On its face, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s screwball scheme to create a provincial border patrol force intended to prevent Canadian citizens from crossing the U.S. border into Montana is blatantly unconstitutional.
As evidence, I give you section 6.1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.”
Plus, of course, controlling the border is clearly federal jurisdiction – never mind Ms. Smith’s hypersensitivity about federal intrusions, mostly imagined, into provincial jurisdiction.
If truckloads of Alberta Sheriffs passing their time driving around in the vicinity of Coutts or Del Bonita have probable cause to believe a passing pickup is carrying a load of fentanyl, for example, they would be within their rights to pull the vehicle over and take a peek in the cargo bed. After all, we have criminal laws in Canada about that kind of thing.
If the driver and passengers of the pickup are not Canadian citizens, the situation might be murkier, but only slightly.
But if the occupants of the pickup intend to present themselves properly to U.S. officials at the border, the Ms. Smith’s promised squad of border Sheriffs have no business harassing them.
And if they do not, well, that’s not our problem!
Indeed, that is why our neighbour’s government has its own United States Border Patrol with a budget of $5.4 billion US in 2022 and which, by all accounts, is quite capable of doing its job properly, at least along the long border with Canada.
If large numbers of Canadians are sneaking into Montana to improperly spend their Loonies buying cheap garments made in American Samoa at the Target store in Great Falls, the two national governments presumably know what number to call to discuss what to do about it.
There is in fact, notwithstanding Ms. Smith’s unseemly rush to defend Mr. Trump’s crude fantasies, not much of a problem on the Americans’ northern border – at least going in a southerly direction.
Yes, it is well understood that a significant number of American truckers – indeed, almost all of them – illegally bring firearms into Canada whenever they cross the line to carry fresh vegetables from California or Arizona to Canadian grocery shelves. But this is largely winked at by Canadian authorities because they understand the truckers need firearms for protection back home in the Benighted States and are unlikely to discharge them at passers-by in the short time they are north of the border.
As for illegal migrants, we Canadians are the ones who should be preparing to harden the border to prevent an unmanageable flow of refugees from the United States, including many U.S. citizens, who are bound to try to cross into Canada if Mr. Trump keeps some of his non-tariff promises.
In the unlikely event Mr. Trump is actually able to impose his 25-per-cent tariff on All Things Canadian, then searching trucks originating in the United States and impounding their drivers’ firearms would seem like a perfectly reasonable and constitutionally defensible activity for the Canada Border Services Agency to engage in.
But as was noted in this space yesterday, Mr. Trump’s fairy tale about an influx of illegal border-crossers from Canada or shipments of dangerous illegal drugs manufactured in Canada is performative, intended to justify his use of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act to impose tariffs on an emergency basis without the assent of the U.S. Congress. Even so, such tariffs would be restricted to 15 per cent, for 150 days, without Congressional approval.
Ms. Smith knows this, too, of course, and she is gaslighting when she claims Mr. Trump has a sound point, as she did again today when she published a whiny official statement about Mr. Trudeau’s meeting with Mr. Trump to discuss tariffs (embarrassingly spelled “tarif” in the notice emailed to media), which she used as an excuse to complain about the federal emissions cap the UCP persists in calling a production cap.
Premier Smith’s repeated defence of Mr. Trump is based more in her sympathy with the president-elect’s MAGA worldview than any honest belief his complaints about the U.S.-Canadian border are justified, which they clearly are not.
Evidence? Well, the UCP and its federal Conservative allies certainly never hesitated to attack policies of recent Democratic U.S. presidents like Barack Obama or Joe Biden with whom they disagreed, or to ignore them if they could.
It is becoming increasingly clear from her words and deeds that this premier and close advisors like Chief of Staff Rob Anderson, one of the authors of the “Free Alberta Strategy,” despise Canada, distrust Canadians, and wish Alberta could be remade in the image of the United States.
So this nonsense about creating an Alberta border patrol is intended above all to poke a stick in Ottawa’s eye, open another front in the UCP’s taxpayer supported campaign against the Liberal Government, and create incursions into federal jurisdiction to see if anyone will push back – which the preoccupied Trudeau Government never seems to do. That’s a pity.
Where was the UCP when a few hundred of Dani’s friends were illegally blockading the Coutts crossing a couple years ago? Oh right. Bringing them coffee and donuts.
As the saying goes, it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, rather than speak and remove all doubt. So can our Premier, just shut up!?
First of all and importantly, Foreign affairs are not a provincial responsibility. I realize consistency is not her strength, but for someone who says she wants other levels of government to “stay in their lane”, she should practice at least for once, what she preaches.
Canada did better with Trump 1.0, when the Premiers understood this was an international matter and wisely mostly kept silent, including Alberta’s Premier Kenney at the time. With his long Federal political experience, I expect at least he understood whose responsibility Foreign Affairs were.
I can understand, Premiers occasionally piping up when they shouldn’t, like Ford in Ontario who wants to boost himself politically before an election expected soon, but Smith even has no such excuse. With her constant blather about matters between Canada and the US , she is becoming a menace to what remains of Team Canada unity.
If this continues, not only will it continue hurt Canada’s approach to international relations, it will also undermine whomever is the PM, but maybe that is her real goal. I suspect after the next election, whoever is selected as PM will have to have a chat with Smith if this sort of disruptive behavior continues and if necessary tell her very publicly it is finally time for her to shut up. This can’t come to soon. She is a belligerent Premier drunk on power trying to take over too many other jurisdictions.
I always enjoy your comments, Dave, and today’s was no exception.
Like most commenters on this blog, I really hope voters will realize that Pierre Poilievre’s leadership skills are limited to blaming Trudeau, and cast their ballot elsewhere, but if the CPC does prevail in the next election, I will look forward to how Poilievre deals with Danielle Smith. He has already undermined her on the Alberta Pension issue, and the political seat count reality dictates that he would be wise to cater to the Ontario swing ridings whose switch from Liberal to CPC put him in office, rather than the Alberta ridings who aren’t going anywhere else. I have no doubt Danielle Smith will bring other crazy ideas to the table that will put an Alberta ‘ally’ in a difficult position.
On the topic of history repeating itself, back in the 1980’s westerners were overjoyed with the election of Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney after a decade and a half of Pierre Trudeau in the Prime Minister’s office. The joy eventually turned to disillusionment when Mr. Mulroney was guided by the same electoral math that Pierre Poilievre will face, and westerners learned that having ‘their’ man in Ottawa is not the panacea they think it will be. The disenchantment that ensued resulted in Preston Manning’s Reform Party, and eventually the end of the Progressive Conservative Party. Stephen Harper managed to avoid the same phenomenon, but the joy of a minority government is that you can blame your failures on the other parties.
Where are the McDonald’s Happy Meals?
Trump ate them already.
Look at the picture: just above Trump’s head and to the right.
Expat: Yes, I noticed that after I’d posted the picture. Interesting. A cry for help? A UCP or Republican troll photo-bombing the PM? A sneeze? Hard to say. DJC
Isn’t that the Hamburglar?
The new head of Homeland Security?
The U.S. seems to be doing a great job of preventing meth melons from getting into their country from Mexico. Take a look.
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-officers-discover-5-million-worth-methamphetamine-disguised#:~:text=Upon%20careful%20inspection%2C%20officers%20uncovered,a%20total%20weight%204587%20pounds.
Way to go, U.S. Customs and Border Protection! Thanks for stopping coke melons from getting across ours, too!
https://hilinetoday.com/30-kilos-of-cocaine-found-in-truck-at-sweetgrass-border-port/
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cbp-seizes-cocaine-hidden-in-watermelons-peppers-headed-to-canada
(Is this what compulsory drug treatment looks like?)
Why do we need Dani’s goon squads driving around Coutts? Haven’t those poor people been through enough already? They won’t even talk about it now. PTSD? Although if she is looking for a sheriff station, an abandoned border town saloon was still for sale the last time I checked.
https://youtu.be/RdR6MN2jKYs?si=B5q3t3NCnF1-MZAd
I suspect you’re quite right about the 15 percent. And I suspect Albertans don’t believe the 25 percent blanket tariff, either, given the crowds of Black Friday shoppers this weekend. Nobody is forfeiting a bargain in favor of stocking up on flour, lard and corn grits as I suggested. I must have been the only one rushing out to the pet food store to stock up on poultry-based dog food for the coming pandemic. Doom, Doomy McDoomface, I tells ya!
There’s always the retaliatory tariffs, or as you suggest, a crackdown on weapons illegally entering Canada from the U.S. Hopefully they’ll get a few fish bonkers in the sweep.
News article from the E.S. media stated that 95% of fentanyl comes into their country via citizens driving their vehicles from Mexico [mostly] with the drug hidden inside said vehicle. As well, never a mention that there is a Big problem of drug use/abuse in that country [ours too!], nor any sort of public analysis of the why’s of that.
I also liked the comment by the President of Mexico on the E.S. deportation of some 11 millions of dislegals by retaliating with the deportation of some 2 millions of Americans back to the E.S.A.!! (I have determined that ‘illegals’ are sick birds, thus the change to ‘dislegals’).
Bruce: Without evidence at hand, I would be willing to bet that more illegal fentanyl and similar drugs, regardless of their country of origin, enter Canada from the United States than enter the United States from Canada. That said, I would also be willing to bet that more enters Canada from the ports of Vancouver and Halifax than from the United States. I cannot claim to be an expert in this topic, though. DJC
I know a thing or two about this.
The port of Vancouver and the port of montreal are both notoriously and historically controlled by organized crime interests in those cities. I have read recent reporting that the port of Vancouver is nearly entirely controlled by a certain big red machine; traditionally montreal the ports were run by the Westies although I believe that landscape has shifted considerably since 2020.
I guess that is all to say, no the current drug epidemic is not being principally fuelled by individual civilians smurfing tiny amounts across the Canada us border, Canadian gangs are international in scope and they are dealing in tons, not ounces, and the ideal market for their product isn’t the United States, it’s Australia and New Zealand where drug prices fetch orders of magnitude more than they do here.
Furthermore, being that the principle narcotic market has become synthetics, criminal gangs in Canada are increasingly setting up their own super labs (often with drafted talent from outside the company doing the cooking) skipping the need to smuggle finished products into the country in general. The RCMP busted two different labs just this past fall in western Canada, one in alberta near Valleyview.
There is reportedly still North to south cross border smuggling operations happening, but it’s still primarily cannabis, as the cultivation and distribution of large amounts is both easier in Canada and has lower legal jeopardy than doing the same thing in the United States. I don’t think anyone really knows the extent to which this is still happening, but in the mid to late 2010s BC gangs were still reportedly trading pounds of BC bud for Mexican cocaine.
The great irony for me here is the long documented involvement of three letter agencies in the drug trafficking game, and the suggestion by the Americans that they are merely victims of a nefarious global conspiracy to poison their city on a hill.
The fact is more likely that these networks are either allowed to flourish or built out explicitly for this purpose. Drugs are a useful weapon against both your own population, and those you would like to disrupt, and the money sure does come in handy when you don’t need to tell congress what you’re doing with it. Any serious student of history can think of several examples where this has been the case.
A lot of it is manufactured right here in the Great White North too. You’d be surprised at some of the places where manufacturing goes on … like Valleyview, about an hour & a quarter east of Grande Prairie.
https://everythinggp.com/2024/11/08/fentanyl-superlab-busted-in-valleyview/
https://www.mygrandeprairienow.com/136810/featured/alert-rcmp-dismantle-fentanyl-superlab-outside-valleyview/
When I was a Royal Bank Manager my next door neighbour was an RCMP officer in charge of a 8 man drug squad. I asked why there were so many of them and he stated that it was because they covered all of northern B.C. also. He said their job was to try to stop drugs from entering Canada from the United States, through Alaska. They made a big bust one day and we never saw him again. Him and his family were moved out of town that same night in the dark.
Our superfluous Premier is all yap and no cattle!
As my friends would say “ All mouth and no Brains” typical of the Reformers and their American Republican pals. With the easy to fool seniors believing every lie they feed them. If their stupidity wasn’t so dangerous for the people it would be hilarious. Lougheed would be furious with them, wouldn’t he?
Alan K. Spiller: Danielle Smith and the UCP should be the last ones to talk about border security. The same thing applies to Pierre Poilievre. They were in full support of these hooligans who were blocking the borders, and costing us billions of dollars in the process. Pierre Poilievre was even giving them coffee and doughnuts. You are right about them being easy to fool.
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/scammers-have-stolen-more-than-37m-in-edmonton-this-year-here-s-how-1.7115898
Anonymous no one knows more about ignorant seniors than bank managers and police officers. We were constantly being forced to try to figure out who had screwed one of our senior customers out of their money. Some of the scams they used were so stupid you had to wonder why anyone would be that stupid but they were. I even had one situation where a senior couple’s grandson had stolen their cheque book and was writing cheques on their account. One of our tellers was cashing them for him because he was a friend of their son. They did nothing about it until he had stolen $780.because they didn’t want to get him into trouble. They told me that they just wanted me to give them back their money. I picked up the phone and told them I would see if I could get an RCMP officer to come to the bank so they could tell him their story. They said no they didn’t want to get him in trouble with the police they just expected me to pay them back because it was our fault for cashing the cheques. They couldn’t explain how we were going to know the cheques weren’t good when they were from another town and we had no way of checking the signature he was writing on the cheques. They finally left when I told them that he would charged with fraud if they wanted me to proceed with it. They said they would talk to his parents like they should have done in the first place.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
Is it possible that this is a ploy intended to increase the perceived importance of the sheriffs service and to increase their actual power? Could it lead to their being armed and acting more like a police force? Didn’t Danielle Smith tell a UCP audience in ?September? that the sheriffs service would become a provincial police force?
It seems to me that there is some public concern about having a provincial police force, maybe to be created from the sheriffs service, being under the control of the provincial government. Hope I’m not being a conspiracy theorist to put together these dots.
Christina: As far as I know, Sheriffs doing highway patrol work and body-guarding of senior officials do carry firearms. Interestingly, and of concern, when Sheriffs officers were involved in a shooting last month, the Sheriffs Branch did not report to the public that the incident had taken place. The Sheriffs Branch was formally created in 2005 during the Klein Government, but its antecedents go back to the Getty Government, when the Court and Prisoner Security unit was created as a money saving measure to use double-dipping retired cops and jail guards to provide courthouse security. So, Dad’s Army, Alberta style. Since the creation of the Sheriff’s Branch, though, there has always been talk that this would become a provincial police force to replace the RCMP – either for ideological reasons like those advocated by Premier Smith and Grey Eminence Harper, or because the feds decide to pull the Mounties out of rural and municipal law enforcement and turn them into … well, who knows what? I note that the Conservative Party of Canada is not campaigning on this change, which would be unpopular even in Conservative-voting parts of the Prairies, but they may well be thinking about implementing it when they have a majority. DJC
I have long thought that when the far right talks about the sheriffs they are absolutely thinking of an organization like the Texas rangers, beholden to Texas, not the US, or American Sheriffs, the elected kind who occasionally tell the feds to take a hike. (Shoutout to Sid Hatfield)
As to whether or not the feds would ever pull the RCMP (which was created as a Calvary, read: MILITARY force) to pacify Indigenous resistance and labour movements, I think that’s pretty unlikely.
For one, power is never surrendered it usually must be taken, and those who have it like to hang on to it generally.
Two; just look at these nut cases out here in the west who think they can overthrow a G7 government by walking around with plate carriers and honking their horns. Totally infiltrated by (?) RCMP.
Point three, indigenous sovereignty is an increasingly common idea among indigenous communities, and indigenous people are the fastest growing demographic in the country. Who is, has been, and will be primarily responsible for putting these movements down ? Again, that would be the national paramilitary police organization known as the RCMP.
Finally, and I really apologize for burying this point, dividing the country into regional police forces that are siloed off from each other would be a huge gift to anyone wanting to do crimes, just hop on over to the next province and they’ve never even heard of you. That’s pretty much already the case already and would be the biggest stick used to convince the Canadian public they should never even consider for a second to question the RCMP.
For those interested this is a very good and eye opening book that is extremely hard to find (for some reason) https://www.amazon.ca/Unauthorized-History-RCMP-Lorne-Brown/dp/0888621930
Alberta did have a provincial police force, once upon a time. A couple of the stories in my daughter’s true crime podcast refer to it. It was dissolved during the Dirty Thirties.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/disturbing-the-peace/id1735639596
Sheriff is a time-honoured role in the justice system. Sheriffs, or High Sheriffs as they were once known, are court officers in charge of court security, prisoner transportation and in-court custody, and serving and enforcing court orders, including in civil matters. Bailiffs are subordinates of the Sheriff of the county or judicial district.
But unlike in the US, Sheriffs in Canada are not actually police officers. Making provincial Sheriffs into a Highway Patrol seems like a decision by a Premier who had watched too many TV Westerns. Making them into a provincial police force by subterfuge, as Daniellezebub seems to want to do, is more of the same.
And, by the way, the RCMP is being gently & gradually nudged out of municipal policing in one of Alberta’s mid-sized cities: https://www.gppolice.com/.
Well, look (trust me … I’m not about to tell a whopper), Smith has a proven history of not being the sharpest rhetorical tool in politics (floor crossing, etc.). Given the rate she is flirting with constitutional faux pas, her risk for a vice-regal intervention continues to rise. Which, to me, seems an appropriate ending footnote to her career.
Danielle Smith and the UCP are doing anything and everything to try and attack the federal Liberal government. This is to detract from the major missteps of the UCP.
Anonymous Do you still have family members in the business of farming, I don’t and one is whining about how badly the Carbon Tax is financially destroying them and I was under the impression that the federal government was making certain that wouldn’t happen. When I was in Sweden where it’s been in place since 1991 no one I talked to mention that it was putting their farmers in trouble.
It remains, after every colour of woke-smoke has dissipated, that JT still holds more cards than virtually anybody else. Those principals who know, do not say; conversely there’s a self-appointed posse of conservative sheriffs (or is that “sherrifs?—I’ll have to check with Danielle…) who fill out the parable: those who say, do not know.
“Self-appointed”? I can just hear prickly resentment: Hey!—those sherriffs are ELECTED, you woke Left-Coaster!!
Well, yes, naturally, but not in the context they pretend: there is no official body of jurisdiction for “first ministers”—or premiers—, and their federal shire-reeve isn’t much more than chief whip for his parliamentary caucus which, bit-champing notwithstanding, is not the elected government of Canada. I’ll only concede that the self-appointed self-importance under the goofy name “Team Canada” wasn’t affected until after they were invited to meet by the PM. And then he let it be about them (crafty fella!)
I get the feeing JT’s critics are as jealous as the premiers and HoC also-rans that they too weren’t invited to the Mara Lago chapel of chintz along with the Prime Minister. But to hear them tell it, they are more outraged at alleged “grovelling,” “looking weak,” “exposing Canada’s underbelly,” and other unflattering word-smithery (no relation to the Alberta premier) that is quickly loosing the desired, lubricant effect. Yet, frustratingly, it hasn’t cracked the thread of JT’s seized nut —and he remains holding cards they can neither see nor provoke him to play in the betting order he’s deftly positioned himself. He’s smiling, but the real tell is pundits’ and partisan rivals’ whining that the PM’s Office didn’t tell them of his plans to execute tactical surprise on virtually everybody, them (especially) included, and of course their plain befuddlement as to how they should cover the private event.
But has the PM really committed a tell during a heavy round of betting? Again it’s hard to tell: it could be that he’s justifiably chuffed he alone got out in front of this tRump train before any other world leaders have (not only of Mexico and China), the presidunce-elect immediately accepting the proposal to have dinner, which is a match-point in public-appearances terms (btw, it was on tRump’s TURF, not on “his TERMS” as JT’s green-with-envy critics are embellishing it). It’s just as justifiable that JT isn’t even trying to hide the little PP-like nursery ditty he keeps humming loud enough to be heard: ‘I-know-something-that-you-don’t-know…”—that is, not hiding that he is hiding something from them they are embarrassingly dying to know.
More likely JT is buttering up Donald F tRump in the usual way—as unseemingly as some find it—by way of flattery, and that by way of imitation: the PM opened the door like an expert prankster and the premiers huddled at the keyhole outside suddenly came tumbling in onto the stage of Trudeau’s design like he knew they would, much like tRump is mirthfully enjoying the reaction he got from a basically preposterous threat which produced the headlines, outrage, panic and, yes, obsequiousness he knew it would.
Today’s MoCo Sunday Edition broadcast featured a broad, random scattering of interesting points, but unfortunately-accepted ‘Texas Sharpshooter” analyses. One was highly critical of JT’s decision to convene a first ministers’ meet (of course in an allegedly embarrassing way), comparing him to Brian Mulroney’s supposedly correct shepherding of the original AFTA (which confusingly came BEFORE, not afta NAFTA, now confusingly called CUSMA—but only in Canada) when provincial premiers were assiduously excluded from negotiations with the USA: it was supposedly a mistake for Trudeau to invite the premiers to comment in an official-looking way. The criticism matches those seen on, for example, CBCTV’s At Issue panel where, in addition to JT embarrassing the pants off an entire nation, made the premiers run around like chickens with their heads chopped off (although the former accused the PM of exposing disunity while the later simply dismissed the measure as a cheap show of national cohesion). However, nobody seems to give the PM credit for doing exactly that, but on purpose.
tRump’s typical tactical style has been called “transactional.” So if Trudeau is being flatteringly imitative, one might ask what value he thinks he’s getting from being the first world leader to be seen listening to tRump talk tariffs with his mouth full of Mayo Luger cheeseburgers? Or from inviting the premiers to embarrass all Canadians—which of course was 100% guaranteed to happen. Or from ‘withholding’ his itinerary and details of the Conflabulating performance. If all that’s so bad, why is he doing it? Well, for one thing, it made the same critics criticize his chief rival, PP, for being even more embarrassing, even more unseemly, and even more mortifying: “un-statesman-like” was how the dour Andrew Coyne put it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that PP was easier to suck into the spotlight and compare poorly his opponent than Danielle Smith was—but at least she was invited to the cast minions and didn’t fail to fail our federation once again. PP sure wasn’t happy: indeed, he sho plain pissed. Point Trudeau!
Again I ask: why, then, with every metric hitherto pointing to his political doom, is Trudeau grinning and PP grimacing?
While I’m still in a curious mood I may’s well also ask: is there, among the many things JT is gleefully depriving the nation of, any reason why he brought Dom Leblanc along with him to MAGA Logo besides the fact that he is the Liberal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, of Public Safety, and of Democratic Institutions? I mean, as appropriate as those might seem in the circumstance, is it so mortifying as the PM’s “grovelling” before the Great Orange One to exclude the aspiratorial theory that LeBlanc has had designs on the Liberal party leadership himself? (He endorsed Iggy in 2008, but sat out the 2013 leadership race, presumably to clear the way for a new contender, the young Justin Trudeau, to win.)
I dunno—I just keep hearing that JT might step down—at some time and place of his own choosing during the next several months, just one of the several cards in his hand his rivals would love to see. It’s hard to find anyone in the federal caucus with such broad and lengthy political experience as LeBlanc has had—in fact much more than even JT has. And, if Magog Loco afforded Dom a discrete gander at the Convict in Chief (who is almost certainly completely ignorant of DL’s CV) and presidunce of Canada’s most important ally, it could be a card well played.
And, I tell ya, that would also be a tell that’s hard to tell if it is a tell or not.
There is no way to stop people from crossing the border. If they want to really do it, they will cross.
In the snowy western mountains, mountaineer skiers cross the border frequently to enjoy deep powder turns in “undisclosed” locations with tantalizing vertical. Never have any of these hard core powder hounds every been busted from my knowledge. No drone or helicopter can fly in the most outstanding cold smoke snow storms that create heavenly powder skiing conditions as they would crash from ice build up. Plus, they would never find you in a sweet powder dump storm.
Keep on skiing those sweet backcountry mountains. You have nothing to worry about other than avalanches or falling into a deep tree well face first and suffocating to death.
Try finding a deep tree well on a snow machine at speed! Darwin! Was that you? People, all of us are susceptible to our enthusiasms! Some involve risk to us, and some involve risk to others. Let’s quit the risk to others, shall we?
I see Danielle Smith still has no crazy radar. Does she really believe her latest brainstorm will 1) work, 2) not be challenged in court, and 3) appease the Orange Orangutan? For someone who claims to be smart, her word salad sure doesn’t support the contention.
Somebody, like a competent constitutional lawyer, should remind Smith of what Barry Cooper said. In an opinion piece published by the National Post, Cooper said Canada gave Alberta a raw deal, Albertans are mad about it, and Alberta should stop being nice (when did that last happen?). That, Cooper said, was intended to get people to talk about Alberta’s grievances.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barry-cooper-the-alberta-sovereignty-act-is-unconstitutional-on-purpose
(Speaking of constitutional lawyers, has Derek From made any public appearances lately? He’s the guy who co-wrote the Free Alberta Fantasy with Cooper and Rob Anderson. How does Mr. From feel about Cooper’s protégé and her handling of the Alberta independence file?)
I wonder who’ll own whom after the court cases are finally decided.
Mike J Danysh: Truth be told, Danielle Smith isn’t an expert on the Charter, or on the Constitution. Her bills are often poorly constructed, and are in violation of the Charter, and the Constitution. Expect her to lose.
Oh, now it’s bad to block the border crossings?
Well, times do change.
And PMJT is looking mighty cozy with the Human Orangutan, so Queen Danielle and Skippy Pollivere must be hitting their respective meds pretty hard right now.
There is still that rumour that Pollivere is begging for an audience with Trump because he’s PM-in-Waiting, as if that’s an official title.
Silly season must be year-round.
Of course Trudeau looked mighty cozy with the H.O. Trudeau knows how to play the game. Not only has he been doing it for some time, but he grew up watching it as did Leblanc.
the problem for PP is he doesn’t know how to play the game or that it even is a game. He should just make sure he knows which pieces of silver ware to use and when.
This border issue is nothing but a side distraction of a tsunami on the horizon. We need to be talking about the possible consequences of the Trump victory on Alberta’s economy. After all, the worst two things for Alberta’s economy right now are Trump and Smith/UCP, the former with his impending tariffs and the latter with her reliance on oil and gas as the sole driver of the Alberta economy. Putting all your eggs into one basket, as Smith and the UCP has done, puts the entire economy of Alberta at the whims of a tyrant who could easily kill the provincial economy overnight. We know who they – the UCP and the corporate press – will blame for this disaster when it happens. When need to start raising our voices about the UCP and how they put us into this position and actually making it worse than it is.
Well said, and well reasoned.
If the Alberta economy does tank due to tariffs, you can bet Smith will be demanding Ottawa/Trudeau bail them out.
While politicians and some talking heads are carrying on as if they are important, no one is really paying attention south of the border and most of them don’t even know who Smith and PP are. PP and Smith have an inflated sense of their own importance. No one on the international stage really knows who they are or cares.
The sky is not going to fall in. Last time Trump wanted to increase tariffs I recall 5 state governors were a tad upset with Trump because Canada was one of their biggest trading partners. Some times if you give some people enough rope, they will hang themselves. Trump is a big wind bag, who threatens all sorts of things, which he may well not be able to do. Just his carry on about deporting millions of people. At some level it would be entertaining to watch as some invade Mara la go.
Almost every economy, everywhere, has been at the whims of tyrants for thousands of years. The amount of hydrocarbons used in the global economy continues to rise, and the only new oil outside OPEC comes from the junk-bond Ponzi scheme in the Permian basin. The principal US banks were all broke by Drumpf’s third year in office last time, and the result was $9 trillion in bail-outs back-stage at the Covid show.
The dreams of the Koch brothers are about to come true, and you’re going to have to come up with a whole new concept of disaster.
Enjoy!
https://lpedia.org/wiki/Document:National_Platform_1980
Your headline photo is a revelation! Who knew cameras worked in hell! https://youtu.be/eSUdlUmtg3Q?t=4
I was driving near Yuma, Arizona several years ago and got stopped by a Sheriff. He looked in the window and said “ Nope there aren’t any Mexicans in there”. I laughed and asked if he wanted to see in the trunk. He said no. We learned that they were taking school buses, painted white ,down to the Mexican border each morning and bringing back field workers to harvest lettuce and celery then taking them back that same evening and over the years some had apparently found ways to stay in the U.S. and they were making certain none were hiding out in vehicles on the highways.
Noam Chomskys daughter wrote a book about how this “migrant” population is actually how the southern economy worked for a long time, and workers were allowed to freely cross into the states while they chased harvests, and allowed to return to Mexico afterwards. It was seen as a mutually benefiting system, and frankly it’s unlikely the us could have become such a large agricultural producer without said labour. The fact is that these migrant workers were demonized as cover for a domestic political crisis (which under capitalism are unending and cyclical).
Being that huge chunks of “the United States” are in fact Mexico, and you have families living for generations on both sides of the “border”, it’s insulting and disrespectful, and it doesn’t work.
Criminalizing the border means the groups looking to challenge that are criminals, it’s more dangerous for migrants, it has created a dangerous unstable situation in Mexico where criminal groups act in defiance of the state, it makes it difficult for business on the American side to find the specialized agricultural workers they need, and it’s inhumane and unjust.
What was so wrong letting peaceful groups of agricultural workers migrate through the southern states for a few months !?
For those interested Aviva Chomsky wrote the book “undocumented: how immigration became illegal” & you can find multiple interviews of her talking about her research online.
The picture heading today’s blog reminds me of the passage from Orwell’s Animal Farm where the animals peek in at the pigs and humans sharing drinks and a meal, and they can no longer see the difference between the two. Of course this has nothing to do with this report of how President Biden is building the infrastructure to implement Trump’s mass deportation plans.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/05/biden-immigration-jails-trump-mass-deportation-plan
Not in Canada you say? M. Poilievre may differ.