According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, only a small minority of Alberta parents are now agreeing to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19, while the vast majority are not.
This seemingly unlikely claim was only one of a number of troubling statements made by Ms. Smith at town hall meeting Tuesday organized by the Calgary-Lougheed United Conservative Party Constituency Association.
We only know about this because, while the “one-on-one with Premier Danielle Smith,” was ignored by professional media, it was attended and live-tweeted by Katie Teeling, the former editor of the University of Alberta student newspaper, The Gateway. She did a great favour for Albertans with her informative tweet thread.
The premier was aggressively questioned about parents’ consent for their children to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Constituency Association President Darrell Komick, who argued that parents were provided with insufficient information about mRNA vaccines, a bugbear of the anti-vaccine crowd.
“Right now, it looks like the government endorses the vaccines the way they’re positioned on the chart,” he complained according to Ms. Teeling’s transcript, a short portion of which she provided to AlbertaPolitics.ca.
“No, I don’t think so,” Ms. Smith responded. “Because I look at the immunization status and that shows me that people are getting the information that they need to make a choice, and people are very smart. People are smart.”
“No they’re not,” Mr. Komick countered, at which point the premier was heckled by members of the audience, shouting “No!”
“Six per cent are choosing to get the vaccination for their kids,” Ms. Smith said in response. “That means it’s 94 per cent that are not. That says to me that people are smart, and they’re figuring out whether or not it’s right for their kids.”
Now, however you look at it, this statement is extremely troubling.
It’s bad if the premier is just gas-lighting, making it up for a (mostly) sympathetic audience with the danger in mind that party members could vote for a leadership review at the UCP annual general meeting in Red Deer in November.
But it’s worse, obviously, if it’s true. The implication a significant portion of the population has been so persuaded by a MAGA-influenced government that it has moved beyond science into a YouTube rabbit hole of public health misinformation is genuinely frightening.
This isn’t the first time the Calgary-Lougheed UCP Constituency Association has gotten up to something like this. At least five UCP MLAs turned up for an “Injection of Truth” vaccine-misinformation town hall featuring a group of discredited anti-vaxx physicians in June.
Before that previous event Ms. Smith told her bi-monthly Your Province, Your Premier radio show that she supported Calgary-Lougheed MLA Eric Bouchard’s effort.
But showing up in person for what she had to know would amount to an anti-vaxx revival meeting seems even less appropriate.
The political calculation behind her appearance is interesting. Notwithstanding Take Back Alberta founder David Parker’s ongoing troubles with Elections Alberta, Premier Smith obviously feels insecure enough to need to keep things sweet for the people in the party’s base who former UCP premier and Calgary-Lougheed MLA Jason Kenney used to refer to as lunatics.
From Ms. Teeling’s tweets, we also learn that Ms. Smith also told listeners, as has been widely rumoured, that her government will update the provincial Bill of Rights in the fall to protect the right of vaccine refuseniks to spread disease in health care settings. (This is a topic that deserves its own discussion of the legal and public health chaos that could result from such a policy.)
She called it “a problem” that there are so many doctors on the board of the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons. There were hints she’d still like docs to be able to prescribe ivermectin, the notorious veterinary deworming paste, to treat other diseases.
She also had to put up with some heckling from party members who want the government to grab the Canada Pension Plan without giving Albertans a chance to vote on the matter. While she insisted there would be a vote, she baselessly suggested the CPP investment fund is being used “to win votes” in Eastern Canada.
To really get a sense of the tone of the meeting and the range of topics covered, though, readers need to go through Ms. Teeling’s illuminating tweets themselves.
Meanwhile, in other news, a new scientific study shows the United States could have been spared as many as a quarter million deaths from COVID had all states had adopted the stricter mask and vaccination requirements imposed by the country’s northeastern states between July 2020 and July 2022.
“If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10 per cent to 21 per cent lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the two-year analysis period,” said the study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association Health Forum.
However, had the entire country imposed restrictions similar to those in the 10 least restrictive states – the ones whose approach Ms. Smith has said she thinks Alberta should have adopted – the study suggested the number of deaths would have been 13 per cent to 17 per cent higher.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
George Orwell, 1984
Danielle Smith is weird
The UCP are creepy
What a tough crowd! Hard to believe Smith is not kooky enough for them, but I suppose she does have a political habit of changing what she says suddenly and without warning, just ask some old Wildrosers. So perhaps the audience does have some basis to be skeptical of her. In any event, maybe in the future Smith should just stick to Corus radio, where the questions seem to be much easier.
I have to wonder now that the lunatics are clearly in charge if she might face the same fate as Kenney, who found out how hard it was to sound reasonable for a larger audience who vote in general elections and not so reasonable for party extremists who vote in leadership reviews.
Oh well, no one said being leader of a conservative party in Alberta was easy. Members do have quite a history of turning on their leaders. Even Smith’s revered Klein was eventually pushed out by his own party members, who were getting concerned he was staying beyond his best before date. Although in hindsight it seems there might have been something to that. So perhaps yet again those closer to the wizardess are noticing first she is not quite as great as she seems.
In other words, 94% are believers in the old fashioned school of science that says kids need a steady diet of colds and runny noses to build up the muscles in your immune system so that they are better able to take on the trials and tribulations later in life. Natural immunity baby! Not in the new school which is dominated by the pharmaceuticals that wants to inject you with God knows what for every goddam little thing that comes along.
Ronmac: Polio. Do you remember polio? DJC
Or the Spanish Flu.
I’m 66 years old and have had seven Covid 19 vaccinations. I will be getting a combined Covid/Influenza vaccine this fall. I haven’t grown a third arm from my forehead just yet. After three vaccinations I came down with Covid in June 2022. I was congested, tired, muscle soreness in my back and legs and did have some of the runs but I ate like a horse without losing my sense of taste. I recovered in seven days and three weeks later we rode the Kettle Valley Rail corridor on our bicycles from Myra Canyon outside Kelowna to Penticton, 80 km in five hours with virtually no training. This year in the latter half of February I contracted Covid again, only this time with a little bit of congestion. I never lost my appetite nor my sense of smell and was over it in seven days again. I still go down to the gym and perform four sets of ten repetitions of chest press with a pair of 85 lb dumbbells and can pyramid up to 600 lb for six reps in the leg press machine. Now compare me to Saskatoon’s Mark Friesen, PPC candidate in the last federal election and anti-vaxxer as well as being fifteen years my junior. Both Mark and I are large men but while I maintain my weight of 225 lb, Mark contracted Covid, lost 60 lb and almost died. He wasn’t healthy enough to go join his toothless buddies to jump on the bouncy castle in Ottawa last year in Jan/Feb. You know, the ones puffing on cigarettes hollering, “Nobody’s going to put furrin’ stuff in my body!” on social media.
In short Dr RonMac, I listen to the doctors and experts in the medical field and not unsubstantiated rumours from social media. I have the advantage of my eldest daughter having a MSc in Molecular Biology and DNA Research who worked several years at the Agriculture Research Station in Lethbridge looking into infectious diseases that infect cattle as well as Anthrax naturally occurring in the soil. She now working in the USA for a R&D company that develops DNA sequencers and understands the mRNA vaccines which are more effective that the older vaccines and maybe helpful in the fight against certain cancers. So I’ll continue with vaccine schedule while you Dr. RonMac continue to play russian roulette with your health. I’ll continue to laugh at your ignorance. I only hope I don’t let out a cruel laugh when I read about you on the webpage Sorry Anti-Vaxxer.
Mark Friesen is back in hospital recently with lung problems. Bob Blayone tweeted today he is doing better.
Since I’m not a youtube quack, I won’t declare what caused his health issues, though I do wonder if it might be from covid damage.
My friend had 5 injections, he’s dead of blood clots.
He never had corona disease once.
I’ve had eight and am fine, like 46 million others.
“46 million vaccinated adults.
No increased risk of heart attacks or clots for mRNA vaccines.
The “died suddenly” folks and other vaccine fear-mongers owe a lot of people a fulsome apology…”
New study linked here:
https://x.com/AlastairMcA30/status/1818743552928842178
I’ve had eight too, Valerie, and if I die any time soon, always a possibility at 72, I expect it will be as a result of my shitty driving. DJC
Lots of reasons to have blood clots.
Lucy, you imply that your friend died because of complications from the Covid vaccine. Sorry, but “he’s dead of blood clots” and “he had 5 injections” does not prove either caused the other.
The opposite side of this coin is the German fellow who paid for 217 Covid jabs–about one a week–and has not developed any side-effects. Here’s a link:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68477735
The BBC article refers to a peer-reviewed case study of the hyper-vaccinated man, published in The Lancet. Scroll to the summary at the end of the report, and read it carefully.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00134-8/fulltext
Injections of what, bleach?
5 injections and never had cv19? See ?? It works!!
He’s dead? Hmm.. But he didn’t get cv19!
Or the red measles. I contracted the disease at age seven, long before immunization was available. You would not wish it on any child. The sickness lasted for two weeks of misery, luckily no long term effects. Any parent who would not have their son or daughter inoculated is, as Trump would say, dumb as a rock. Child neglect anyone?
Most recent studies show natural immunity is a very poor protection to any future covid infections. You’ve been misinformed.
Not misinformed. He has eagerly chewed, swallowed and digested a parcel of lies because they seemed delicious to his ears.
I made a study of Atlas Shrugged at one time, and there is one single nugget of truth in the 1100+ turgid pages, to the effect that some mistakes simply can not be made innocently.
So you say, Death, but you have to admit the characters have great names. Dagny Taggart! Lillian Reardon! Wesley Mouch! And my personal favourite, Ragnar Danneskjold. (Make no mistake, though, in real life the Royal Navy would have sent Ragnar and his crew to the bottom within 20 minutes of locating them.) Atlas Shrugged is a really terrible book, and it’s probably more dangerous than crack cocaine for a certain kind of impressionable young person. Still, I confess I found it highly entertaining in a weird way. As I recall, I read it the same summer that I read Lord of the Rings, which was better. DJC
Great idea. We can return to the good old days of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The child mortality rate in Canada, for children under the age of five, was 333 deaths per thousand births in the year 1830. This means that one third of all children born in 1830 did not make it to their fifth birthday. Child mortality remained above 25 percent for the remainder of the nineteenth century, before falling at a much faster rate throughout the 1900s. By the year 2020, Canada’s child mortality rate is expected to be just five deaths per thousand births.
Child mortality rate (under five years old) in Canada, from 1830 to 2020
Thanks to the covid19 vaccines the children & young people who took it may very well be sterile or have fetal demise if a pregnancy does develop. The lipid nano particles within the shot travels into the ovaries, testicles, the heart, even across the blood brain barrier, hence why there are more strokes, pericarditis, myocarditis. Many, many young have died because of this ‘new’ technology. Its clinical testing was done on you and others- at your peril. If you check the higher vaccinated countries they all have a huge spike in excess deaths – since 2021. Not 2020.
Note to readers: I should probably spike misinformation posts like this one, but you do need to know the kind of anonymous commentary such posts attract. DJC
My wife & I were just in Halifax the other day, and we visited a downtown Catholic cemetery to look for the final resting place of a long-deceased sibling of hers – who was born and then died (of a fall) before she herself was born.
The gravesite is in a section of the cemetery that is seemingly set aside for infants and children, and there are too many to count. Children dying before the age of two, or one, or in infancy, or stillborn. Most are from the 19th century but many from the 20th, even as recently as the early 1960s, but the number dwindles off dramatically after that period of time.
Without doing a deep dive into archival records, I can’t be sure, but based on my professional background as a Registered Nurse, I suspect better preventative health care, including most importantly immunization against once-deadly communicable diseases, is the explanation for that decline in infant and child mortality.
Do we really want to go back to those days? Then we’d better start building bigger cemeteries. Personally, I’d rather not.
Immunologist agree – your immune system does NOT work like yours muscles.
The best illnesses are the ones you DON’T get.
“Every goddam little thing that comes along.” Like measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox?
“Just under half of all males who get mumps-related orchitis notice some shrinkage of their testicles and an estimated 1 in 10 men experience a drop in their sperm count (the amount of healthy sperm their body can produce).”
“If you get rubella during pregnancy, you are at risk for miscarriage or stillbirth. Your developing baby is at risk for severe birth defects with devastating, lifelong consequences. Infection with rubella virus causes the most severe damage during early in pregnancy, especially in the first 12 weeks (first trimester).”
“ Anyone who’s had chickenpox may develop shingles.”
Et cetera.
Your children may have problems when they get older because of the decisions you make on their behalf. But you won’t.
I actually remember polio. My math teacher had it. I think his life was harder than it had to be. You should think again before you spread such cruel misinformation.
I also remember having most childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, German measles, (rubella), and whooping cough. My mum would have given all four of us vaccinations if she could, not least because rubella can affect fetuses.
Alt-rights are terrified of actual science because it conflicts with their dunning-kruger filtered world view.
Calmly, friends, I believe I must come to ronmac’s defence. Some of you seem to believe he’s advocating for the anti-vax sentiments of the UCP/TBA radical-right rage-heads.
Please re-read his post; I’m certain he was being sarcastic at the anti-vaxxers’ expense. He’s slagging off the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” philosophy of life.
While that mindset is true-ish, kinda, to some extent, I don’t for a millisecond believe it’s worth all the non-lethal, debilitating suffering it’s caused. And I’m pretty damn certain ronmac doesn’t believe it, either.
I’m not sure that child sacrifice is a good look for the lunatics who have taken over the asylum. Jason Kenney called it, not me. This is weird, wacky and dangerous: a trifecta. However, it does seem to appeal to 94% of Albertans, who are happy to offer up their own children for this ritual, if the premier’s calculations are correct. Smart? I’m reminded of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, without the sugary goodness and happy ending. Where were the parents in that story?
In case anyone wonders what I was getting at, here’s one of many explanations.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-dark-history-behind-hansel-and-gretel#:~:text=%22Hansel%20and%20Gretel%22%20reflects%20those,for%20you%20will%20fail%20you.
Times like these? People who are meant to care for children fail them? Surely abandoning children in the forest to fend for themselves is unwise, given the wildfire situation, but is tossing them to fate in a worldwide pandemic any better? Are we living in the 1300s, or more enlightened 21st century times? Hard to say.
Abs: Don’t forget though that Jason Kenney cultivated those lunatics who have eventually taken over the asylum….
Hana: I think everyone recognizes that, except perhaps Mr. Kenney. DJC
Are Albertans becoming dumber? Because Smith sure appears to be. Thank cthulu I am moving back to Canada next month. Thanks for all that money, suckers.
Merely one more example, or case study demonstrating the advantages of psychologically manipulating the disciples using the established methods (credulity, naivete, mechanisms used to restore perceived loss of control, ect,) from the standardized playbook and either weeping because they (the followers) are unable to perceive (Requiring at the deepest levels ruthless personal honesty and insight. “Cons succeed for inducing judgment errors—chiefly, errors arising from imperfect information and cognitive biases.”) and understand the joke (“. . . and people are very smart. People are smart.” “No they’re not,” Mr. Komick countered, at which point the premier was heckled by members of the audience, shouting “No!”) that is simply an elaborate confidence game, or laughing in order to convince everyone that they fully and completely see and understand the hustle or swindle for what it is.
For example,
“Observers of conservative politics say it’s perfectly logical that Trump (Smith) fans so willingly accept his counterfactual statements about the pandemic and go along with efforts to discredit scientists in order to delegitimize politically damaging statistics. For years, Republicans (Conservatives) have successfully seized upon a larger cultural trend of diminished faith in experts around issues like climate change. “We think expertise is this very exclusionary idea, which it is, because it’s supposed to be: Not everybody gets a vote on how to fly the plane,” said Nichols, who wrote about the trend in a 2017 book, “The Death of Expertise.” In the pandemic, “This rejection of science and of expertise [has] become [a] demonstration of political loyalty. That’s the part I didn’t expect — that there would be an entire political movement, led by the president of the United States (Premier of Alberta), to basically disavow science.”
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/
As George Carlin wisely said, “Think about how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that”
As always, thank you DC! The US is considering preventing Canadians with dogs from entering their country. Can you blame them? We have politicians like Poilievre and D Smith who are actively promoting anti-vax ideology for humans. Will the anti-vaxers have their pets vax’d for rabies? Don’t count on it. Actually I’ve asked that question before, specifically does anti-vax ideology cause a reduction in rabies vaccination for pets. Haven’t heard the answer yet.
Simon: Seriously, I am sure I have seen somewhere that it does. It’s a good question. Maybe if you rub ivermectin on them, though, it will keep rabid squirrels and raccoons from biting them! DJC
Depressingly, the answer seems to be yes, anti-vaxers are more likely to leave their dogs unprotected. And if their dogs are unprotected, everyone’s dogs have less protection. See https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vaccine-dogs-pets-anti-vax-health-risks/
Damn, the UCP is weird.
TC they are not weird they are idiots.
The only reason they use cell phones is because it was given to them by God.
The UCP led by Batshit Smith have officially become a death cult. Tainted lunches in day cares, deadly fake Tylenol, lifting mask precautions in hospitals, burning down of villages and towns in Alberta, reducing access to primary care, making vaccinations more difficult , if not impossible and the list goes on. It’s as if she wants to depopulate Alberta, starting with the elderly, the vulnerable, and young children. At which point will Albertans have enough of this?
Alberta voters will never have enough of “stigginit to the libs”. They’re “special” that way.
they’ll never have enough of it, they drank the cool aid. Alberta maybe a good place to open a funeral home. I hear they make a lot of money in some places.
The rural areas of Alberta and half of Calgary absolutely adore Smith’s brand of chaos and cruelty. To add insult to injury the thinkers amongst us are supposed to coddle and gently explain through reason and logic to these cretins that they ought to adjust their flat earth views. The problem is they are never going to figure it out. When you are stupid, you are not stupid for a day. You are stupid for a long time.
Meanwhile, the renamed Manning Centre, Freedom Whatever, is sponsoring Chris Rufo to come to Red Deer. Watch for Smith to be on stage with him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Rufo DJC
Looks like Queen Danielle has caught that Trump Bug and has decided that it’s more fun to have weird rallies, just like that funny orange man in the US. Judging by the way Trump handled his appearance before a convention of black journalists (Handled badly, btw) it looks like Smith has decided to take her special brand of crazy to the people. No doubt tearing a page from Skippy Pollivere’s playbook, just have a big rally (Well, tell everyone it was big and let A.I. look after the pics.) and spout off about whatever nonsense pleases her little ears. It’s just like doing a podcast, except the crazy is amplified. These events are nice distractions from the real world issues that affect Albertans, like the reality that gigantic wildfires will incinerate everything in the province in a few years. So long at the ‘Blame Trudeau’ wagon shows no sign of running out of gas, Smith and her ilk can keep beating that dead mule until the ‘End of Days’.
Just Me – she caught the Trump Bug?
She has been worse than Trump for a very long time
Katie Teeling’s tweets of that town hall meeting are excellent and horrifying. I don’t remember if she said how many people were at the meeting. Any idea how big a crowd was there? And I wonder if they were mostly from that riding or from outside it?
Valerie: She did not say in the tweets. She told me that the chair said there were about 470 people there. I’m sure Ms. Teeling will write a story somewhere and, when she does, I will provide a link in my blog. DJC
Thank you. At least there were not thousands, and it was a free show for them.
Nothing but an empty nod to Danielle Smith’s masters….the Take Back Alberta group.
I feel embarassed every time she starts with that nonsense. Her track record on health says it all.
Smith as always is gaslighting. I just read on another source is that Ontario is stopping pandemic surveillance programs. Smith is spreading lies because she is setting up killing Alberta’s programs.
I wish the Feds would create a BSwashing law. The federal Greenwashing sent the Oil industry into silence. Something has to quiet DS
Here’s the sales pitch I got from the Alberta far right 12 or 13 years ago. Given to me by a now former friend since childhood.
“Paul, you know him, he thinks that the Chinese are right. Countries are better off with a one party political system, just like China’s. He even went to China and paid his own way and met with business people and Chinese government officials. He thinks the Chinese have it right, one political party, one ethnic identity, one race, one prosperity”
Huh? One political ruling party, one ethnic identity, one race I thought. The conversation was dismissed shortly from my memory; I’m not a political expert or a conspiracy minded person.
Long story short.
Over seven years, the former friend invited me to numerous in person gatherings of like minded people and an “exclusive” invitation to an ‘invitation only’ gathering of online reddit users on a special forum.
I declined all these things over the years and finally, in frustration she said:
“You should be with us! You’re educated, christian, of northern european ancestry, blond, blue eyed. You should have had six or seven white children-what’s wrong with you!”
For context, I’m mixed ethnically and I happen to resemble a couple of the parts. The previous posts regarding Eric Bouchard, UCP MLA are as correct as people suspect. White and racism is a thing, as is thuggish anti government, Modi Power, incel power, he man masculine power. It’s a small coalition of loud losers who live their lives on a computer lamenting over why they’re not in charge of every other life and person in Alberta.
The former friend kept referencing Paul’s admiration for Brian Jean, a current MLA. And also a reference to someone named Helen, who I remember as being some elder statesman type figure, though no explanation of her was ever offered to me.
Anyway, after I cut ties with this now ex friend, several odd things occurred over many years. She came to my house and peered into my windows, many times. Strange vehicles were parked in my driveway, always driving off when I noticed them. Small garden tools I left in the yard overnight were missing. Numerous times. Over many years. These people are bullies, they will use subtle intimidation in a backhanded way once they are rejected.
And yet the ex friend would still continue to call and leave chirpy messages of phony friendship every few months.
I’m so thankful the ex friend didn’t know of my cancer diagnosis and survival. She would have reveled in it, manipulative deceitful person she is. I know that now.
And I’m so grateful to the friends and medical professionals who helped me through cancer.
The ex friend has children. One of the children named Casey, as a young teenager, came to live with me, because of a dumb kid thing he did. The dumb kid thing enraged the ex friend and jeopardized her impending possible second marriage. After settling in at my house, I took Casey onto my patio to have a chat; before I gave him a beer and I had a beer, we agreed to talk openly, no bullshit, no lies, opinions alright but open to debate, objective truth and backup facts prevail.
I know how rebellious teenagers think, I was one. This kid was going to run! I was sure of it! With the look in his abashed yet “you aint the boss of me” eyes, I was convinced, plus I knew the kid since his birth. Sneak out of my house at 3AM to be with his older friends, who loved that Casey was spending his mothers credit card on their entertainment. But I knew Casey was a good kid. His friends were using him. I just needed to convince him they were using him.
Casey was told, and he agreed, that if he left the house, the police would be involved, he was ok with that. I wasn’t kidding, he knew it.
I didn’t know this until recently, but the ex friend in this story was a child of congregants in Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary, a church that was prominent in the covid-19 legal disputes, defying all the public safety and health measures.
Fairview Baptist church of Calgary was also defended by Justice Center For Constitutional Freedoms controlled by disbarred lawyer, John Carpay.
In talking to the ex friend’s ex husband, I also found out that this pseudo church believed that children at the age of 16 years should be cast out into the world to make it on their own.
Which explains why she was pregnant at 16, married at 17. And why her younger brother tried to commit suicide at 16.
I know all this is true. I was at her wedding. I drove her to the facility where her brother was recovering.
They are a weird mess of a family. So much control, so much intolerance, for what?
One of the ex friend’s kids lives in another country and Casey seems to be doing fine. He’s near his dad with a rewarding career, nowhere near his mother.
Machiavellians. Sociopaths. The blindly obediant followers. These are the core of people that are drawn to the UCP. The rest of the UCP voters aren’t paying attention; I believe that.
At the end of the day, life is too short to debate sociopaths like UCP Danielle Smith. Or get angry with the ambitious UCP acolytes. Once in political power, they all follow the leader.
Perhaps someone in the old Progressive Conservative Party, the Peter Loughheed PC party will demonstrate some backbone and integrity.
Aint gonna happen, but I keep on hoping.
Too much money, too little authentic godliness
J: I don’t believe Mr. Carpay can be described as disbarred. He has been banner for life from practicing law in the province of Manitoba. As far as I know, though, he has not been disciplined in Alberta. DJC
Thank you for correcting me.
Just as long as you understand I don’t have a whip in my hand. DJC
Carpay will get a medal from Alberta.
Thanks for telling your story, J. It’s important that people hear it.
Bless you. Enjoy your days.
“She called it “a problem” that there are so many doctors on the board of the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons.”
Seriously?
Perhaps the problem is that not too many of them are UCP supporters.
Lars: Seriously. And, yes, probably. DJC
In fact, there are fewer physicians on the CPSA Council than before the 2019 election. Under the Health Professions Act (HPA), before 2019 all health professional regulatory colleges had to have a minimum one-third of their Provincial Councils be public members, appointed by government. I served on such a Council, for another health profession, and our public members brought a valuable perspective to our governance role.
The Kenney government made a number of significant changes to the HPA. One of those was to increase public member representation on College Councils from one-third to one-half. So, unless a College increased the size of its Council, simple arithmetic would require that it have fewer regulated members on Council in order to meet that mandate.
One of the defining characteristics of a profession is that its practitioners have control over who is allowed to practise it, and set standards of practice and codes of ethics for those practitioners. Law Societies set standards for applicants who want to be registered as lawyers, and standards of practice for lawyers; and engineering regulatory bodies set standards for applicants who want to become engineers, and standards of practice for engineers. Health care professions, such as medicine, dentistry, and nursing have similar roles. The rationale is that members of the profession are most qualified to judge applicants and current registrants. Public members exist to provide oversight to ensure the regulatory body is acting in the public interest and not in the narrow self-interest of members of the profession — for example, by limiting numbers of practice permits in order to increase the economic welfare of practitioners.
But statements such as this jeopardize that essential fact about self-regulating professions, at least as it applies to health care professionals. Do we really want standards of professional practice to be set by a bunch of political appointees with an ideological agenda?
Hey, no reporting on this stuff! What goes on at these public town halls is only for the UCP crazies.
Sarcasm aside – remember when Smith’s first goal was to relitigate covid? That was her day-one message, comparing the unvaccinated to Jews in the Holocaust. She really really wanted to be Premier during the pandemic, but it was then a non-issue with the general public. Now she drags it up again two years later as red meat for the UCP base ahead of her leadership review.
Isn’t this the same thing that wrecked Kenney, trying to please average voters and the crazies at the same time re: covid? I suppose we can’t expect them to have learned any lessons. Even if Smith is a full blown crazy (which she is) her premiership is still going to get ripped apart by all of this.
So, Princess Marlaina decided she wanted no part of the press conference with Stephen Guilbeaut AND Randy Boissenoit, so she sent in the ‘big’ guns, aka Min. Nixon ( I’m presuming his height was to intimidate or something).
Min. Lowen showed up in casual skivies– no bright yellow today…lol,
Rather interesting presser…and I’m even more impressed with Mayor Ireland— he has all the qualities that will drive Marlaina to distraction- sincere, compassionate, might be small of stature compared to Nixon, but not intimidated by him and made his points in succinct style,,who are our priorities/people, not the what’s/356 “structures”.
And imo, whispers must have been spreading around, because Mr Guilbeaut said that the leases will stay in place for the rebuild, so for anyone affected, they needn’t worry.,as the same would apply if this would have happened in Banff.
My oh my, I see smoke coming from the buttresses of the watch tower. Stephen Guilbeaut ‘s ears must be ringing like those proverbial church bells, with a encore in Mayor Ireland’s direction.
What do you mean, they put people before profits? What is wrong with these people? When the Princess stamped her foot and said she was going to press the government to expedite the rebuild, she obviously expected that the red tape department was just going to go in there next week and get-at-er. I wonder if she has any idea at all, as to what remediation means. I suppose that’s a redundant question since Dr Smith’s idea of what the health effects would be on the workers won’t come into consideration. Time is money and you’re messing up my plans.
I don’t suppose that those tourist dollars are –that– important to the booming economy, what with the price of clean oil and ‘al …
And for what it’s worth, someone should point out to her, what’s happening next door on the Chilcoton river; after effects of the 2017 fire. This is going to be rather nasty.
Mssrs Nixon & Lowen should be taking notes, if they seriously want to be prepared for the next big disaster post wildfires.
here in B.C., Lytton burnt down, nothing left. They have finally started building some new houses. Yes, its taken some time. there are things like removing the debris, checking the soil to ensure its save and won’t kill people, then they have to rebuild roads, put up power lines and put in water mains. So if Smith thinks rebuilding will be done quickly, she might want to give her head a shake, oh right it may be empty. When parts of Kelowna burnt in 2003 it took a while to rebuild those homes. There is a bit of a shortage of trades people also. Can’t build much with out them. Oh, lets not forget the insurance company dance. A lot of people may not have money to re build. Its doubtful Smith and her government will be handing out money to help people re build.
Randi-lee: “Min. Lowen showed up in casual skivies” I hope you mean “civvies”, military slang for civilian clothing, instead of “skivvies”, which mean underwear. That’s not an image I want crossing my retinas.
Oh, and it’s spelled ‘Loewen’. He was a Wildrose Party candidate in the old constituency of Grande Prairie-Smoky before the redistribution that erased that constituency and created the urban riding of Grande Prairie. He ran unsuccessfully in 2012, coming in a narrow 2nd place to former County of Grande Prairie Reeve Everett McDonald, 45.8%-41.2%. The 2015 election was basically a rematch in GP-Smoky, and this time Loewen won a narrow victory: 33.2%, with the NDP’s Todd Russell (the battle of the Todds) getting 31.1% & McDonald 30.9%. When 2019 came around, with new boundaries and a new party, he sought and won the UCP nomination in Central Peace-Notley, and went on to win that seat with 75% of the vote. He later ran for the UCP leadership in 2022 after the defenestration of Jason Kenney, but was eliminated after the 3rd ballot.
A few other bits of trivia:
1) The Liberal candidate in GP-Smoky in 2012 & 2015 was former Grande Prairie city councillor Kevin McLean. He did not run in 2019, but in 2023 he ran again – for the NDP in the Grande Prairie constituency. The Liberals did not have a candidate here in either 2019 or 2023.
2) if you look at the 2015 election results in the adjacent Grande Prairie-Wapiti, you will see that the Wildrose candidate was none other than Laila Goodridge, who is now the Conservative Member of Parliament for Fort McMurray-Cold Lake.
2012: http://www.elections.ab.ca/election-results/
2015: https://www.elections.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015-General-Election-Report-FINAL.pdf
How much more ignorant can people be? We are going down a very dangerous path under the bad leadership of Danielle Smith and the UCP. More lives will be put at risk.
Is a Best Fall Ever, coming to Alberta?
When every professional and scientific organization automatically becomes an opposition cabal arrayed against common sense and must be “dealt with”, where does the problem lay? Mmmmm..it eez a puzzlement!
Always the diet coke chugging, smoking, lawn glyphosate spraying and Teflon pan metal spatula scraping freedumb crowd who demonizes what ever might benefit the collective in the long run (vaccines, enviro tech, industry regulations, 15 min neighborhoods, etc).
I had terrible Mono (Epstein Barr) in my early 20’s that down the road led to several auto immune diseases. I hope that in the future there will be a vaccine for it to save people the misery of lupus, psoriatic arthritis, MS, ect.
These anti everything social health positive want all the benefit of the collective but non of the responsibility of contributing.
What a shameless LIAR!
Nothing beats a good wedge issue in the midst of an epochal reconfiguring of the global socioeconomic and geopolitical structure.
“There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/
Mind you, that was way back in 2011 when we were just getting started with Quantitative Easing. Once the banks proved to be broke again in 2019, all medical knowledge extant at the time was found to be totally inaccurate, and we got to have a Pol Pot-style Year Zero.
I find no end of amusement in the Kon clock proving to be right twice a day, and the Prog reaction to these events:
“There were hints she’d still like docs to be able to prescribe ivermectin, the notorious veterinary deworming paste, to treat other diseases.”
The following does date from “the before time”, 2017.
“Over the past decade, the global scientific community have begun to recognize the unmatched value of an extraordinary drug, ivermectin, that originates from a single microbe unearthed from soil in Japan…Today, ivermectin is continuing to surprise and excite scientists, offering more and more promise to help improve global public health by treating a diverse range of diseases, with its unexpected potential as an antibacterial, antiviral and anti-cancer agent being particularly extraordinary.”
The Journal of Antibiotics volume 70, pages 495–505 (2017)
Is the Journal of Antibiotics a UCP publication, perchance generated in the ol’ War Room?
So quaint!