Was Premier Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act moment yesterday formal notice she intends to unilaterally declare Alberta independence soon, evidence she thinks she’s found a magic constitutional formula to overturn federal laws she doesn’t like, or just another day of using provincial resources to campaign against the Trudeau Government in Ottawa?
Perhaps it’s a bit of all three. Who can tell?
Regardless, you have to give Ms. Smith and Alberta’s United Conservative Party credit. No one can flood the zone like they flood the zone, and the stuff they’re flooding it with just never stops spewing.
With her claim yesterday she plans to use the UCP’s unconstitutional Sovereignty Act to try to make it illegal for Alberta fossil fuel companies to obey federal laws or admit federal officials to their premises, the better to hide the amount of carbon they’re pumping into the planet’s atmosphere, the volume and velocity of the spew surpassed almost anything we’ve seen to date.
While local Alberta media tried to make it sound as much as possible as if Ms. Smith’s fast-paced gaslighting about how the planned federal emissions cap is really a production cap actually makes sense, yesterday was one of those days when it was the most frustrated responses that truly made the most sense.
My favourite, I have to admit, was Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne’s exasperated tweet: “Oh Christ this craziness again.” (One really shouldn’t take the name of the Lord in vain, but, sometimes, what else is there to say?) “So we’ve got a lawless lunatic to our south imposing tariffs inside a free trade zone, and a lawless lunatic in Alberta pretending to veto federal laws inside a federation. I assume Quebec will be along in a few minutes to make the circus the full three rings.”
This sounds about right to me. Of course, for saying that, Mr. Coyne was labelled a Laurentian elite, a grave insult out here in Wild Rose Country where the Cordilleran elite holds sway.
University of Calgary law professor Martin Z. Olszynski also made a useful contribution to this conversation: “Is Danielle Smith a singularly gifted provincial premier who unlocked a hitherto unknown constitutional super-trick for getting around federal laws that she doesn’t like (a problem as old as confederation)?”
Something that I can tell you about Prof. Olszynski is that he is a calm and thoughtful observer of the constant swirl of constitutional piffle and bafflegab that Ms. Smith and her advisors emit, so we can have faith that he had it right when he answered his own question succinctly with “No & no.”
If we wait a few days, I expect, his reasonable conclusion will be spelled out in more detail in the University of Calgary’s always informative law blog, found at ABlawg.ca.
The UCP position seems to be that since the Canadian constitution gives provinces jurisdiction over natural resources, therefore the Alberta Government can order fossil fuel companies here not to obey the laws passed by Parliament. One doesn’t need to be a constitutional expert like Prof. Olszynski to suspect that this is not going to go anywhere if it ever gets to court.
That said, it’s quite reasonable to assume that Ms. Smith and the two cabinet stooges who flanked her on the podium yesterday – wisely silent Energy Minister Brian Jean, a lawyer, and not-so-wisely verbose Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz – have no intention whatsoever of actually testing this performative nonsense in a court of law, except perhaps as a stalling tactic. (Judging from the government’s royalty-free photos, Justice Minister Mickey Amery, also a lawyer, seems to have been in the room too, presumably silently wishing he was somewhere else.)
It is said here that this is not about so much an attempt to “make it virtually impossible for Ottawa to impose the cap in Alberta,” as Postmedia columnist Don Braid quoted someone saying when he reported the day before yesterday that the UCP was about to break out the Sovereignty Act again, but to make it virtually impossible for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals to get re-elected.
That’s hard to imagine given the level of unpopularity to which Mr. Trudeau personally and his party seem to have sunk, but you never know.
As Mr. Braid wrote in another column yesterday, Ms. Smith’s biggest fear has to be that her hero, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, has just handed Mr. Trudeau his comeback chance with that 25-per-cent tariff threat. Never mind that once he’s president again Mr. Trump still won’t have the authority to arbitrarily impose a tariff higher than 15 per cent, even with his fake national security claims about refugees and fentanyl from Canada. (Count on it, the refugees, and not all of them from third countries, will be moving in the other direction soon.)
Of course, that would depend on Mr. Trudeau expeditiously cutting a deal with Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Trump, as Mr. Coyne accurately assessed him, is basically a lawless lunatic, that’s probably too much even for the PM to hope for.
Meanwhile, one item of interest from the news conference that will not be reported by mainstream media was the giggles that erupted when the premier responded to a question by a CBC reporter with her trademark, “Well, look ….” As has been observed here many times, this is a sure sign she’s about to tell a whopper.
Apparently the Legislature Press Gallery has caught on to this tell and warned Ms. Smith about it. So you won’t be hearing it as much in the future. But listen carefully, it’s likely to be replaced with a new phrase soon.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters
It is most unfortunate, although probably planned, that Danielle Smith does not spend the money on things useful to Albertans, rather than wasting it on nonsense that benefits no one.
Spin, spin, spin that alternate reality.
Queen Danielle is just turning in a weirdo at this point.
Meanwhile MR. Schulz still working hard to spread the spittle, piffle, bafflegab and manure as far as possible. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/ijf-energy-united-social-media-carbon-tax-advertising-1.7392808
Justice Minister Amery could do the premier and her buddies a favour by driving them to the Jean family car wash in Fort Mac where a winter hosing down of the trio might put a chill on talk of flouting federal laws.
I recall a regular commenter to this blog mentioning people who are all mouth and no brains. That would fit the description of Danielle Smith and the UCP. What did they think Donald Trump was going to do? The UCP are insignificant in his eyes. Furthermore, there is no way the UCP can dodge federal legislation they don’t like. The Sovereignty Act is meaningless, and holds no legal clout. Danielle Smith will find out the hard way. What an embarrassing government the UCP are.
Cordilleran élite rings true and is way better than cowboy cliques or petro pals or……
African proverb – When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers! Deranged Donald’s tariffs, Just Justin with a TMX pipeline and Dearest Danielle in the middle. What could possibly go wrong?
Lunatic? Doesn’t every evil cartoon dictator have a bizarre, maniacal, forced laugh like the one Smith gave during yesterday’s media Q&A? “Aaaah, hahahahaha!”
More red tape! Everyone who sets foot on any oil and gas site will require a licence from Dani herself. (Every contractor, every plumber coming to fix the toilets, every courier, every bus driver bringing workers to the job site, every delivery of supplies and fuel and even the photocopier repair technician). Should be fun at the oil sands plants (which already have gate security), when things grind to a halt while everyone waits for licence approvals.
No oil and gas operation has the right to information about their emissions. It’s Dani’s now, and she’ll pile it all up in her secret lair, guarded by a dragon, never to be seen again.
Drill. Baby. Drill. Here, have $50M to put where the sun don’t shine, perhaps in the dragon’s lair.
https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?xID=91415E5576CC5-01B0-48D6-B1B8F215591EEC02
How do fairy tales end? Isn’t there always a moral? Maybe the moral is that the inevitable shutdown of the oil patch cannot be blamed on Donald Trump and his 25 percent tariff on everything. No, it must be blamed on Trudeau; Dani was merely the Paper Bag Princess using her dragon to protect the poor oil companies and their emissions information from possible intruders. If the extraneous licensing procedures made all work stop, that was merely a coincidence. There are no coincidences.
Spies are everywhere. The paranoia is creeping in.
Alberta’s very own stable genius has now entered into the barter system with the oil industry! I’ll be shipping six diseased cows in lieu of taxes next year! How about some beaver pelts? We can turn the legislature into a trading post!
Which, ironically, is what was at that site before the legislative building was built.
Given past booze-fueled performances in the legislature by the UCP, the trading post might have to be named Fort Whoop-Up. The whisky!
The free traders! The Americans! Some things never change.
“The traders were often described as crude opportunists, desperadoes and hard cases—but several went on to become respected businessmen and politicians.”
https://fort.galtmuseum.com/history
I’m looking for some flying pigs; it’s a can’t lose. Find some and pay my taxes and get to watch Smith deal with the, ahem, “fallout”.
Thank you as always, DC. As you astutely note, Smith’s project is to “try to make it illegal for Alberta fossil fuel companies to obey federal laws or admit federal officials to their premises, the better to hide the amount of carbon they’re pumping into the planet’s atmosphere”. As a non-politiciam and non-spin doctor I ask, isn’t Smith actually playing into the hands of the feds?
Oil companies and their allies claim the feds want a cap on production. The feds respond that they are only seeking a cap on emissions (the nice word for pollution). By trying to silence oil companies from disclosing their emissions, Smith is actually drawing focus to the issue she and they would prefer to ignore.
Simon, I think what you refer to is called the Streisand Effect.
In the future what Batshit is doing may be referred to as the Batshit Effect.
I do wish our Lt. Governor had listened to Prof . Olszynski and refused assent to that asinine sovereignty bill; looks like the Supreme Court will now have to deliver the shit down and shut up to dizzy Dani.
Lol … autocorrect turned into Freudian typo … and strangely appropriate given the politician & constitutional crisis she is flirting with.
Man, even Autocorrect knows what you meant when you wrote ‘dizzy Dani’. It’s that’s obvious.
Now that’s funny; the typo was actually on the “sit down”. The ‘dizzy Dani’ sails through unchallenged!
The mainstream media in Alberta is not too critical of Smith and I doubt the UCP really cares what Coyne and the Globe and Mail says, although of course they will dismiss it. Canadian Conservatives have learned well from their US colleagues, don’t let the facts get in the way of your arguments and when they do, ignore or dismiss them. Usually the best way to dismiss them is to try attack the person making them by portraying them as a member of some elite you would like to discredit. So this is all very predictable and seems to work for now in Alberta.
Of course, Smith is also creating a constitutional mess that Trudeau’s successor will have to deal with. If they don’t, the political precedent of provinces passing laws to counteract Federal ones they don’t like, may come back to bite the next Federal government. Also Smith is relying on Trudeau to be a personal political pinata for her, someone she can bash when needed to boost or maintain her popularity. However, you have to wonder if that is a good long run political strategy, of if after Trudeau is gone (likely fairly soon), Albertans will start to wonder about things like why are our electricity and insurance rates so high compared to elsewhere and why is provincial government headed for a deficit again.
Of course Smith’s ongoing war against the Feds may do little to make Trudeau less popular outside of Alberta and could even have the opposite effect. But for now, she has a political pinata and she will continue to bang on it, while she can.
What I find astonishing that with all s**t* she is flooding the zone with not one UCP MLA or minister calls her out on that zone flooding.
Also disappointing is that the NDP and Naheed Nenshi are not more vocal about this, all of it….
I’m sure Napoleon must have said somewhere to “Hold your fire until it’s most worthwhile!” or words to that effect.
We won’t have an election until 2027 and Smith keeps digging holes.
Nenshi is quite vocal, actually. Coverage is often covered on local CBC but seldom on Global and CTV(Bell), known Conservative supporters.
It certainly seems Donald F tRump is a hero to Danielle Smith; she’s eager to flatter him by way of imitation. It’s primarily primitive primatism, Smith aping an Orange-goo-tan, but it’s also almost entirely tactical—which contrasts, naturally, with the Prime Minister’s timely response to tRump’s tariff threat; JT’s first out of the gate and about to rally every premiere in the Canadian federation to his side, starting with the D’ohFo himself (it pains me to admit he’s a pretty good politician, “Buck-a-Beer” ‘n’ all).
Well, maybe not EVERY premiere: we’ve yet to see if Smith will try to deprecate with her fellow first ministers or use the occasion to grandstand. But it would be way more interesting if she tried to negotiate a tariff carve-out directly with the US administration. I mean, shooting her wad months in advance of tRump even getting near the Oval Office would indeed be imitative.
PP, too, has suddenly found himself sorry that the only thing he’s truly practiced at since becoming CPC leader is sloganeering and nursery-rhyming. The GST cookie for Santa which JT just announced seemed only to make PP supremely peeved: it’s difficult for him to criticize such a tax-cut when his own “axe-the-tax” slogan is well known to be a stalking-horse for his party’s general tax-cutting, service-slashing ethos, and the dissonance was plain. Touche’, Trudeau. Ouch, PP!
But, now, neither can PP employ his chatbot app to fashion a catchy slogan until he knows what the premiers have to say while he, of course, has to rely on a proxy to that important meeting. And it can’t be much better realizing every Canadian knows which premier that is. He looks like he just got deked, but unsure if was around one side or the other, or right up the middle (“Dirk the Deke”?). We should recall that, as a HarperCon cabinet minister, his only shot on net, the ridiculously named “Fair Elections Act,” was stick-handled so poorly that the goal was waived first-thing when his party lost the 2015 election. Remember?
tRump’s preposterous threat reminds, once again, that he’s all tactics and no strategy. He’ll neither think it ahead when he idly threatens to stick his thumb in JT’s eye, nor remember that the paltry 1.5% slice of the Canadian dairy market is all he got for threatening to abrogate NAFTA altogether, and how Canada’s retaliatory countervail tariffs—targeted on the products of US states supportive of tRump—made him back down from his tariffs on our steel and aluminum before losing the thing he was really after: the plausible (at least to MAGA) claim that he alone turned “the worst deal in history of the world,” as he called NAFTA, into the “best trade deal ever,” as he boasted far and wide. Trade wars are, paraphrasing Sun Tzu, to be avoided as a general rule, but tRump reputedly had a different book on his bedside table and probably didn’t realize that the tariff against Canada’s steel and aluminum ended up costing US companies more in countervail and loss of their biggest market than tRump’s performative tactic ever collected. (I never believed tRump read even a little bit of Mein Kampf —which is actually a dense, tedious slog right the way through. Anyway, there’s gotta be some irony in the fact that The Art of War is a comparatively short, pithy work—that he probably never read, either.)
It can’t be comforting to Smith and PP that JT jumped on this round of tariff threats like he knows what he’s doing. Indeed, it probably already goaded Smith into get all uppity with our federation—like tRump does with his own. But that’s the kind of foundering that risks attracting tRump like a shark to blood in the water. How flattering!
If tRump senses weakness like Smith’s attacks on our federation against which he just made an irrational threat as revealing as it is unworkable, he will see only a fulcrum over which he imagines some profitable leverage for his own, personal position. No strategy there, just attention-seeking. But it would be seriously bad from PP’s POV to see his odds of winning the next election start to flag. So too it might be for Smith if her odds of winning her own next election weren’t already so low.
Naturally tRump cares less about Canada than he does the USA; about Alberta it has to be, a fortiori, vanishingly small, ergo, ceteris paribus, he cares even less for quid-est-nomen-eius (safer in Latin: I just don’t want tRump to cost ME a lot of money). Doubtless PP is praying she caps her methane, pronto. ‘Why,’ he must be fretting, ‘doesn’t she run from the scrums like I do?—at least until we see what hay I can make of Trudeau’s zoom call. Gall dang it!”
(I’m just having a chuckle at PP trying to shoehorn his way into the conversation in Q-period today. I guess he needed time to think —which is why he skedaddled from the news-media scrum so fast yesterday. Aside from his predictable große Lüge tactic of blaming JT for anything and everything, as well exaggerating every other thing he has to say, his criticisms aren’t completely without warrant—just a tad over the top, which is looking a tad like minoratio redit.)
PP referred to the first First Minister meeting in years in the HoC while mustering as much derision as he possibly could in pronouncing, “…and we’ve just learned [as if his operatives just discovered a hot gotcha!] that the Prime Minister contacted the president-elect on [sounding, now, ready to puke] a zoom call.” Gosh! His sneering attempt at smearing was exquisitely knee-slapping since it’s so obvious that his heart aches because he’s not included in this top-level meeting—but not as much, I’d wager, as his head aches that his only mole might show up snapping and snarling at the federation the ROC+Q is trying to protect—possibly while wearing a wolverine-skin cap while she’s doing it. It makes Pete’s own hare-skin get all goosebumpy.
Like tRump’s victory made Trudeau smile, his eye-popping, across-the-board 25% tariff threat just made the PM smile even more. JT knows Trump better than any other Canadian politician: that he is so excruciatingly thin-skinned he imagines slights and knee-jerks automatically for laughingly disproportionate punishment and vengeance, thus proving the fact. “You can’t talk like that [ comments JT made after the 2018 G7 meeting tRump attended in Quebec]. This is gonna cost Canada a lot of money,” tRump warned in his most ominous tone (just short of the “fire and fury” he promised North Korean dictator before finding out Kim Jong Un was actually his best friend). Trudeau had commented that Canada wouldn’t be “pushed around” by tariff threats which prompted tRump’s pinch-hitter, trade advisor Peter Navarro, to offend even Republican Congressmen by telling a scrum that “there’s a special place in hell” for Trudeau, somehow inferring that JT’s obligatory stand against foreign threats was tantamount to “a stab in the back”which Navarro and tRump thought egregiously unfair: tRump’s the only one allowed to stab anyone in the back—even the USA’s most important strategic ally and trading partner . I thought it was significant that tRump neither upbraided his advisor (!) nor ever mentioned it again himself. The MacGuffin had been delivered to FoxNews and that was good enough for the Orange One.
Smith’s and tRump’s sabre-rattlings are incredible to serious-minded people—and that’s why neither of them care.
That whole Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (or Shoot-Smalley or Hoot-Smalley or whatever the heck it is) worked out so well the first time. Why wouldn’t a 21st century Republican president want to make it (not so) great again?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act
I find it difficult to believe that Trump has any books on his bedside table.
Sensei; “Flood the zone Bannon Style?” I normally don’t lose my shit, but being from ol’ St Alberta.. when I read that one of my former neighbours was up on charges for extorting temporary foreign workers? I’ve had to hit the speed bag! As you know, my stance on TFWs, is that, and I quote myself: “If you’re good enough to work here you’re good enough for a path to citizenship and respect!” The person in question was charging the slaves a $7000.00 commitment for a job that would not be defined until the cash commitment contract was signed. Canada does peonage now? At least my bag rhythm is getting some exercise! Oh and speaking of evil clowns? Quebec stepped up right on q!
Now that I got that off my chest? Here’s a song for our Dani. A person who has proved that she does not know the price of anything, but she as hell is certain in her mission to define the value of nothing! https://youtu.be/9WsfgT6PMNo
Judging by the Israeli flag proudly posted on his x profile Coyne is probably more exasperated with Danielle Smith than he is with the genocidal maniacs in Israel who have been pulverizing Gaza the past year (45,000 Palestinian deaths and counting) if he feels any exasperation at all.
It’s Canada, the only ones who are willing to say even the smallest criticism of Israel are the NDP.
As far as Coyne? I certainly have no love lost, but he is both intelligent and articulate and even a broken clock is right twice a day.
You know how it is . . . the fringe elements along with certain patrons must be appeased and mollified . . . i.e., ‘TBA’ and certain patrons “paid their four bits to see the high-diving act…and they are a-gonna see the high-diving act!”
Because, “Everybody’s looking for something. Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused.”
Pass the popcorn.
So many of history’s lessons remain unlearned. But when in doubt? Laugh!
“The trickster is a term used for a non-performing “trick maker”; they may have many motives behind their intention but those motives are not largely in public view. They are internal to the character or person. The clown on the other hand is a persona of a performer who intentionally displays their actions in public for an audience.”
It is submitted that the “politician” persona is a clown like entertainer performing in a symbolic vaudeville style show for an audience. That is, “All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players.”
See my original post above and of course the opening lines of the embedded content: “Hurry! Step right this way, friends. Yes, sir, ladies and gentlemen…the greatest aggregation of talent ever to be presented…on any vaudeville stage.” [“Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation . . . “] The “talent” of any particular politician/clown is decided by the audience. Apparently, TBA approves of the talents/acting ability of the radio personality/lobbyist. So far.
“History” is embedded in everything. We as individuals are the product of “history”.
You have to know “history” in order to “get” obscure references. For example, from “High Diving Hare” above: “Open up that door! You notice I didn’t say ”Richard”?”
Refer to: “1947 HITS ARCHIVE: Open The Door, Richard! – Louis Jordan”
Marlaina knows that she can get away with anything, even if it’s blatantly unlawful, by uttering the magic words: “Trudeau blah, blah, blah…” The rubes unthinkingly buy it every single time.
On a separate note, it was truly sickening to see her prostrate herself before the mango buffoon Trump.
Just a thought— it seems most people’s attention is on the O&G industry with this, but I’m wondering if it has more to do with Gina and the coal mining. Since the Crowsnest people seem to have voted in favor of the mining, it still has to be approved by the federal government. And since Marlaina had such a productive meeting with Sen Joe Manchin (Feb 9th) aka “Enersystems- waste coal brokerage company/West Virginia ” ….maybe that rail line will be carrying coal south, instead of having to go through BC>> and that ‘woke ‘ NDP provincial government. Just asking?
Scotty– the disgusting part of PP’s little performance in the HoC , was lying about when d’rump sent the text, and when PMJT called him about it and then trying to cover the lie with a childish comeback…” well that’s even worse” , and then rage baiting/ sign up …..does he even realize that any and everyone can read the full actual transcript of what was said? OML!!
Sidebar—
PP pushing Bitcoin
DS advocating for Bitcoin
Ben Harper (former >still?< UCP consultant pushing Bitcoin
S Harper in charge of AIMCO
Now if I was going to come up with some kind of off the wall crazy 2+2 only in Alberta theory, people would probably think I'd lost my marbles, not my pension….right?
So since the stalls have been filling up, I think it's time for some serious cleaning and detoxifying, I'm going to remove myself to my happy zone— start on Xmas baking and try to pretend that everything is going to be okay.
So, to our host, Thank You!! & To all my fellow posters : I'm hoping you all have a safe and pleasant Xmas/ holiday season.
All the best and here's hoping for a better new year.
Cheers !! Take Care !!
Wasn’t that what Klein did. Made it illegal for the oil industry to pay for their oil well cleanup mess that I was involved with for 8 years when Lougheed and Getty made the industry pay for the cleanup. Now we are told the number of abandoned wells will double shortly and they don’t care about the horrific financial mess they have created for our children to grandchildren’s future.
I haven’t forgotten the comments in 2003 from a former University Professor from Germany who taught me that any population from any country anywhere in the world is made up of two thirds of easy to fool stupid people and that’s why intelligent people can’t stop them and why dictatorships usually end in bloody confrontations. It’s how Jimmy Jones got 918 stupid people to commit suicide.
I told him about comedian George Carlin’s quote” Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”. He thought that it was funny and so true. That’s exactly what they saw in Germany and Klein was getting away with it in Alberta also he stated. Stupid seniors believing every lie he fed them and too dumb to realize the damage he was doing. Now with nothing but praise for what Klein did to us we have this clone of Klein Danielle Smith making it even worse supported by stupid seniors once again. People who were at the leadership review in Red Deer tell us that’s exactly what they saw. Mostly stupid seniors believing every lie she fed them.
So how are we going to stop them? With massive personal lawsuits? We know she can do a lot of damage before the next election, can’t she? If her pal Poilievre is elected we are done. They will privatize our healthcare and education systems.
With nothing constructive to offer she defaulted, as expected, to churlish and petulant jibes lacking anything of substance that’s anywhere close to being meaningful or valuable.
A Provincial police force to do her will and confront federal employees? No thanks.
Making all Alberta emissions data proprietary is a tried-and-true Con trick – if the data aren’t available, then nobody can say anything defensible about emissions levels in Alberta. Sucks to be an environmentalist now, right?
But satellite monitoring of emissions has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade, and the data for Alberta will be collected by such entities as NASA. How is Smith proposing to throw a lock onto that information? And count on it, it will be collected and disseminated by agencies beyond her control.
She does have “chem-trails” to fall back behind…
Thinking out loud here. If Trumps tariffs go through across the board for Canadian exports, oil from Fort Mac will cost more. I suspect that Americans will buy less from the patch and Premier Smith will not have to worry about the federal emissions cap as the production will likely go down.