will be no longer there to investigate that. The results of the R.C.M.P investigating the former UCP leader, showed that he did nothing wrong, but I’m not buying that. It seemed like there was a cover-up. If the UCP does anything wrong, in the future, that requires legal action, by the R.C.M.P, and it doesn’t go in favor of the UCP, they don’t want to face the music. This is why the UCP are still intent on creating a provincial police force. Not only that, the UCP are making it so that we have a bona fide police state in Alberta, where nobody will be able to question what the UCP does wrong. A provincial police force will be under the control of the UCP, and do their bidding. The cost of the provincial police force will exceed $1 billion, and property taxes will rise. Nothing good will come from this.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the UCP is trying to achieve by the back door what it can’t by the front one. Particularly as the crowd in charge are devoted to such bad ideas and are not known for their practicality. The sort of up front denial even makes one wonder more, as if they were anticipating a question or speculation they needed to shut down so as to continue with their plan in stealth.
Of course the bigger problem is how they (and we) can afford the billions potentially required for such a new police force. So I suppose that starts with putting off: building needed new hospitals, promised tax cuts to low income earners and no wage increases to government employees, all under the premier’s recent guise of needing to save more.
In the meantime those that come up with UCP strategy can continue to do by stealth that for which they would like to avoid debate until the point when it can be presented as fait accompli.
It is interesting how a formerly supposedly grass roots gang and one so vocal against Federal over reach has become so involved lately in controlling so many things that used to be left to municipalities. However being heavy handed in so many way is just one of the more glaring contradictions of a government so far from, what some of its leading members once called themselves, libertarian.
Execution risk is the only valid argument, and a strong one, for not pursuing a provincial police force.
As for the other arguments against:
-suspicions that a provincial police force would be more subject to political interference are no more or less valid than potential federal interference with the RCMP or provincial interference with existing provincial police forces in ON, QC and NL
-the RCMP’s footprint in AB is already shrinking with GP creating a municipal force: https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/grande-prairie-council-votes-to-dump-rcmp-create-municipal-police-service-1.6302272
-the RCMP may be exiting local policing regardless of AB’s direction: https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/federal-government-eyes-rcmps-future-as-a-national-force-may-drop-contract-policing-for-small-communities
-the RCMP has a competence problem, given its many scandals. Who knows is an APP would be any better, but at least it wouldn’t be pulled in two directions (federal policing and local policing) like the RCMP
Doug: you are so innocent. I grew up in rural Alberta where each little town had its own little police force. I came from a rich family and I can assure you the laws certainly never applied to me or my friends pretty much no matter what we did or who we did it to. The poor kids always got the stick.
If you take a look at the wrongfully convicted in Canada you will see Provincial Police forces implicated in most of those botched investigations and prosecutions.
Don’t get me started on the “special constables” hired by the City of Regina to start a riot as an excuse to murder the “on to Ottawa” marchers in 1935. Marchers who were supported, housed and fed by the City of Calgary just days before.
As some guy named Churchill said of something else: The R.C.M.P. are the worst police force in the world, EXCEPT for all the others.
If provincial police force as more corrupt than the RCMP, where is the outrage in ON, QC and NL?
Sounds like you are saying that the RCMP in rural AB is also corrupt. So damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Doug: Don’t put words in my mouth. Rural Social Credit Alberta before the RCMP was a different world you should be thankful you did not grow up in.
Fundamentally, this is a question of competence and impartiality. Competence comes from scale and there is too much evidence that municipal and provincial police forces are structurally unable to be either competent (botched investigations/wrongful convictions) or impartial. If you study Canada’s policing history you would know about the Duplessis era of the Quebec police acting as enforcers for the Catholic Church and how Montreal Mayor Drapeau used the police against his political opponents; Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton police also come to mind. If you think an Alberta police force would be any less influenced by local prejudices, all you have to do is look at what Minister Ellis said about an AP reflecting the community.
Kang: The citizens of Grande Prairie were not too keen on having a municipal police force. The mayor and council there are dyed in the wool UCP devotees, and like the UCP, they don’t do things in a democratic fashion. Their municipal property taxes have to go up to pay for their new police force in Grande Prairie. From what I can see, the UCP is creating a police state. Dissidents will not be tolerated.
Thanks, Anonymous, it looks like you and I are experienced enough to know what living under the Social Credit police state was like. We know what these UCP libertarians and phony conservatives are really asking for.
Just to add: Not that we did much, or there was much to do, but here is a link to stories about cops planting evidence:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/4692-cops-planting-evidence
Doug makes some valid points. There has been a great deal of questioning in the past few years about the appropriateness of the RCMP retaining its “contract policing” model, wherein it subs in for a provincial police force in the 7 ½ provinces* that don’t have their own. Arising out of the “defund the police” movement, advocates for this position seek to have the RCMP undergo a transformational reform that would limit its mandate to investigations of truly national scope, such as counter-terrorism, organized crime and counter- intelligence (comparable to the role of the FBI in the US). This proposed reform would also demilitarize its training model and its organizational chart, and would force the provinces to set up their own provincial police forces for rural areas and smaller municipalities currently policed by the RCMP.
As for “Municipalities made it loud and clear they don’t want it”, this is not universally true. As Doug has pointed out, the City of Grande Prairie is in the midst of setting up its own municipal police service to supplant its RCMP detachment. The latest development in this multi-year process is reported here:
https://www.mygrandeprairienow.com/118358/featured/recruitment-numbers-a-very-good-sign-as-gpps-prepares-for-officer-training-in-may/
*I say 7 ½ provinces because Newfoundland & Labrador has the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary as well as the RCMP. I’ve never been able to find any kind of map that displays the extent of the territory policed by the RNC versus the RCMP, but the RNC is a provincial police force for at least part of that province.
Jerry: comments about reforming the RCMP are worthy of consideration. We know from history and recent events that the RCMP have been less than worthy of their reputation when it comes to First Nations, especially on the issue of residential schools, murdered and missing indigenous women (City of Vancouver cops on this one too), land, and civil rights.
So, reforms around demilitarization and other changes like the decriminalization of social and medical problems are important. However, compared to say the “Starlight” tours where the Saskatoon police would dump inebriated people, usually First Nations, far enough out of town on winter nights that some of them froze to death, or the Calgary cop who threw a handcuffed woman to the concrete floor in a police station, I will take the RCMP every time.
Is there anything that Marlaina hasn’t lied about? There was no mention of her very own cops in the budget two weeks ago. Is this why we can’t afford nurses or teachers? Nenshi was absolutely right when he called out her gang as incompetent, immoral and dangerous.
When Alberta’s TBA government members use a microwave, they put it on high, don’t use a cover and splatter their crap all over the microwave, then they don’t clean it up.
CX: Sorry. You’re right, of course. DJC
Another of the firewall letter’s boxes has been checked. The firewall letter is an instruction manual. Now we have a “police like” force that will live in the shadows, like the agencies in certain Eastern European countries. Will the Municipal police forces want anything to do with them? Will the RCMP share information with them? Are we going to have turf wars between the RCMP and the “police like” force in rural areas? The only thing we know for certain at this point is the civilian oversight will be nothing more than a rubber stamp.
I wonder how Pierre Poilievre will address the Alberta separatism schemes when he becomes PM, which I expect he will come next election. On the one hand, he is the same brand of ‘freedom’ loving libertarian radical that Smith is; on the other, he is not an Alberta MP, so it might look awkward shelling for another province. Add to that the pushback from other provinces about the pension heist (particularly Ontario, which has a lot of say in things and has a conservative government) and it might put him in a sticky situation if he is PM, whose job it is to hold the country together. No doubt there will be enormous concessions to Alberta in budgets and policy (axe that tax is really him doing Alberta’s bidding). But how will he deal with Alberta if they do a Saskatchewan and publicly refuse to enforce federal law?
Simply by winning an election, PP will de-escalate tensions with the Provinces. Incursions by the Federal Liberals into provincial jurisdiction has predictably created tension. PP will almost certainly back off.
Yup, keep telling yourself that. While your at it why don’t you tell us that corporate welfare and cutting business taxes (two of PP’s favs) will magically make the working class thrive
Cutting taxes might. Corporate welfare is a value of all the political parties.
Canada’s per capita GDP has shrunk under the Liberals, so redistributing wealth and expanding government’s share of GDP hasn’t worked.
Actually GDP only contracted in the second quarter of 2023. Higher interest rates will do that.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/gdp-second-quarter-2023-1.6954239
I agree that PP will back off (at least at first and with select provinces). But I disagree that the Trudeau government has been operating in provincial jurisdiction (at least I’d need a specific example). The usual suspects (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec) complain a lot about this but more often than not it’s a smokescreen to mask policy differences that don’t go the way jurisdictions like. I can also foresee a situation where PP does not back off, such as if BC or Quebec starts to get testy about pipelines; in that event I can see PP doing a 180 on FPY relations.
*FPT relations
Examples
-national daycare program
-national pharmacare program
-national dental care program
-expansion of National Energy regulator
-proposed clean electricity regulations
-proposed O&G emissions cap
Expat Albertan— BC did not get ‘testy’, David Eby said in a very clear and neutral, I believe the word is modicum voice “I don’t live in the Polievre campaign office and baloney factory. I live in BC, am the premier and decisions have consequences….”
Lol, lol,lol….. absolutely made my day, especially since PP was in Gander/NL and all I could think of was one of my favorite commercials from 1990—Maple Leaf Baloney**
after dinner dessert -kid from Toronto: cheesecake?
grandpa from NL: seaweed pie! …..
still chuckling…**Google/you tube.
And just putting this out there,
does anyone else think that PP’s “Spike the Hike ” is copyright infringement? (penguin notwithstanding )
besides being the most obnoxious catch phrase his team has come up with yet– it’s embarrassing that this is the drivel that his supporters think would make him a good PM…. Good Grief!
“Add to that the pushback from other provinces about the pension heist (particularly Ontario, which has a lot to say in things and has conservative government…”).
Agreed. Despite his faults Doug Ford will never accede to a 53% grab of the CPP.
As for 2025, Mr. Peepers will be the next PM because all the polls say so, right? Assuming the worst and he decides to play ball with Danielle’s crew, he will open his office door and be faced with his Ontario caucus pitchforks at the ready.
The smug face of Dingy Smith is really getting under my skin. Her response to breaking every election promise she made was that they got a mandate from Albertans to basically do as they wish, regardless of the opposition. Hopefully the next election will oust them from their higher than mighty perch.
We have 3 more years of this? How much worse will it get? This, almost daily, Smith/Parker UCP/TBA iffy stuff just cannot be made up. As has been said, “they’re incompetent, dangerous, and immoral.”
There will be ‘much’ to fix, mitigate, repair, reverse…..
Yesterday a conversation turned to the question of whether or not “Marlaina’s Men” would use leg shackles. Ankle bracelets seem a little tame for Madam Marlaina. Maybe a bit of both? And balls and chains!
Whenever this government starts asking us to imagine or reimagine anything, you know they mean go to the depths of your imagination, the worst case scenario.
Budgets are performance art, aren’t they? Here’s what we learned from the latest one:
https://youtu.be/r8hP9-qnAxk?si=Q52CWdJ97PGysKg3
Hmmm….So instead of the SS would our provincial paramilitary force be called the MM?
Tonton Macoutes?
The armed irrational gunnysack men descended on a border crossing a few years back.
Let’s all refer to Smith’s enforcers as … “Uncle Coutts”
PJP: That’s really very good! DJC
It’s pretty obvious they want to be able to do a Greg Abbott style confrontation with the feds over the RCMP. Again, picking and choosing which parts of confederation they like and which they don’t. We’ve seen how “oversight boards” work with the useless process we already have in alberta, and the naked corruption that can fester within smaller police fiefdoms (cough, Edmonton, Calgary, cough). Their obsession with seizing the powers of a dictator would make STALIN BLUSH, to quote the ever hyperbolic Mr. Nixon.
Something I’m always remembering in the back of my mind is the rather sizeable military detachment that lies just north of the city. Do you think they would ride on a rogue provincial government hell bent on seizing a large chunk of what the rest of the country sees as Canadas assets, because I kinda think that’s one of the reasons they’re there.
Interesting historical note. When Premier Aberhart was proposing taking control of the banks, at war with his Lt. Gov. and the Press (remember the press?), and proposing Albertans leaving the province for more than 6 months obtain permission from the Provincial Government, the Federal government built an airfield inside a protected military area outside of Calgary, and in 1938 during the Munich Crisis moved almost all the countries military aircraft to that airfield.
Someone was paying attention in Ottawa then.
I wonder if the UCP realizes that some other party might be in power after the next election and use ‘their’ provincial police force for their own purposes? Might there be unintended blow back on the UCP/TBA/IDU from this cunning plan?
“these changes are part of a broader paradigm shift that reimagines police as an extension of the community rather than as an arm of the state.”
As I understand it, Canadian police services were founded on the principle of community assent – the old Peel model. While the RCMP was originally a quasi-military organization, it transformed itself into a typical Canadian police force long ago (bar its national mandate).
So the UCP is gaslighting us once again, depicting the RCMP as a bunch of stormtroopers under the control of the Laurentian Elites and presenting, as a solution, what we already have. But made in Alberta. And under the control of the Cordilleran Cabal.
So ON, QC and NL have the culture and institutional competence to operate provincial police forces, but AB does not?
Your namesake tried and failed to install his unqualified buddy Ron Taverner as OPP Commissioner several years ago, and is currently trying to insert political fealty to his Conservative party in the selection process for Judges in Ontario. It’s not a bug, but rather a feature of right wing governments to interfere with the justice system, and the UCP is no different.
On careful re-reading of my comment, I don’t see where I wrote that.
However, on that point, you might consider Doug Ford’s attempt to install an unqualified buddy as OPP Commissioner a few years back.
So there’s at least one recent example of a provincial police force that was being subject to manipulation by the governing party. A conservative party, as well. Of all things.
The Sûreté du Québec have a history of being used by the party in power against its political opponents.
Newfoundland and Labrador had its own constabulary long before it joined Confederation.
Of course, It Couldn’t Happen Here.
I don’t personally know about NL but the OPP and the SQ taught me and many other young people, mostly male, about how phone books and billy clubs and a bag of oranges really make it look like you got bruised up when you fell down the stairs by accident. “Honestly”. Teaching most of us to never trust the police or teaching bully’s, this is your team. In high school I could count on one hand the number of friends who got a new car from a payout by the SQ for detaining overnight and ruffing up the under 18 without notifying the parents. And it was all for petty juvenile bs. Even a disrespectful attitude would be enough for some officers. Not long after probably bankrupting payout territory they stopped targeting poor white kids but fortunately for them most of the people in this country don’t believe that police brutality and racial profiling exist. Even lots of the same people I knew who got mistreated by police would show total disbelief that it exists today until you remind them of what happened to them. I guess what I’m saying is that if they do choose to create a provincial police force hopefully it doesn’t teach young people not to trust them or join them to be a bully too.
Alberta has separatist roots—at least the more recent chapter if we demark the end of the previous one (social creditism) with the premiership of Peter Lougheed which also serves as an intermission in the saga of Canada’s second-most resentful federate (in terms of peeve-points accumulated).
I will disagree, though, that at the present prow of history the nastily-gassed exchange of words between premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday was not “meaningless”.
Although the exchange was completely reiterative, the grip of the handshake, the exchanged glances, and the postures of the two leaders, JT naturally looming over Danielle Smith, was a carefully choreographed photo-op in which the PM showed he isn’t afraid of sabre-rattling from the Alberta government in a kind of political ‘double-dare’, a momentary but memorable stare-down, doubled again for its partisan utility —his main federal rival being the one-and-the-same federal, UCP ally, CPC leader Pierre Poilievre. The CPC has an electoral lock on Alberta but the UCP’s is much less secure. JT’s stage was set for the ROC(+Q), not Alberta (or Saskatchewan, for that matter) audience where he has much to lose or gain: Danielle has much fewer degrees of freedom, stands little to gain by preaching to a provincial choir, and much to lose by cocking a snook at federalism.
“The Resistance” against carbon taxes —personnel now three-fifths replaced—stands firm but, for them, the movement to “axe the tax” is frustratingly tepid and almost entirely distinguished by partisanship. BC and Quebec are two heavyweight provinces which have their own carbon-pricing systems (which, like the federal, offers generous rebates to ordinary consumers, effectively subsidized by industrial polluters which pay much more). Summer is coming, heating bills shrinking and the possibility of petroleum prices easing as ever present as mild recession as we climb out of Covid. JT is thus advantaged with room to grow and fair winds blowing. He will stress those rebate cheques over and over —as many times as the anti-tax tribe chants its paeans and slogans—and he will ask, over and over to match, what alternative the opposition has to fairly transition from climate-changing energy to clean energy. His appeal is appealing, his rhetorical erudition erosive of the opposition’s non-position. And he did it all in a photo-op picture worth ten-thousand words.
Ms Smith, forced to be polite, could only offer the same-old-same-old declaration of a “difference of opinions” between Edmonton and Ottawa. In contrast, he brought it to her and perforce she demurred.
This was subtle —okay, maybe not so subtle—political theatre at its best. Naturally it has meaning, especially for the feds who want to appear happy to field Wildrose taunts.
I mean, I couldn’t help but notice that JT appeared to be having great fun during the quick-draw presser. That, too, that, too…
About the proposed new police force: what is the average RCMP’s feeling about it with respect career? And what about the whole, venerable federal institution which was born, after all, to bring law and order to the Northwestern Territories before the two landlocked provinces were confederated? Would an Alberta force free-up members for reassignment elsewhere in the country, or would the larger force lose members to the smaller? I imagine room for professional advancement would be a dominant consideration for any police in the subject jurisdiction —and that seems to present a recruitment problem, at least of quality members: would not more members opt to remain in the RCMP than those who would opt for a new force?
Great synopsis. Thnx!
When Surrey, B.C. replaces the RCMP with their own police force there might be a number of RCMP officers floating around. Some of them might not be interested in joining the new Surrey Police force. if that were to be added to Alberta RCMP, if Dani had her own police force, things might get interesting.
Provincial police forces can be subject to political interference. The RCMP report to Ottawa from where their paycheques and promotions come from and may not have a lot of loyalty to the community they police.
A police force is only as good as its leadership and the RCMP had little or bad leadership. Look no further than the 300 women who files a class action lawsuit against the RCMP for sexism and the Surrey 6 murders.
In another Friday @ 5 press release…. “By linking voting records to drivers’ licences and vehicle registrations, we will enhance the safety of all Albertans. Socialist drivers who continue to practice diversity and equity at the wheel will be quickly identified and apprehended. Class 3 Woke drivers will be issued rainbow stickers for their rear licence plates.”
Oy vey! Another level of Dani’s control state that will be used for political purposes such as rounding up radicals (anyone who disagrees or lawfully protests), publicly denounces or disagrees, such as the esteemed journo who penned this thorough article stemming back to the NCC, the organisation I loved to hate back in the Western Standard’s Ted Byfield days, and anyone Other who doesn’t conform to said standards of the state, such as queers, trans, single parents on welfare, unhoused, addicts, visionaries, thinkers, doers, opposition leaders et al. The Putinising of fantasy Albertaland, Dani’s soverign state, free of pesky Canadians, Quebecoise, federal governments, pensions and transfer payments. Albertaland will be a 100 percent non-renewable economy and if you disagree, well, you get the picture…Brecht, Kafka and Hitler couldn’t paint a grimmer picture. The lady’s a fascist and has gotta go.
You can only lie until your nose gets so big even Jeppetto can’t put you back together. This is the path the UCP are on.
Because they didn’t come we will build it.. Ok then! Alberta, the feedlot of dreams!
Danielle Smith never heard a bad idea she didn’t like, and I’m not being funny when I say that. Look at her talk show on YouTube and watch her face light up every time a guest shares a stupid conspiracy theory or a wacky idea about how to fix every problem (i.e. break every institution) in Alberta. The episode with Rob Anderson is especially interesting.
O.K. I haven’t stopped laughing since the news announced Smith was going to have her whatever it is. Using the Sheriffs to create a new something, well if its going to be a police force, they’re all going to need additional training–that ought to be fun! Some who are Sheriffs will not meet the requirements of being a police officer, that is why some are Sherrifs instead of police officers.
If Smith brooms the RCMP, who will do the major crime cases? Who will do the deep investigations, the gang units, etc. None of the Sheriffs are going to be able to cut it.
What they can do is shoot people who ought not to be shot; screw up investigations, cover up for Smith and her party and file charges against political opposition. I’m sure they’ll be able to arrest transgender children also.
If “Dani’s Dicks” become a reality and the RCMP are also in Alberta I can hardly wait to see the “conversations” which will be had as to who gets the crime scene.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters
What exactly is a “police like” force? How much legal jurisdiction does it have? What powers will it have? This seems pretty sketchy and very unclear. Does it have to behave like police force in gathering evidence, following rules in the way it treats those it comes into contact with and the rights of those it comes into contact with, etc. etc. ? There probably will be a zillion court cases trying to sort out these and many other questions, and justifiably so as I’m not sure that there is any clarity on a “police like” force.
How much policing is necessary in a free and democratic society? It is beginning to feel as if we will be over-policed, which may be a potentially democracy-reducing situation.
Speaking of her separatist policies, Smith’s attempt to start an APP may not be necessary to the oil industry if they can talk the feds into affecting where the CPP is invested. I doubt Trudeau would go for that, but I bet PP would.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10357187/budget-2024-canada-pension-funds-domestic-investment/?utm_source=NewsletterNational&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=2024
What is bizarrely hilarious about this, is that the TBA/UCP supporters all tear their hair out over ‘Trudeau’s lies…..and the non stop lies from their fave party, the TBA/UCP get a pass constantly. Trump supporters do exactly the same thing. ‘Conservatives’ of any stripe are …………… (you can fill in the blank)!
Does the Smith UCP Government really believe that discussions over CPP, policing in Alberta, or general Ottawa bashing will move voters attention away from the deteriorating state of care in Alberta?
Or, do we have to wait until every family or extended family have an AHS disaster story. Especially in those rural area that have provided Smith with so much support, so many votes, and a such a plethora of singularly unqualified Cabinet Ministers and assorted hangers on. I cannot recall ever seeing a less talented Executive group during our 24 years in Alberta.
Who knows what will happen next? Perhaps Smith will organize a Province wide book burning event on Guy Fawke’s day. Nothing would surprise me.
People who think that a land locked nation of 5 million people is viable are crazier than a roomful of crackheads. How are you going to get the bitumen to tidewater then?
Christopher: Oh, you know, the United Nations, when it’s not plotting to force us to live in 15-minute cities and submit to Agenda 2021, will force British Columbia to build 20 pipelines to the Coast. Yadda-yadda. DJC