No one should be shocked by the fact Alberta Premier Danielle Smith not only survived her leadership review vote but posted an absurd sounding 91.5-per-cent approval rating.
The explanation is simple and obvious on its face, and not necessarily good news for the United Conservative Party.
To wit: There’s almost no one left in the UCP except the extremists.
The “lunatics,” as former premier Jason Kenney called them not long before they skidded him, now utterly dominate the party.
And of course they’re happy with Ms. Smith’s performance – for the most part, she’s delivering precisely the policies they demand. And when she doesn’t, a tip of her tinfoil cap to the chemtrails above or a boot aimed at a lonely transgender athlete below is sufficient to distract them.
So when Ms. Smith told her jubilant supporters – essentially everyone in the hall in Red Deer last night – that “our party is more united than it has ever been,” she spoke the unvarnished truth.
But agreeing with the first part of her statement – “our conservative movement is stronger than it’s ever been” – requires a little more nuance.
You could make a case it’s true if you go by the obvious unity of what’s left of Alberta’s big-tent Conservative movement of yore. But a large percentage of the old-style Progressive Conservatives and not-so-progressive but still sane Conservatives have abandoned the ship.
How they will vote in the next general election remains an open question, but the MAGAfication project that really got under way when Mr. Kenney was booted to make way for Ms. Smith is now for all intents and purposes complete. And it does not guarantee the UCP a victory in an election as the UPC would like you to believe.
Albertans were not well served by local media in the lead-up to this relatively meaningless vote, thanks to the addiction of lazy journalists to portraying any event in which a ballot is cast as a horserace. Where was the other horse in this race?
A leadership review is like a North Korean election. The leader is essentially running without opposition – although with the theoretical ability of eligible electors to vote no.
Thankfully, there’s still a little more freedom in the Democratic People’s Republic of Alberta than the DPRK, so Ms. Smith had to be satisfied with a mere 91.5 per cent. She still has a little way to go to catch up to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who the last time he faced a similar ballot seems to have captured 100 per cent of the vote.
Well, it’s a benchmark Ms. Smith can strive for next time.
Meanwhile, for Ms. Smith’s fan club at Postmedia to suggest that a 91.5-per-cent victory in a race against no one is somehow the equivalent of NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi’s 86-per cent victory against several credible candidates, each with a base of support in the Opposition party, is preposterous and a little sad.
Likewise, when former Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk noted last night that at the peak of their popularity, neither Peter Lougheed nor Ralph Klein received 95% approval, we need to remember that the PC Party in the heydays of those two premiers was a true brokerage with a moderate ideology and broad appeal. Of course the leaders of such a party couldn’t marshal that kind of support.
“All leaders with totalitarian tendencies get +90% support scores. Yet on the outside crowds of millions gather to oppose them. It’s funny how that works,” tweeted Mr. Lukaszuk, who grew up in Poland when it was part of the Soviet bloc. “It reminds me of my childhood.”
The UCP is not the next iteration of the Progressive Conservative Party. It is a lineal descendent of the Wildrose Party, and a successor to the Social Credit League – which under William Aberhart arguably formed an even crazier government, at least so far.
I imagine in 1935 or ’36, though, that Bible Bill could have summoned up a 90-per-cent-plus leadership review vote too.
By 1937, though, not so much. That year the voters in Premier Aberhart’s Okotoks-High River riding tried to recall him. His government repealed the Recall Act poste haste. Expect history to repeat itself if anyone looks as if they could have a chance of using Jason Kenney’s legislation of the same name to unseat a UCP leader. But I digress.
The Red Deer AGM passed all 35 of the policy resolutions put on the agenda for debate, including recognizing “the importance of CO2 to life and Alberta’s prosperity” by abandoning all net-zero targets and stating “CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”
You can’t make this stuff up. The UCP has gone deep into climate change denialism and it’s likely to go deeper.
Readers may have seen suggestions in media that now Ms. Smith’s leadership review is successfully concluded, she will start to act more seriously.
Don’t believe it. The extremists are going to continue to call the tune and, insomuch as she might disagree with them, Ms. Smith can be expected to continue to dance to it.
Much of what Smith has done is largely performance than substantive. And Ottawa being weirdly quiet, and PMJT seeming at the end of his short rope. It must be that US election, where the bulk of the UCP cult is convinced that Trump will, either, win the election or the civil war that will follow.
In any case, Queen Danielle has bought herself breathing room, thanks to David Parker. She has a few MAGA irons in the fire, so everyone is happy. Maybe another Tucker Carlson appearance, paid for by the War Room, with free tickets for all, of course, and all will be well.
4,633 out of around 6000 votes were cast in support of Danielle Smith at her leadership review. That’s a lot of easy to fool people, and boy were they ever fooled. Danielle Smith told them what they wanted to hear, and they believed it. What happens when they realize they have been had, because Danielle Smith doesn’t live up to her promises? It’s known that she doesn’t keep her promises, and wants power anywayhe can get it. Take Back Alberta also had an influence on this outcome, because Danie Smith can’t betray her masters. Postmedia columnists are still championing Danielle Smith, which is abhorrent. The comments show people insulting others who are smart enough to not support Danielle Smith and the UCP.
Expect more lost revenue from bad oil and tax rates, more pricey shenanigans, more poverty, increased utility and insurance rates, more hardship for seniors, the destruction of our mountains and environment from coal mining, bigger problems with public healthcare and public education, democracy eroded further, and municipalities suffer.
I remember reading about someone who mentioned about Ralph Klein being at one of his expensive fundraising dinners. When an atendee went to use the washroom, before they went home, they overheard Ralph Klein saying to someone that he could tell these people anything and they would believe it. My, did Danielle Smith pull a Ralph Klein on these people. We are no better off.
Anonymous, once again it was easy to fool, easy to trick seniors believing every lie she feeds them. They don’t care what Global Warming is doing to the planet or our children and grandchildren’s future. We continue to hear these fools state that global warming is a hoax and it’s only normal weather changes and they don’t care that the Carbon Tax Rebates are helping people who need it. That’s how stupid they are. We had lunch on Friday with about 30 of our senior friends and we are all concerned about what Smith is doing to our healthcare system, especially when the idiots that voted for her aren’t smart enough to understand it. We understand that some doctors and nurses were waiting to see what the outcome would be before they decided to leave and I bet they will.
Over 90% support in a leadership review is a good result, but all victories in politics are fleeting. An American President once said someting like chicken salad can quickly turn to chicken crap. He won a resounding election and four years later stepped down because of unpopularity. So he would know.
I guess these are the salad days for Smith. Probably the moderates have either left the party or didn’t bother to show up for this vote which at this point is to her benefit. Some didn’t show up in the last election for the UCP. I suspect even more won’t for the next election as the UCP completes its transition back to their grandfathers party. This will not benefit her then.
No doubt Smith will try to gracefully pivot a bit. She has some strengths such as in communicating, but graceful pivoting is not one of them. Rising unemployment and languishing oil prices matter more to most Albertans than what pronouns are used in school or whether medical professionals can refuse to be vaccinated.
Some Albertans thought or hoped they elected the more moderate sounding Smith from a decade or so ago. But in her time out of politics she became more comfortable with extremists and has been eagerly courting them ever since. I suspect after years of this she will have a very hard time trying to be anything else.
Dave: Danielle Smith put a limit on the number of attendees who could attend the UCP’s AGM. That’s a dictatorship.
Based on what’s contained in the first article, things are going to get really ugly with court challenges, and Danielle Smith is going to end up looking even more so like a fool, at the expense of Albertans, in more ways than one.
In the latter article, there are very misled people in the comment section. Little do they know how Danielle Smith has lied to people to achieve her goal. You can’t get anymore foolish than that, can you?
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/ucp-alberta-policy-resolutions-passed
https://nationalpost.com/news/danielle-smith-ucp-members-decide-future
Well the UCP delegates passing the resolution on CO2 are quite correct. Love it or hate it CO2 is one of the building blocks of life. Dial it back and all life forms on the planet will be in big trouble. So three cheers for CO2.
So you agree that scientific findings should be judged on ideological bases, not by the sort of rigorous testing that scientists themselves apply in their acceptance or rejection of scientific hypotheses.
If this resolution makes it into law, I wonder how long it will be before Alberta educators are required to teach that 420 ppm CO2 is the lowest level the Earth’s atmosphere has exhibited in the last thousand years, and that we need to ramp it up even higher if we’re to prosper.
You mean you aren’t smart enough to realize that when we over produce it CO2 is a deadly problem causing the Global Warming storms we are seeing all around the world? If we weren’t here this problem wouldn’t be happening nearly this fast. During the COVID pandemic there was a huge decrease in CO2 production when the world literally shut down.
ronmac: If CO2 is essential to life, why can’t we breathe that compound gas in? Why do we exhale it? Danielle Smith is not an expert on anything, and neither are any of her MLAs.
Oh ron, you did it again!! Bravo!!!!
Many years ago, my husband wound up in hospital for a severe tonsillitis issue. There was a young fellow in his room who was in there because….macro dosing several kinds of vitamins and minerals and had caused himself a grand case of kidney stones. His pain was a lesson for all who were in his room and treating him. Like all ‘good things’ in life, too much of a good thing can kill. We are currently living with TOO MUCH and CONTINUING TO INCREASE levels of carbon dioxide.
“CO2 is a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth.”
Yeah, well, by that logic, we should pray for more floods and throw people into the North Saskatchewan river, since water is a foundational nutrient for all life on earth.
It is interesting to note in one of the attached articles it mentions that only 4633 votes were cast. This represents slightly less than 1% of the Alberta population. Also some people signed up and paid to go to this, while supposedly others got a free ticket, so it doesn’t appear to me to be an overall endorsement but another trickery show of picking a few people to say they support Smith.
“Passed all 35 of the policy resolutions.” Who was it who said “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”I see where Alberta’s present government has decided that facts are … I dunno … what would they say … “woke”.
Policy Resolution #12 passed yesterday at the UCP AGM contains this gem “CO2 is presently at around 420 ppm, near the lowest level in over 1000 years.” Perhaps UCP climate scientists can contact NOAA to tell them their numbers are wrong.
Truly mind blowing. I’m glad I left Alberta 20 plus years ago. The politics is getting worse, almost Frankenstein like. I agree Aberhart’s Social Credit has risen from the grave in a mutated form. What is next, a return to eugenics?
We also glad you left Alberta. We are tired of woke idiots
007: (Eyeroll.) You get one of these, if only so that readers can see why I moderate all comments. Only one. DJC
Thank you
You know, despite the rudeness of his comment, Mr (I’m presuming here) 007 does have one small point.
I can recall a time when optimistic progressives thought that interprovincial in-migration from less conservative parts of the country might moderate Alberta politics.
But I don’t feel that’s what has happened, and I think the reason is that interprovincial migrants to Alberta self-selected when it comes to their political leanings — progressives essentially turned their noses up at this place, while conservatives thought it was their magnet destination, especially those moving to the mid-sized cities.
So interprovincial in-migration did not have the moderating effect on our politics that we all thought it might.
Yeah!
This is an actually revealing comment. It indicates that these nutjobs prefer idiots. Only their kind of idiots though.
These people, these olfactory offensive shoe scrapings know they are idiots and prefer idiots in leadership but only their kind of idiots.
It’s not really ideological but what passes for ideology with idiots.
Truly, I fear for humanity.
DJC, I see this comment being as bad or worse than 007’s brief screed. I sense a bit od double standard here…
Mickey: You’re probably right. There was only one, though, the standard to which I help 007, and since Ranger is so often intemperate, it tends to roll of like water on the proverbial duck’s back. I will scrutinize his next offering more carefully. DJC
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA That’s the best you alt rights can come up with??!?!
IMPO…just another media distortion of the numbers.
— 2.8 million registered voters in Alberta.
— 6000 (?) UCP members
— 5490 presumably voted for her
” Albertans overwhelmingly”
—- buffalo cookies—–
Even Parker (X) said the people have spoken, so he’s off to work on the school boards.
So his post of “Make America Great Again ” didn’t work out for him? Sadly! I’m surprised he’s not claiming that it was stolen/rigged or some other nonsense.
Now we wait for Tuesday…
SIGH!!
randi-lee: There are far more than 6000 UCP members. Why were so many denied the right to be at the UCP’s AGM?
Correction— according to the Calgary Herald: 4633 paid members voted.
I remember Mr. Lukaszuk’s post-mortem of the old PC party election loss “Albertan’s have just plain gotten tired of us” (paraphrased).
Can’t see the UCP remembering that, and therefore dooming themselves to repeating history. Only questions are when & how much damage they will do ad interim.
Thank you DC, excellent comment. I remember hearing a few voices before the 2023 election claiming that the UCP had matured into a “big tent” party. This weekend’s results demonstate that to be false. Presumably there aren’t any MLAs or cabinet ministers left among the group who once quietly claimed they didn’t endorse Smith’s extremist policies. Asking UCP members “with principles” to cross the floor is a waste of time.
Simon R—- impo, ” big tent party ” does fit; it’s a circus of shabby coverings, frayed fringe, a bunch of clowns and a ringmaster with a penchant for riding the rails. It’s all glitz and glamour, just don’t look to close. You can fool some of the people, all of the time.
Thank you for providing the link to the list of UCP policies, David. On a slow news day in November, it made for interesting reading, and I found some policies that, while not as newsworthy as what we have read about in the media, were worthy of some note, especially since Danielle Smith seems to be more willing to put party resolutions into government policy than previous governments have.
The document is in two sections, governance and policy. Most of the governance section was basic housekeeping, improving the way the party itself operates, but I found number 6 interesting; it prohibits the party from disciplining party members for exercising their right to free speech. Presumably, then, the party would be prohibited from disqualifying candidates who engage in bozo eruptions.
David already commented on Policy 12, the ‘carbon dioxide is good’ policy. I did a bit of an eyeroll, then, when I read Policy 18, which urged the government to take action to mitigate the increased number of wildfires we are experiencing.
I found Policy 29 concerning. It purports to give a “consumer freedom to purchase food without government oversight”. Since there currently is no government oversight on the sale of farm vegetables, this presumably refers to the sale of meat. From the policy document, it appears the government has re-legalized on-farm slaughter, but apparently farmers are required to record the personal information of the person buying the meat, which the UCP considers in invasion of privacy, and seeks to remove that requirement. The policy comes from Innisfail-Sylvan Lake.
This really feels like Step 2 of the thin edge of the wedge. Back in July of 2020, then-Agriculture Minister, and MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake (and not really the sharpest knife in the drawer of the UCP dull knife cabinet) made it legal for a member of the public to go to a farm, select a live animal, purchase it, then have the farmer butcher it. The animal, or the meat, is never seen by a government inspector. This procedure is made with the condition that the meat is only for the consumption of the household buying the animal. They are not allowed to sell the meat. I would assume recording the personal information of the buyer is to make sure that condition is met.
Red tape cutters forget that once upon a time a government felt there was a need for the regulation they want to cut. To cut red tape properly, then, they need to identify the problem the regulation set out to solve, and then show how either there never was a problem, or with the passage of time the problem is no longer relevant. In the case of meat selling, I assume at some point unscrupulous butchers were buying sick animals, and selling the diseased meat, causing the consumers to get sick as a result. By implementing Policy 29, it really feels like the UCP is opening the door for the wild west of meat sales, and returning us to the pre-inspected meat days.
Finally, Policy 34 weakens the rules around elected official recall. Of the four constituency associations that proposed the change, two are from Calgary, so presumably the motivation for the change is the unsuccessful effort made to recall Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek, but since MLAs are also covered by the legislation, they could also be recalled. The existing legislation requires people wanting to recall a politician to collect signatures from 40% of the entire constituency within 60 days; the amendment would give organizers 120 days to collect signatures from only 50% (plus one) of the number of people who voted in the last election. This makes me think of how easy it would be to recall an MLA after a by-election, which traditionally has a low turnout. When Danielle Smith won her seat in the 2022 by-election, only 12,695 votes were cast; it isn’t hard to imagine a determined team of NDP supporters collecting 6500 signatures to recall Ms. Smith right after her by-election victory.
From the sound of Policy 29, it appears that its framers regard Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle as a set of instructions rather than as the cautionary tale it was intended to be.
Some Calgary ridings went to the UCP by narrow margins in the last election. These would be worthwhile targets for recall initiatives.
Welcome to Fascist Alberta where 6,000 fanatics dictate to 4.5 million people who will govern. This is democracy-Alberta style.
She won the general election
This was a ucp leadership review.
Bible Bill and the Socreds maintained a policy of eugenics during the party’s decades-long reign in Alberta. They, like the UCP, were concerned about fertility. They selected citizens deemed undesirable for procreation for permanent sterilization, without consent. The UCP have gone in a different direction, under the guise of preserving the fertility of trans children. Either way, Alberta governments then and now are keenly interested in removing choice and bodily autonomy.
The next question is, when will they remove access to birth control and reproductive autonomy from adult women? “Going for Gonads” should be their new slogan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Eugenics_Board
Abs: While this is true enough, it is important to remember that when the Sexual Sterilization Act was passed and the Alberta Eugenics Board was created, Premier John Edward Brownlee’s United Farmers of Alberta Government was in power. The Social Credit Government later amended the Act to eliminate the requirement for consent of the person to be sterilized. The Act was repealed by Peter Lougheed’s Progressive Conservative Government in 1972. DJC
Sort of like Smith’s plans to mess with the choices of minors who want to change their bodies. There must be something in the water in Alberta that politicians keep wanting to intefere with the bodies of others. And then there is the proposal to ban transgender women from women’s sports–more exclusion. Wonder where it will end. Now that Smith has her “approval” rating, lets see what she does next. Sometimes if you give some one enough rope they may just tie themselves in knots. Just wonder what Smith and her gang of nitwits has in mind next to bring Alberta back to the 1930s.
If she uses the not withstanding clause for any of her “projects” it will be very interesting. Can hardly wait to have her turfed from office along with the rest of her antiques.
Yes, true. Smith’s comment last week about the reparation paid by the Alberta government to victims of the sterilization, although not “recent” as she claimed (nor did she mention why reparation was paid) tells me that she is well familiar with the history of eugenics and forced sterilization in Alberta.
Alberta was an outlier in 1937. Smith may be counting on outlier status again. She’s interfering with doctors, patients and parents with her policies regarding care for transgender children. Will enough people stand up this time around to turn back the UCP’s draconian bill? Is Alberta the ideal environment for policies that target transgender children for discriminatory health policies against minority groups, as it was for much of the past century with its policies for sterilizing the “feeble-minded”? We shall see.
https://read.aupress.ca/read/psychiatry-and-the-legacies-of-eugenics/section/c4a336be-3f7d-4e24-ba61-2defce318f0c
The UCP are truly a collection of the religiously, and scientifically isolated.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/11/03/mice-vote-to-bell-cat-climate-terror-in-alberta/
Water is also important but you can still drown in it
Danielle Smith can make anything she wants up—including that atmospheric CO2 is an essential nutrient of life on the planet, or that opioid prescription caused the fentanyl overdose epidemic. Or that the UCP represents the majority of Albertans, or that they approve of Smith’s Take Back Alberta masters gnawing at the tire-swing rope of our federation to test, among other things, the capacity of the Canada Health Act to mend the broken and revive the drowned (they sound blithely unaware that tire-swing injuries rarely result from the tree branch breaking).
But Smith doesn’t have to make up the fact that she got over 90% approval from party members at the TBAUCPAGM. Let her have her day, forget, for her moment, that this achievement was plainly by default. Give her her due that, finally, peace lives again within the soul of Alberta’s sole party of the right —like it hasn’t since Ralph Klein. But then ask whether that two-fingered ‘V’-sign pays tribute to this newfound ‘Peace’ or to the ‘Victory’ she motivationally promised TBA: that the UCP will win over Naheed Nenshi’s NDP Opposition in 2027.
Her audience might just as well have roared approval of their victory over the last remaining moderate conservatives, traditional ProgCons who once ruled uncontested over the Wild Rose Province of yesteryear and who decisively helped the UCP eke a win in 2023. Let us not spoil her party’s ‘V’-party by reminding that there’s a little problem with that prediction of TBA ‘Vindication’ in 2o27. That will come but, unfortunately for some, not soon enough.
Judging by TBA’s radical agenda, it must presume remaining moderates will acquiesce, just like the UCP’s ruling faction presumes all Alberta citizens will do (I chose “citizens” because the TBA fantasy-worldview allows for a wish-list so impolitic it can’t possibly appreciate psephological metrics like voting). Their jubilation over Smith’s totalitarian-like score seems genuine, more so than the UCP’s sophomore victory in 2023, perhaps even more so than when they ousted party-founder, Jason Kenney partway through the UCP’s maiden term. However, one senses some self-delusion going on that’s more typical of a cloistered redoubt where fantasy-worldviews can be cultivated to the heart’s content. Crediting Kahlil Gibran, do not awaken the sleeping slave lest he be dreaming of freedom.
TBA’s biggest delusion is that the next election will be a perfunctory affirmation of its radical agenda, presumably because any minority dissent will have been cowed by tendentiously justified, majoritarian tyranny. Either that or dissenters will have left the province for greener pastures, not an implausibility given so many already have. It’s not illogical that TBAMAGA policies would accelerate that exodus.
In any case, TBAUCP has about 1,070-odd days to get done the kind of dissent-dispersing polices that will entrench the conditions required to achieve its heaven on earth. It’s a bit early yet (I’ve been saying for some time, now, that the US election is an event that will significantly influence the direction every political party will take thence) but there’s one revealing test I’m confident will conclude very soon (like, in two more days—unless possibly delayed if MAGAnauts repeat violent reaction to an election result they don’t like).
It shouldn’t surprise that TBA is wearing wildrose-coloured glasses in dreaming its moderate faction has accepted its agenda. The test is whether or not TBAUCP casts the Loyal Opposition Dippers as extremists so far to the left that it has no choice but to match it with extremism of its own, naturally on the extreme far-right. Since many Canadian parties of the right, and not a few MSM bullhorns, insist politics have become “polarized,” an easy inference is that TBAUCP will so-insist, too. However, taking the recent BC election as an example, that notion is exposed as merely ‘fake news,’ or propaganda convenient for the far-right to justify its own extremism, apparently preferring not to be seen as the only party to hold such extreme positions.
BC NDP Premier David Eby owes some part of his party’s victory to the fact that most voters—I dare say, including not a few BC Conservatives—can plainly see that Eby’s NDP is patently not the “communist” “child-pornographers” the BCC leader falsely accused them of being in order to paint it as full of “far-left extremists.” If anything, the BC NDP government —much like the Alberta’s single-term NDP government—has moved to the centre (some plausibly argue that both also occupied at least part of the centre-right which the furthering-right has abandoned on its fringe-ward slide) so it can’t possibly be the polar opposite of the extremist right.
The BCC is brand new; most of its freshly-minted caucus is comprised of opportunists who have little political and zero parliamentary experience. We haven’t yet much evidence as to why or to what purpose their party adopted so many tRumpublican tropes, or how that will affect their performance as public servants under public scrutiny. But we do have evidence about the TBAUCP so it’s easier to infer that its chauvinistic prognoses will be betrayed as wholly fantastic when it does eventually cast its only rival, the Alberta NDP, as far-left extremists (I won’t repeat the odious mischaracterizations likely to be used). The test will thus reveal that TBA is not really sure what moderate conservatives are—much less where they are going when they leave the party.
With 91.5% smeared all over their wildrose-coloured glasses, MAltaGAnauts probably don’t see, like objective observers do, that their moderate faction is not acting out their scripted plot-conveniences by either acquiescing or leaving Alberta all to TBAUCP. No sense letting common sense get in the way of a good fantasy narrative by admitting that moderate conservatives repelled by far-right extremism are finding a haven in the NDP which is now led by more of a moderate than even former NDP Premier Rachel Notley was. Thus, tarring the NDP as extreme on the far-left can only make sense to TBA if it thinks its moderate faction remains within the fold or has left the provincial electorate altogether: moderates would never join an extremist party, would they? It would have to deny a trend which started in 2008 (Ed Stelmach leads ProgCons to victory) and is most-evident in the 2015, 2019, and 2023 election results. But all kinds of denialism is TBAUCP’s enduring stock in trade, after all.
I’m guessing Smith could face leadership reviews at any UCP AGM. If subsequent meetings are scheduled in November like this one then she will have to dance to the TBA tune twice more, in 2025 and 2026 before the next election (remember, the 2027 date was moved to October from May in 2023). That would give her about ten months to safely temper impolitic TBA policies she’d been forced to agree with hitherto, depending on three conditions: that those policies aren’t too damaging or entrenched to undo or amend in the time remaining; that she understands moderates are not necessarily leaving the province in numbers that would guarantee a TBAUCP victory by default; and that most moderate conservatives are in fact moving to the Alberta NDP, not to Kelowna or East Vancouver Island. Remind that she’s never shown that kind of psephological shrewdness before. But there’s always hope…
Besides, that’s a lot of ‘ifs.’ How likely is it that 91.5% has smeared her palpebra-inferior mascara enough for her to retire to an Alice Cooper tribute band emulating the day they couldn’t even remember recording their most famous albums? And what are the odds she would be so psephologically astute, politically stealthy, or brave enough to betray TBA, last-minute, to appease what few moderates who might remain after three more years of TBA chaos, or to entice erstwhile UCP moderates to vote for her again?
Whatever the answers to those questions, something’s gotta change —and I get the feeling that it will neither be Danielle Smith nor TBA. But remember hope…
Three more years, my friends. Be strong—you can do it!
Parker seemingly voted against her. TBA elite and 1905 think she didn’t go far enough. TBA with who k own what but 1904 with guns.
Scotty: I love your comments which I try to read carefully. I’m always delighted with the new words I have to look up. However, wasn’t it the psephologically astute Niccolo Machiavelli who advised the prince, or in this case the princess, to do all the nasty stuff first so that people would come to regard any subsequent actions as benign, the better to cultivate both respect and later acquiescence, and even adoration?
What the heck? Where are my Cole’s Notes?
Scotty on Denman: The UCP’s AGM, and the leadership review outcome for Danielle was definitely manipulated. Given how poorly Danielle Smith’s political past has been, as the leader of the Wildrose, how her scoring came so badly in the UCP leadership race, at 53%, after multiple attempts, how she is doing very pricey shenanigans, making problems worse for a variety of things, and riling up more Albertans, a 91.5% approval rating seems quite farfetched, and it is hard to believe some other type of questionable activities never happened to get that result. Danielle Smith, as well as the UCP, certainly have a history of being less than honest when it comes to elections. Prior to Danielle Smith being premier, the previous UCP leader, and members of the UCP were involved with the Kamikaze affair. Danielle Smith wants to be premier for as long as she can, and she’s using all kinds of devious ways to do that. That’s not acceptable.
The UCP and their mad-hatter base all need to be forced into recovery at one of their “excellent” recovery centers to deal with their overwhelming fossil-fuel addiction and climate crisis denial issues
@Scotty or @DJC
Remind me please – was Kenney’s review a regularly scheduled or special (i.e. forced)?
It is a truism in Canadian politics that parties campaign for the left or right, but govern from the centre. Governing from from their campaign position is less common, and fraught with payback come the next election.
I have lived in Alberta since 1976. While we (and others) may refer to us as rednecks, we are not. There is a spectrum, and the subset of the real rednecks is small. But they are disproportionately loud.
I would argue Albertans are actually small-L libertarian. We prefer government to stay out of our lives, but do recognize there are some things only government can do best. And when actually try to be civil (I know, a tough ask nowadays), we go red Tory, or blue Liberal. Not sure what colour would have matched Notley’s government.
Gerald: I beleieve it was a regularly scheduled review, although the circumstances were more complicated than that. This Wikipedia article provides some background. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Progressive_Conservative_Association_of_Alberta_leadership_election DJC
I suppose that perhaps the right-wing American stand-up comics are correct and we live in an era when everyone and everything is whatever anyone wants to say they are. Under what other circumstances could the Klein Kabal be called “moderate”?
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I think that Danielle Smith will begin to “act more seriously”, but not in the way that the commenter suggested. I read that suggestion, to. I am concerned that Danielle Smith will take the 35 resolutions increasingly “seriously” and will progressively implement them.
Bob Raynard, I agree that Policy 29 , which seems to be permitted by legislation, enabling farmers to sell uninspected meat is very problematic. Thanks for providing more detail as I had just heard about it yesterday. This is especially concerning in view of the recent concerns expressed by provincial food inspectors and the RCMP, as explained by cbc (link below). One has to wonder if this provision is connected to what appears to be the rising amount of uninspected meat on the market.
As an aside, I remember when Ralph Klein was premier, the Alberta government announced that the provincial government would use the notwithstanding clause in the Charter to limit the amount of compensation that would be paid to those who were sterilized without their consent. There was such a public outcry that within a about a day, Premier Klein announced that the proposed legislation would not proceed.
Christina: Danielle Smith doesn’t care who her bad policies cause harm to, much like Ralph Klein, who she admires. Anyone who opposes what she is doing wrong, she disregards. Ralph Klein was the same way, but Danielle Smith is much worse. What she is doing is extremely dangerous and harmful, and the attendees (who were screened rigorously before they attended the UCP’s AGM, to make sure only her supporters could be there), make up less than 1% of the population of Alberta, have given her permission to do it. Very troubling and very concerning.
Here is the link to the cbc news item about Alberta provincial food inspectors’ and the RCMP’s concerns about the general sale of uninspected meat on the market.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-uninspected-meat-1.7184922
Christina— just a couple of thoughts on the Bill 29— are those “farmers ” my any chance elk farmers ? ; that she’s changing regulations for ( right Logan ?).
And not having access to what exactly is in the ‘Bill’, but given Marlaina’s penchant for following certain southern cousins “ideas”, I’m curious if there is anything in their about-natural- milk: courtesy of MTG.
If the ideas run contrary to science/normalcy, you can almost bet the UCP will go gung- ho on the topic.
Also, given d’rumps threatening to put RFKJR in charge of health, what could possibly go wrong ? Surely Marlaina wouldn’t follow anything he had to say, right?
If I was going to put on my $store thin foil hat, I would say that a certain big family owned business didn’t like the competition of the Halal meat store, but that’s just mere speculation on my part, I could be totally wrong about hostile takeovers.
@randi-lee The Donvict’s suggestion of RFKjr makes twisted trumpian sense, after all, a worm did eat part of mini Bobbies brain …
I’m sure the votes on all resolutions and leadership review were hand counted as the UCP doesn’t trust those new fangled voting tabulators.
I was surprised that she didn’t get 105% approval. 😉
She would have but the brain trust running the show decided they didn’t need to bus the kids from the charter schools to vote for doughnuts!