Remember, here in Alberta, if the oilpatch ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Happy Danielle Smith celebrates her leadership review vote in Red Deer Saturday night (Photo: Facebook/United Conservative Party).

Still, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s theatrical extended temper tantrum in the Legislature Building’s media room yesterday in response to the federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s release of draft rules to cap oil and gas emissions 35 per cent below the level of 2019 was a remarkable performance by any measure. 

It’s hard for anyone to keep up with what’s changing these days with United Conservative Party chaos muppets in charge of Alberta, but the transformation of Ms. Smith from ecstatic triumph after her party’s leadership review vote Saturday night to Monday’s unhinged fury was positively startling. 

If it was a performance, it deserves an acting award. If it wasn’t, it may require an intervention. 

At times profane – I’m pissed. I’m absolutely angry! she barked at one reporter – and unrelentingly hyperbolic, Ms. Smith looked as if she were ready to blow a gasket when she accused Mr. Guilbeault of pursuing “a deranged vendetta against Alberta.” 

Flanked by her like-minded cabinet colleagues – that is, her former leadership opponents Energy Minister Brian Jean and Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, to use their official titles unironically – she appeared at times to be about to burst into tears. 

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault (Photo: UN Biodiversity).

“We will not stand idly by while the federal government sacrifices our prosperity, our constitution and our quality of life for its extreme agenda,” the trio jointly said in a screechy official statement on the government’s web page. 

The statement also trotted out as evidence the same old discredited studies by right-wing think tanks and consulting firms, one of them famously commissioned by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, used in the bumf accompanying the government’s Scrap the Cap advertising campaign, which uses taxpayer funds to campaign against the federal Liberals. 

In person, speaking from the Legislature Building’s media room, a snarling Ms. Smith claimed “ultimately this cap will lead Alberta and our country into economic and societal decline.” (Readers who doubt my colourful descriptions are encouraged to watch the video of the news conference.) 

“Once again,” she continued, hoarsely shouting, “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is putting reckless policy ahead of the needs and concerns of everyday Canadians.” (This can be disputed, but it’s a fair comment.)

“I made note that he would do this on his way out the door,” she went on. “It’s like a bad renter who’s burning the furniture on their way out.” (This is over the top.)

The presence of an official photographer, primed to get some good shots of the premier, eyes blazing, suggests this was a considered performance. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr).

If so, one supposes it makes a nice distraction from the way the UCP is burning the furniture over at Alberta Health Services, as it pursues its vendetta against anyone involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the problems the government encountered last week defending its cruel and unneeded anti-transgender legislation. 

If it was a genuine outburst, it is not exactly reassuring, especially with the premier threatening extra-constitutional use of her government’s unconstitutional Sovereignty Act as some sort of magical instant Notwithstanding Clause to block the federal regulations. 

Since all the auguries suggest Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Guilbeault are in fact on their way out the door, if not quite as quickly as Ms. Smith and the federal Conservative Party would like, this reaction seems overwrought to say the least.

Well, perhaps Ms. Smith overindulged a little when she celebrated her carefully managed leadership review victory Saturday and was still a bit under the weather. 

Or maybe she senses that this policy announcement, assailed by the oil industry and the federal Conservatives but also criticized by environmental groups and the federal NDP for not going far enough, might prove a boon to the foundering Liberals in parts of the country more concerned about global warming and less about oilpatch profits than Alberta. 

Well, the result of today’s events south of the 49th Parallel are bound to give Ms. Smith something else to be either infuriated or ecstatic about. This time, though, more of us are likely to feel the same emotions, one way or the other. 

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31 Comments

  1. Danielle Smith is going off the deep end, time and time again. How was the oil industry in Alberta being managed for so many years? Very badly, under these phony Conservatives and Reformers. Yet, Danielle Smith has the gall to attack Justin Trudeau for something she doesn’t understand. A regular responder to this particular blog, has said that he was familiar with the Peter Lougheed PCs, through his relatives, and he said how good they were. One thing he mentioned is the loss of $575 billion, when Peter Lougheed’s oil royalty were drastically reduced by the Alberta PCs. He also mentioned that he witnessed first hand that when Peter Lougheed and Don Getty were premiers, oil companies had to cleanup their messes, and that Ralph Klein didn’t, and we are now stuck with a very hefty price tag of $260 billion to fix all these oil industry related messes in Alberta.
    The Redwater upgrader, KXL, uncollected property taxes from oil companies, and other quite pricey boondoogles from the Alberta PCs and the UCP, can be added on. Billions of dollars flushed down the drain. Surpluses from higher oil prices are long gone, because oil prices are sinking. The UCP has no surplus, that they were boasting about, because they squandered it, in the tradition of the Alberta PCs, who took the savings of Peter Lougheed, and wasted it on boondoogles galore.

    At the UCP’s recent AGM, the easy to fool people were there. Alberta would be a basket case if we were independent.

    https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/ucp-members-cheer-for-alberta-becoming-own-country-at-agm/59152

  2. If you didn’t know better, you would think at times like this Smith was the leader of the opposition and not some guy from Ottawa or Calgary.

    Running against the unpopular PM gives Smith quite the political boost in Alberta, which is why she keeps doing it. Unfortunately for her, he is likely to be gone way before the next Alberta election.

    In my opinion the PM and Smith both excel at performative politics in own their different ways, perhaps ranking #1 and #2 in Canada. But fortunately for the real leader of the opposition in Canada who is no slouch at it either, they cancel each other out.

    As for emissions reductions, what should be a reasonable matter just becomes another front for Smith’s political battles.

  3. Let us take a moment to commend those that made the artists and editorial choices for this article’s main photo.

    Like famous acts that have come before, the Marx Brothers, the Stooges, we see three characters suitable for a travelling shew. Unfortunately, here in Alberta old chestnut, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”, had been reversed.

    As a great orange philosopher keeps saying, “Sad.”

  4. Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
    It seems to me thatDanielle Smith has been emboldened by the results of the leadership review to become more extreme and, if one might say, histrionic in her criticisms and in her over-the-top demands.
    I wonder, though, if this was a Pyrrhic victory in that her approval was from a small group of extreme UCP members and from those who have something to gain from promises that have been made to them. I am not entirely convinced that the voting public is as supportive of Danielle Smith as she seems to think.
    My guess that this is part performance and part calculated pandering to her base. I don’t think, though, that it will gain the respect of more reflective Albertans who do not see extremism as reflective of a well functioning society.
    I suppose that whether or not the views of this group of extremist supporters at the AGM last weekend will prevail or if those who have higher expectations of the their provincial government, including a functioning public health care system, will be the majority in the next provincial election.

    1. And yet the UCP is the government, and I predict will win the next election, and the ones after that. Yesterday’s events show that Democratic/Liberal/NDP-like parties can not defeat the rising right.

  5. Such a delightful little word bumf. Loads of bumf. Shall be used henceforth in this household to sum up all things UCP and company. I think your job is done.

  6. Aww. Poor Danielle is beside herself with rage. It’s all Trudeau’s fault. Again. What degree did she get from the U of C? “Drama queen,” was it?

    1. Mike J Danysh: Postmedia loves supporting Danielle Smith. Unfortunately, they, nor Danielle Smith sees that the oilsands oil in Alberta has numbered days, there are liabilities that go with it, and oil prices are sliding. That’s always Justin Trudeau’s fault, isn’t it? According to them it is.

      https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-danielle-smiths-party-loves-her-and-rightly-so

      https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/ottawa-greenhouse-gas-emissions-cap-rolls-out

  7. Perhaps she was riding high of the fumes of the leadership review, but those 91% also voted that carbon dioxide is an ‘essential nutrient’ and so exposed themselves as the scientifically illiterate ignoramuses they are. She can yell at the clouds all she wants but it will not stop the weather. As for my country, we give fuel to the fascists and then beat them, again and again, round and round. I remain hopeful America will defeat fascism once again. I’ve found Canadians to be pretty clear eyed about their neighbours to the south, and I was especially touched by that great sage Leonard Cohen’s take, which seems prescient today:

    I’m sentimental if you know what I mean
    I love the country but I can’t stand the scene

    And I’m neither left nor right
    I’m just staying home tonight
    Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

    And I’m stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay
    I’m junk, but I’m still holding up this tired bouquet

    Democracy is coming to the USA

    Sail on, sail on, old mighty ship of state
    To the shores of need
    Past the reefs of greed
    Through the squalls of hate
    Sail on, sail on, sail on

    1. An American Friend— I’m very sad to say, that it seems that the experiment has failed and the ship hit a reef and is breaking apart.
      “Just for a day” — 4 little words that should have scared the beegesus out of people.
      There are none so blind, as those who will not see.

  8. The irony is rich and risible: just a couple of days after mocking the federal minister and his (alleged) ‘tantrums’, Danielle unleashes the full force of her inner petulant toddler. Then, doubles down with: Trudeau is ‘like a bad renter burning the furniture on the way out’. That is, after messaging the oil and gas industry that, with regard to reclamation, they are free to be a bad renter and burn the furniture – …er, province – on the way out.

  9. For me, I would go with Smith needing an intervention. I saw a program a long time ago talking about fossil fuels and how difficult it is to move away from them given the billions of dollars involved. The UCP are clearly climate change deniers but how many more towns do they want to burn down before they a clue, given that Slave Lake, Ft. McMurray and Jasper are all results of this denial. Rather than fighting with everyone, perhaps they should re-think this renewables ban?
    Also it’s funny how in the 1980’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau did it to Alberta and now 40 some years later Justin Trudeau is doing to Alberta (just like dad).

    1. A couple of points, Old. The timing of the NEP may have turned out to be less than ideal – should’ve been done sooner – but I don’t think you should blame PET for the oil price decline just because Alberta Conservatives have been telling the same lie over and over for decades. That one’s on a par with the tales of the nobility of the slave-era South now. Deeply entrenched, but almost entirely horse manure. As for those fires, I’m sure UCP supporters blame insufficient weeding between the trees and Antifa saboteurs for the damage. DJC

  10. Earlier this year the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities passed a very similar CO2 resolution.
    https://sarm.ca/associations/carbon-dioxide-co2/

    Here is an adult response to this nonsense:
    “The resolution is written with misleading, confused language about climate change and policy, said Darrin Qualman, director of climate crisis policy and action with the National Farmers Union.

    “It talks about vilifying natural CO2 and of course no one is vilifying that. And indeed, the whole focus on natural CO2 is a red herring. The CO2 that’s causing the climate problem isn’t natural CO2, it’s CO2 from human sources,” Qualman said in an interview on CBC Saskatchewan.”
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/sarm-resolution-climate-change-agriculture-1.7158627

    In other words: it is the fossil fuel sector causing climate collapse. No wonder Festus and Granny Yokum are tired and emotional, while Ellie Mae is just zoned out.

    1. Kang: Canadian content rules require that you find a way to add Relic to that otherwise comprehensive list. DJC

  11. “we’re not happy until you’re not happy” by a nose! Whose the “we”? you might ask. I’ll leave that one up to the intelligentsia! Whose the “you” in the zoo? Well pilgrim, if you haven’t figured that one out by now? Time to build a “Musk” bunker I guess! https://youtu.be/tGQDWj4pnNc?t=5

    1. Abs: You have reminded me of the now nearly forgotten sobriquet “Trashcan Dani” – a reference, lest anyone think otherwise, to the source of her research materials, not anything else. I never really liked that nickname in that it was potentially misleading, although I probably stooped to using it once or twice when the context was clear. But it occurs to me that Ms. Smith, poking her head out of a trashcan like Oscar, would rather capture the zeitgeist. DJC

  12. This is just more proof that Alberta is a Petro State and not a province in the traditional sense.

  13. Revelations 18:11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth (her) merchandise any more.

    Sort of foretells the end of Alberta’s oil economy, no?

  14. My idea of a wonderful Saturday evening is to crank up the gramophone and spin Callas divining Puccini. The grooves are getting a tad worn but it does a great job of chasing the kids out of the house. I do listen to her time and time again.
    I’m curious if the bright right in Alberta feel the same good vibrations when Danni shrieks on Ottawa.

  15. Queen Danielle is about to blow a gasket?

    Like the top of her head is going to get pushed upwards, like in the cartoons when someone gets mad?

    I can’t wait.

  16. So while Smith and her pal Poilievre throw their hissy fits and make fools of themselves over the Carbon Tax the oil executives ignore them and have said that the targets set out by Ottawa are reachable by using green energy. The green energy these fools are trying to destroy to make certain it won’t happen so they can continue to blame it of Trudeau. How stupid do they think we are?

  17. Haven’t seen Smith’s acting debt and won’t There is better acting in the neighbourhood when a couple of two year olds have temper tantrums and they’re way cuter and funnier.
    If she thinks this will cause problems for the Canadian economy, that is O.K. by me. At least the air I breath won’t be as deadly as it is. Climate change is real. We’ve had an atmopheric river go through southern B.C. again and winds so high the power went out in some areas for a couple of days and ferries cancelled. You can’t breath or eat or drink money. For that you need land, water, etc.
    Although smith and her oil gang keep talking about Alberta prosperity, etc. they don’t appear to be living any better than people in other provinces.

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