If Alberta Premier Danielle Smith intends to defy an all-party, all-province, national consensus on how to respond to Donald Trump’s tariff threats, she should call a provincial election and get a mandate to do so.
After all, notwithstanding the disproportionate number of MAGA ideologues and Alberta separatists in her United Conservative Party caucus and cabinet, most Albertans are loyal Canadians who put their country first.
We Albertans have been learning to live with Oppositional Defiant Disorder as a form of government ever since Ms. Smith became premier in 2022. The trouble is, it isn’t funny anymore now that she’s become a serious national problem.
We need a government in Alberta with a clear mandate if we are to step outside the national consensus in what is potentially the gravest economic crisis our country has faced since the Great Depression.
Premier Smith petulantly refusing to join the other premiers in a joint statement on how to protect Canadians from Mr. Trump’s planned sanctions, in the form of high U.S. tariffs on all Canadian exports, “is one of the most irresponsible and selfish acts of a government in Canadian history.” (To borrow phrase from something Ms. Smith said about another politician just the other day.)
Nevertheless, she said yesterday in an official statement insultingly posted on Trump ally Elon Musk’s X social media platform, “Federal government officials continue to publicly and privately float the idea of cutting off energy supply to the U.S. and imposing export tariffs on Alberta energy and other products to the United States.”
“Until these threats cease, Alberta will not be able to fully support the federal government’s plan in dealing with the threatened tariffs,” she stated.
Needless to say, Canada can hardly defend itself without making some threats. So this is obviously a gift to Mr. Trump.
Premier Smith and her UCP government have not just become a liability to Canada in this crisis precipitated by Mr. Trump’s election victory in November. If you happen to be one of the many Albertans who hope Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will win the next Canadian federal election, she has become a liability to you as well. After all, like it or not, in politics, guilt by association is a thing.
Premier Smith may not be a traitor, but she is sure acting like a virtual Quisling, more loyal to Mr. Trump and his MAGAfied United States than to Canada.
Thanks to behaviour like yesterday’s refusal to play ball with Team Canada from her holiday redoubt in Panama, a small country that is ironically another of Mr. Trump’s chosen victims, Ms. Smith increasingly risks being seen by the public in Alberta and elsewhere as disloyal to the country. At this rate, she may be the only Canadian premier not to be in line for an Order of Canada!
Despite having raced to Florida to pay obeisance to Mr. Trump, she couldn’t even be bothered to come to Ottawa to let her fellow Conservative premiers try to persuade her to do the right thing.
In her absence, Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford didn’t quite call her a turncoat, but he sailed close in a statesmanlike way. “That’s her choice,” Mr. Ford said of Ms. Smith’s focus on protecting the oil patch at the expense of everything and everybody else. I have a little different theory: protect your jurisdiction but country comes first. Canada’s the priority.”
Mr. Trump, Premier Ford said after the premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got together in Ottawa, “is going full tilt at Canadians. We need to be united. United we stand, divided we fall.”
I guess those bromantic days when Ontario and Alberta premiers finished each other’s sentences are over now.
For crying out loud, even former Conservative PM, UCP éminence grise and Trump White House visitor Stephen Harper is complaining about what the U.S. president-elect has been getting up to! “I have a real problem with some of the things Donald Trump is saying,” he told the Toronto Star on Monday. “It doesn’t sound to me like the pronouncements of somebody who’s a friend, a partner, and an ally – which is what I’ve always thought the United States is for our country.”
At least Mr. Ford and Mr. Harper, by the sound of it, can tell which way the wind is blowing.
So what possessed Alberta’s premier to ensure that Canada appears to be divided as it pivots to defending itself from Mr. Trump when he’s sworn in as U.S. president on Monday?
“Smith has a cabinet and caucus full of Trumpkins,” Mount Royal University political scientist Keith Brownsey explained yesterday. “She is in a difficult situation. Her position within Canada is becoming increasingly untenable, but she may face a caucus revolt if she doesn’t follow the Trump line. This is one reason she visited Mar-a-Lago.”
“She is profoundly parochial,” he added. “She has no conception of Canada as a nation.”
This is something for traditional Conservatives, if there are any left in the UCP cabinet and caucus, to think about. If they continue to support Ms. Smith, history – and voters – will remember. If they value Canada, now might be a good time to resign their cabinet posts and consider sitting as independents.
Alberta voters will certainly take note when corporate headquarters start to quietly abandon Calgary for Canadian cities in other provinces. This has happened before.
Dr. Brownsey noted that while the management of natural resources is assigned by the Constitution Act 1867 to provinces, something Ms. Smith talks about a lot, Parliament retains the right to makes laws concerning the export of non-renewable natural resources, and when the laws of Parliament and those of a provincial legislature are in conflict, the law of Parliament prevails.
An unconstitutional Sovereignty Act doesn’t change that.
Carneymania anyone? Is that even possible?
Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, will launch his campaign to lead the Liberal Party of Canada in Edmonton today. Thanks to his U.S. soft launch Monday on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he’s already a frontrunner. It was pretty entertaining, so we’ll see if that’s enough to generate some Carneymania. Can that even happen to a banker? If so, one supposes, brutal polls for the Liberals notwithstanding, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will have one more thing to be extremely cranky about. Stand by for more mean nicknames, Mr. Poilievre’s sophomoric trademark. Fortunately for Mr. Carney, Edmonton Centre’s embarrassing Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, is backing the other Liberal frontrunner from Alberta.
Thank you for saying she needs to call an election. Absolutely. We need to call for the writ to be dropped immediately. One thing that really stood out for me (admittedly after MP Charlie Angus, NDP, pointed it out), her quasi-treasonous response was made even more so by being presented on digital paper with the American flag as header. Seriously? And what in the hell is she doing in Panama? I find myself unable to trust her at all.
Joan: Regarding Ms. Smith’s Panama vacation home, if that’s what it is, I am loath to condemn her for that, any more than my neighbours who winter in California. The rumour, for what it’s worth, is that Ms. Smith owns a condo there and that she and her husband are building or plan to build a retirement home. If true, that would be an irony, since in the long term, Panama is likely to be hit harder that Canada is by a Trump presidency. I’m sure that about now, many Panamanians are thinking, “Viva Jimmy Carter por siempre!” DJC
Carter ensured that the Panamanians hosted permanent us military garrisons in their country and the right to administer the Canal in order to ensure the “neutrality” of the structure. General Maxwell Taylor, a principal architect of the catastrophic atrocity that was the Second Indochinese War, was a key military advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that oversaw the 1977 treaty which allowed for US intervention “when necessary”, and he loved both the treaty and the purposeful vagueness therein: “The generalities are purposeful, and provide for freedom of action. To seek Panama’s agreement to a specific provision for US “intervention” would be absurd, in Taylor’s view.”
The Carter Doctrine was more or less cribbed from the quintessential colonial-imperialist hydrocarbon claim to Other People’s Property of former Canadian Governor General, the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne who said that the empire should “regard the establishment of a naval base or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to British interests, and we should certainly resist it with all the means at our disposal.”
As of 2022 the top five crude producers on earth were the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada and Iraq. Saudi Arabia has been owned outright by the US Empire since Roosevelt guaranteed the head-and-hand-chopping Wahabbis would babysit the largest conventional oil deposit on earth. Iraq has been subjected to unrelenting US attack since the first act of Saddam Hussein as a US proxy in the 1959 attempted assasination of Abdul-Karim Qasim. Russia’s society was destroyed by US financial interests between 1991 and 1999, and the US has had kayfabe television personality Donald Drumpf inserted into the lead role in the theatrical production that constitutes their government. So can we assume that Canadians have been left alone to determine their own economic fates?
“the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, is the largest lender to fossil fuel projects, with $430.9 billion in financings since 2016. Citigroup is ranked as the number one lender to fossil fuel expansions since 2016, according to the same report, with $396.3 billion in financings.” Royal Bank of Canada has chipped in with $256.45 billion during this period, and Scotia bank managed to contribute a spare $192.78 billion for fossil fuels. Hopefully Mark Carney can assume the mantle of Li’l Magus and carry on that delicious home-cooked Goldman Sachs looting that we’ve come to know and love over the last century.
I’m sure that all our troubles will be solved if we can just convince Danielle Smith to give up politics and concentrate on reviving JewelWay.
Agreed. All Albertans are not in lockstep with Ms. Smith’s opinion/position on the export of our Resources. They belong to all Canadians – those of us that live her in Alberta that don’t support the UCP need to have our voices heard loud and clear- Canada First is the cry from many Canadians (Albertans included).
Ontario is perfectly free to undertake a trade war with the U.S. However, asking Alberta to shut down 4.3 million bbls per day simply means that Alberta will bear the brunt of the economic downturn arising from a tariff war while Ontario makes a nominal sacrifice and reaps the assumed benefit. That is why Smith is quite correct to no have Alberta sacrificed for the benefit of Ontario.
A “nominal” sacrifice. Ontario’s GDP is more than DOUBLE of Albertas, nearly three times, a huge percentage of which is cross border trade.
You sound nonsensical. I know Alberta oil bros convince themselves the rest of the country is lost without us but it really is not the case, the issue is successive generations of Alberta governments have put ALL of Alberta’s eggs in ONE export basket, not coincidentally because many of the companies doing business in our oil patch are from that particular basket.
It’s not Ontario’s fault no one in alberta can plan like a grown up.
If Canada doesn’t find alternate markets for oil and instead lets Smith pander to Trump, Alberta will have sacrificed itself.
Agreed, with one correction, Danielle Smith will have sacrificed Alberta. Not all of us in Alberta voted for her.
That is completely untrue, as is often the rhetoric coming from Smith and cronies. Alberta oil is only 29% of all exports in Canada. And yes, I have done my research. This idea that Alberta would be most affected by US tariffs is simply anther way for Smith to push separating Alberta from Canada. My suggestion to those who follow her is to do a lot more reasearch And a lot less blindly following her into the MAGA abyss. what she’s doing is treasonous; toting the American flag cycling up with Fox News and mega followers is completely un canadian. She needs to call an election immediately 90% of the Alberta’s that I have spoken to or that I have read about are completely against what she’s doing right now and have been for some time as a matter of fact. She has sold out Alberta in order for her own goal of becoming an autocrat and having her own country to lead. It’s disgusting and appalling. And as I said, I really encourage people who believe what she says to do the research and find out that she’s completely wrong most of the time.
Excellent comment, although I have encountered too many Albertans ‘enamored’ with Trump and his BS, so sides with Smith and her utter chaos and ignorance.
She has not been able to be trusted for a very long time. She has always worked on her own agenda, it’s not difficult to see she is not a team player and never has been.
Canada is a family and we need to stick together and Smith has blatantly outright proven she is not a part of the family and she needs to go.
We need to be standing beside the rest of our family, and Canada is the family. Daniel Smith has just proven she is the outsider trying to rip us apart.
Daniel Smith is our weakest link, so she needs to be ousted.
She wears a Maple Maga hat and the US flag wrapped around her. She is doing treasonous Acts by giving Donald Trump The Playbook she can no longer be trusted with any confidential information.
As far as want-to-be Prime Minister Pierre P., now, is not the time to be attacking liberals and making false comments about how they’re trying to separate Canada. Read the room, Mr. Pierre P.
The only one trying to separate Canada is Daniel Smith. If you cannot see that in this crisis you also are not for Canada and we don’t need people who are not for the whole of the country trying to run the country.
What are the citizens of Alberta doing to stop her?
A leftist being the ‘smith should call an election’ when Trudeau ran away? Shame
Well said David, and thanks for having your finger on the pulse of Alberta for us no Albertans.
I think you’re right, Ms Smith will need a mandate going forward.
Mr Carney’s debut on The Daily Show was very impressive, it has close to 2 million views now, and nothing but admiring comments. I look forward to hearing more on his policy ideas.
Cheers
These jokers have been wandering around AB for a few years wanting us to join the USA. I got in a fight with one guy harrassing an old man about how much he is taking from tax payers when he get a pension. I told him if he likes usa so much move there, but they don’t want you neither. He left. Most these oil companies are American. Trump would be hurting them. We can sell elsewhere. Jack up the electricity costs going south,build some dams…to create more power, charge for water from the big tap. Send him a bill for border security. See if California wants to join us. Oregan. Etc. Washington.
Yes, it seems like it is ten against one for Smith now. Maybe 10 against two, if you count Trump with her, but we know how loyal he can be to his allies. Either way, those are not good odds and politically its even worse.
It would probably have been better if she cut short her peripatetic supposed family vacation to come back to Canada for this important meeting. I have no idea what she is doing in Panama, perhaps trying to buy a slightly used canal for an old friend?
Smith’s reluctance to support Team Canada also can’t help Polievre who really needs Ontario votes to win the upcoming Federal election. For an opposition so comfortably ahead they seem very rattled that Trudeau did not hang on as they expected. Carney might not be the career political shark Poilievre is, but he can best claim to be nowhere near the scene of the mess Canadians seem to be so unhappy with now plus he has solid financial and economic credentials. And the tarnished Edmonton Centre MP coming out strongly in favour of his main rival today is another seeming stroke of good luck. I don’t know who will run there if Carney wins, but I feel it likely won’t be the current MP any more.
Danielle Smith’s mouth runs off before her brain is engaged. She had absolutely no business being in Florida to meet with Donald Trump. It was another large waste of money, and what did it accomplish? Nothing. That’s exactly what it was going to accomplish was just that – zilch. She was humiliated. We will certainly be facing a federal election, and the chances of Pierre Poilievre becoming Prime Minister are growing slimmer, day by day, because Danielle Smith sticks her foot in her mouth, and has very bizarre ideas that will paint the CPC in a bad light, because Canadians don’t want an extension of what we have in Alberta. Whomever takes over from Justin Trudeau, will be the next Prime Minister. It’s also quite repulsive when Postmedia columnists twist the facts, and support Danielle Smith’s divisive rhetoric, which is very harmful, and not Canadian. They won’t even accept that Danielle Smith was in the wrong, while deceived people support her, as evidenced by the comments.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/liberal-response-to-trump-tariffs-could-break-the-country-apart
This is very ludicrous, to say the least. Someone who has been a frequent commenter on your blog has said that they were in finance, as a bank manager for many years, and they were also affiliated with the oil industry, under premiers Peter Lougheed and Don Getty. They would not agree with this either.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-danielle-smith-plan-stop-feds-looting-alberta-fund-tariff-crisis
Postmedia columnists keep churning out these repugnant columns, and they don’t understand how dangerous Danielle Smith is. The comments show mostly praise for Danielle Smith, and they don’t get that what she is doing is wrong. It divisive and destructive.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-danielle-smith-national-demon-shattering-premiers-unity
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/bell-danielle-smith-refuses-team-canada-tax-alberta-oil
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/experts-warn-canada-against-using-energy-as-weapon-tariff-dispute
Queen Danielle is a traitor. Simple as that. She has committed innumerable treasons already.
There is no need for diplomacy or coating this is niceties. She has picked her side and that is to be an enemy of Canada.
It’s time for her to go and never return.
Smith is veering from clownish incompetence to dangerous autocracy. I could not agree more with you David that she should call an immediate election, but she won’t. Free elections are one of the things autocrats hate.
She serves her fossil fuel masters only and could not care less about what Albertans want. One can only hope that this time she has finally gone too far and people will see that she has lost the privilege to be our premier. The grifting is getting outrageous too with all the free vacations, luxury suite playoff tickets, etc.
What a disgrace she is.
How would Danielle Smith know she’s considered an enemy collaborator by many folks in the motherland if she’s never there? Such is her contempt for her home on native land that she didn’t bother getting dressed for the occasion yesterday. Everyone else wore appropriate business clothes. Dani wore a jacket for her hero Trump, but slummed it in a tank top for her virtual appearance with first ministers. Pillows, casual wear — no wonder a gif of her scratching herself is making the rounds. If you lay down with dogs, you catch fleas.
I imagine her Trumpkins look like the little green men from the Wizard of Oz. Don’t they know the man behind the curtain has flipped? Remind me, what happened to the Wicked Witch of the West in that movie?
It’s her walk in the snow moment. Can she remember what snow is? It’s white stuff. Looks like sand, but colder.
I think the word we are searching for to describe the Premier’s actions and the MAGA-associated caucus is treason.
It could get much, much worse if Smith continues on this path. Consider that the trade deficit with the U.S. is almost completely due to Canada selling them oil and gas (even Mr. Harper has noted this). Imagine a situation in which Smith is successful at getting Trump to remove O&G from the tariffs; almost every other province would suffer the tariffs that they had very little hand in creating while Alberta is shielded from them. If Smith is worried about a national unity crisis, I think she may get one soon where she is the one wearing the black hat.
As far as Carney goes, I think he would be a good leader. Hopefully, he has no illusions about the Liberals winning the next election but he’d make a good opposition leader. He could be like Mike Pearson, who waited in opposition while John Diefenbaker’s prairie populism burned off like so much morning fog and then swooped in to win in 1962. This might be a good scenario, since Poilievre would be the one saddled with the coming recession that we’ll undoubtedly face with the Trump tariffs. And if things got really bad, I can see him having to at least entertain the idea of going over Smith’s head to restrict O&G from the U.S. market. Thus, the federal Conservatives would have to face the wrath of Alberta (or if he didn’t do anything, the wrath of vote-rich central Canada), something that Carney could capitalize on in the next election.
It should be no surprise that Daniel Smith will not under any circumstances support Canada against the United States. Smith is a Trump want-to-be, the first traitor to run to the US and try to suck up the Donald Trump at the expense of Canada. Smith has a long history of stabbing her allies. She stabbed the Wildrose party just before a provincial election in some perverted attempt to further her own political aspirations. She was annihilated in the next provincial election. But Smith the opportunist quickly recovered signing on with corporations and doing their bidding. Even as the Alberta Premier she continues to campaign and support her friends in the corporate industry. Her latest stunt of going to the US during a crisis in Canada has the same stench as the former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney disappearing during the critical fight against Covid. Being a conservative when times get difficult they run away. Let somebody else do the heavy lifting and then come back and take credit for everything.
If these tariffs indeed go through as everyone is expecting, I would assume that British Columbia timber will be hit. Since Alberta has no interest in supporting Canada. British Columbia should immediately shut off the pipelines running through their province from Alberta. Likewise Manitoba should shut down pipelines carrying oil from Alberta. Other than dirty oil and sick cows, Alberta produces absolutely nothing except discontent and crybabies. The rest of the country quickly got behind Alberta during the mad cow fiasco that was entirely created by Alberta. Alberta destroyed the beef industry that has never fully recovered but Albertans quickly forget that Canadians had their back.
While I have about as low an opinion of Premier Smith and her government as it is possible to have, I can’t completely agree with everything you wrote.
1. “She stabbed the Wildrose party just before a provincial election in some perverted attempt to further her own political aspirations. ” Well, a provincial election was not due until 2016 under the fixed election system. And in the fall of 2014, there was no particular reason for Prentice to go to the polls early, with a commanding majority in the legislature. It is true that the defections of WR people to his party might have emboldened him to seek a new mandate earlier, given that there was no effective opposition any more. But I suspect that the real reason he chose to go early was that he saw the writing on the wall – low oil revenues for several years – and wanted to secure a longer mandate while it was still possible. His polling numbers did not nose-dive until after his austerity budget that raised taxes and made a number of cuts.
As for Ms. Smith, well there is a hypothesis that she led the defection because 1) the mainstream of her party still seemed to hold views on social conservative she did not like at the time (has become reconciled to them now, I guess), 2) she did not see a lot of daylight between her type of policy and Prentice’s.
2. “She was annihilated in the next provincial election.” Her party was not. In fact they did surprisingly well given they were in disarray [probably another reason Prentice felt confident going to the polls early] and leaderless. She personally was not annihilated given that she did not run – she was unable to secure the nomination for the PC party that she sought. In fact, I kind of respect Prentice and the PC apparatus for not guaranteeing these defectors anything or giving them cabinet positions.
3) I don’t think BC can shut down pipelines given that interprovincial highways and pipelines are subject to federal jurisdiction. Which is why BC found it was unable to block the transmountain/kinder morgan pipeline expansion when it tried.
As an aside, anyone else note the irony of Ms. Smith acknowledging that the price differential on Alberta heavy oil had come down considerably now that the pipeline expansion was working,, without any recognition that it would not exist if the federal government (with Trudeau presumably fully aware that it would buy him no friends or votes) had not bought it and paid a ridiculous amount to get it finished, when the private sector walked away from the project.
I will bet I am not the only one disgusted with the MAGA Premier of Alberta.
This will not work out well for Marlaina.
Every cloud has a silver lining and Doug Ford has found it. By playing Captain Canada, likely with conviction, he could call a snap election and propel the Ontario PCs to a third straight majority government.
How bad do things have to be getting, for even dim-bulb populist Doug Ford to be more diligent about protecting Canada than Alberta’s sitting Premier? She is undermining Canada’s national interest. There’s a word for that, and it starts with “t” and rhymes with “skater”.
Where is Nenshi in all this? This gives new emphasis to the ‘loyal’ in Loyal Opposition – c’mon NDP step it up!
Friend: In Fort Mac, apparently. https://www.facebook.com/NaheedNenshi/videos/1382334016511482 DJC
Duly observing Sun Tzu “ Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”
And WHAT a mistake.
Quisling apoears to be a term well-suited to Premier (Govenor) Smith.
“Carneymania” is a long shot, with little time to gain momentum, yet it may be the only chance of avoiding a PP majority (yes, there’s childish delight in pronouncing that initialism).
In other circumstances, progressives might hope for an “Orange Wave” like 2011, but my Quebec friends say that a turban-wearing Sikh from BC has no hope there. It was only Jack Layton’s charisma and Quebec roots that made the wave possible.
Climenhaga’s AB election call is another long shot, but it would be a great chance to see if “Nenshimania” has legs.
Robert: Well, I was being a little sarcastic with the Carneymania bit. That said, I like him. He has a Pearsonian air, and a “Received Pronunciation/Canadian” accent. That said, I’m a septuagenarian, so these things may not be received as positively by subsequent generations of voters. DJC
Albertan Gen Z here, Carney all the way!!
“more loyal to Mr. Trump and his MAGAfied United States than to Canada”
Smith’s first loyalty is to the O&G industry. The Alberta Government is the O&G industry’s front office.
Smith is an O&G lobbyist first and always. The petrostate personified. Diesel runs through her veins. After delivering or returning what remains of Alberta’s coffers to her O&G overlords, Smith will ascend like a cloud of hydrogen sulphide to the Petroleum Club in the Sky.
Not much buzz about RStar lately, but you just know Smith is itching to funnel billions of royalty credit dollars into O&G pockets. If the industry faces a downturn due to Trump’s tariffs, RStar will rise from the dead.
Smith has yet to give up her dreams of taking over Albertans’ pension funds to “derisk” O&G projects in Alberta that find it difficult to get financing, i.e., companies and projects the market won’t touch.
Smith and Poilievre are taking notes from Trump. Agents of chaos, transferring public wealth into corporate hands.
Given the knuckle draggers Danielle Smith is burdened with in her support base, she probably had no choice but to refuse to play nice. That said, you really have to wonder if this is the best way for her to pursue even her single focused objective of protecting Alberta’s O & G industry. By refusing to be part of the group, she will have no opportunity to use her well respected communication skills to try to lobby her fellow premiers when the issue of placing an export tariff on O & G, or even shutting off the taps completely, enters the discussion. It will be much easier for the other premiers, and the federal politicians, to simply ignore Alberta’s interests, since Alberta is not part of the team anyway.
Calling an election would be awfully risky. If the UCP wins bigly and reduces the invisible ANDP representation, then she claims the high ground of popular support. After all, she has the 3Bs (Black, Braid & Bell) backing her up. There is no strong, local media opposition.
On another note, will electricity exports also face Canadian tariffs or duties or whatever they’re called? Potatoes? Toyotas? Hmmmm
Trump will use D Smith as a wedge to divide Canada.
Premier Smith is wrong to court the incoming American President not because I disagree with her, or his, values. She is wrong because she has no mandate to speak on behalf of Canadian citizens. And not because I didn’t vote for her or her party. I have voted in every provincial and federal election since I became eligible in 1979. In all those decades I have only been governed by the party for which I voted for four years, provincially 2015 to 2019. Nevertheless, I accepted the authority of elected governments because that’s how democracy works. And I accept that our constitutional democracy assigns different powers to the federal and provincial governments, regardless of which party forms those governments. Smith is wrong because she has no mandate to represent Canadian foreign policy to any country, but especially not to a country openly threatening the welfare of Canada and its citizens.
My passport says I am a Canadian citizen, giving me the rights and privileges of that citizenship but also requiring I assume the responsibilities and duties of that citizenship. So although Smith is on a “personal vacation,” and despite the likelihood that Albertans are footing the bill, in full or in part, for her travel, her passport says Canada, not Alberta, on its cover. She would do well to look beyond her tiny circle of MAGA supporters and reflect on what Canadian citizenship means to Albertans as a whole and to the country as a whole.
@Archie
Extremely well said!
I wonder what Trisha Estabrooks is thinking. Personally, I was hoping for a full NDP coven in central Edmonton.
I’ll suggest the reason the potentate rushed to get her release stating the o & g government would not sign off on the national agreement, is that she probably told the orange potentate the previous weekend that he could count on her to work against any move to withhold petro energy and not undermine his leverage.
as the lickspittle for the o & g sector, her loyalty, like that of the o& g sector, is not to a nation or its citizens, but to the investor class.
Although not something on my report cards, my kids’ report cards did have comments about how well or poorly they would socialize. I think that Ms. Smith would have a “does not play and work well with classmates” comment on her’s!!
I have attempted to try to understand this tariff thing, reading comments by right and left pundits. As for how they will affect Canadians who have business dealings south of the border, all I can see is that there will be a shift from Americans buying Canadian products and services toward buying the same stuff on offer within their own borders, thus causing a downturn/recession for Canadian businesses. But, as several have stated, where there is no immediate option for Americans for their purchasing whims, what indeed will be the effect but to continue to buy from Canadian suppliers. The arguments about buying ‘homegrown’ have been around for all my 70+ years, but that has not prevented both Canadian and American business from globalizing access to cheap resources, labour, products, and accompanying lack of environmental restrictions. That process, over the last two generations, will be very difficult to replace so as to get “back to the good old days”! [On the same note, the discussion about “diversifying Canada’s customer base for our resources” has never come about despite that concept being iterated forever.]
I remeber the NEP and what it did to hard working Albertans , Go ahead try it again , Confederation crisis will be what happens . Love to see it…… The Feds have been trashing our industry for the last 10 years , but now allof sudden they want Alberta as a team player??? And the only car they have is Canadian nationalism . Yeah you know where you can stick that…
Well, well and here you have the aforementioned “Alberta Crybaby” in full feather, Mike Chrest. I believe your beloved UCP is crying to have the NEP (under a different name of course) but those nasty Quebecers won’t allow our dirty pipelines through their province. Or maybe it is Irving Oil stopping it?? After all, who could gouge Maritimers if Alberta oil was getting in there? The Feds have been trying to save our climate denying asses Mike, but the reason they lost favour was they spoke out one side of the mouth and then rammed a shiny new pipeline through BC for the benefit of your beloved America oil companies. But being the ingrate you seem to be, you would rather separate and reduce us to begging Big Oil to pay their taxes so we can keep our services going.
Owner of “Wedge Internet Marketing” says what?
Mike Chrest: I would relearn history, if I were you. The Vietnman War ended in 1975, and there was a glut of oil. The United States had no NEP of any kind, and their oil industry suffered too. Oil prices took a nosedive at different times, including in 2008, 2014, and in 2020. There is no NEP anymore, because that was done away with by Brian Mulroney.
The national energy program was enacted in 1980 and abolished in 1985, unless you’re the age of our esteemed blogger and some fellow commentators, I think it’s very unlikely you remember anything about the NEP, if anything you just recall the absolutely ridiculous hyperbolic stories people have been repeating in this province since time immemorial it feels like.
The fact of the matter is the principle beneficiary of the dissolution of the NEP was American oil companies who wanted license to sell new oil in alberta at rates that were artificially skyrocketed by the opec crisis. That and Peter Lougheeds political fortunes.who is now known for the heritage fund and not opening up the tar sands to be colonized by the foreign players (mostly american) that dominate it now.
But yeah , unless you’re at least sixty, you don’t remember anything other than the nonsense we’ve all been spoon fed.
[Allan: While I agree completely with your sentiment, we do try to maintain a level of civility in the discourse here. Alas, I felt obligated to delete your comment. DJC]
Was it 2018, during a severe downturn in oil prices, that the Canadian government, and championed by Trudeau I might add, dropped just shy of $5 billion to purchase, and then complete, at significant cost to Canadian taxpayers, the Trans Mountain Pipeline project. In hindsight, it sounds like a win/win – the UCP must have forgotten about this detail. And how much COVID support $$ did Alberta pickup from the feds ??
Mike, the whole world is trashing the O&G industry, and for good reason, it’s environmentally toxic, full of gangsters, and creates the likes of D.Smith and her cronies in the UCP – give your head a shake
I’ll comment in reverse order.
Mark Carney: remember Michael Ignatief? Parachuted outsider candidates occasionally pooch their landings. In Carney’s favour, his central bank experience is beneficial. Ignatief had academic creds, but while impressive, were just that – academic.
All that said, I am just starting my liberal leadership decision matrix – and it’s really just Carney vs Freeland. Whomever wins, Expat is right, they should not be under any illusions about winning the next election. Honestly, holding Poilievre to a minority is the best that should be expected.
Smith. It took some doing, but she has actually managed to displace Trump on my shit list. “Profoundly parochial” is perhaps the politest way to describe her. Intellectually incurious & ideologically blinkered round her out.
I can see this scenario arising from her near traitorous intransigence: Justin Trudeau, correctly having a country to care for first, and accepting liberal seat loss in Alberta, exercises the federal rights over export trade. Smith goes apoplectic and does something truly stupid – she seriously tries to enforce her Sovereignty Act.
Consequently:
1) the federal goverment warp speeds a Supreme Court reference judgement. Smith loses, act is declared invalid.
2) Smith tries to double down and illegally secede Alberta from confederation. Lt. Governor removes Smith and then UCP caucus deposes her (after realizing majority of Alberta citizens are vehemently disgusted with her).
Gerald: I am not certain parachute candidates always pooch their landings. However, everybody always notices when they do. One way or the other, there’s probably a PhD thesis in this for some intrepid polisci researcher. As for your final point (2), while I’ve considered it too speculative to write a full post about, nation states do not normally submit to breakup willingly, and while there are a few examples in history (Norway and Sweden, famously) there are more of the other kind (Nigeria, Spain, the United States, Turkey, and, it turns out, the Soviet Union/Russia). I do think there is a real possibility of some of the worst actors in the UCP crowd ending up in jail, or living in exile in Belgium (or maybe Panama) like Carles Puigdemont. That might be more likely to happen, of course, if the UCP failed to get rid of her. DJC
@djc
Chezchia and Slovakia too.
It is scenario I really hope doesn’t occur; the underlying conditions I did not write about were the orange fool truly imposing his tariffs. The resulting totally avoidable trade war will hurt millions on both sides for a decade or more.
Jail or exile for the UCP clowns is a nice thought, but it pains me to say, I think none of them have met the bar … yet. What results from public opinion over say, the next month, is a wild card dependent on so many factors.
In Smith’s case, if the disgust/repugnance from your main post & the resultant comments reflect/resonate in any form with the Alberta public, she is in for a world of political hurt. Her political history does not augur well.
“[Nation] states do not normally submit to breakup willingly”. Well, perhaps, but then, Canada has for many decades tolerated — even embraced — a number of political parties bent on that very thing.
At the provincial level, there is the Parti Québecois, which first won government in that province way back in 1976 — the year that the Olympics were held in Montréal — and held its first timidly-worded referendum on sovereignty in 1980. Not being willing to take ‘Non’/’No’ for an answer, they went back to the referendum well again in 1995, which was a much closer run result than the 1980 version.
Meanwhile, the Parliament of Canada actually permitted a separatist political party, the Bloc Québecois, to be seated in the very House of Commons it wanted its home province to secede from. That secessionist party even formed the so-called “Loyal Opposition” from 1993 to 1997 — the ultimate irony — and current public opinion polling suggests they might very well do so again after the next federal election.
https://338canada.com/
Today, the voice of federalism in Québec is weaker than it has been in this century. The sitting government of the Coalition Avenir du Québec, led by Premier Francois Legault, a former PQ MNA, has been pushing the boundaries of what that province can do within Confederation, while de-emphasizing actual sovereignty. But his government is growing increasingly unpopular and the PQ has experienced a resurgence, while of the other parties prominent in Québec politics, the left-wing Québec Solidaire is also sovereigntist. Only the provincial Liberal party is avowedly federalist. And the PQ has once again committed to yet a third referendum.
https://338canada.com/quebec/
So, Canada has been willing to permit the open advocacy for its own breakup since the 1970s. Some may see this as a strength, as evidence of our openness to freedom of political opinion, but I have come to disagree with that assessment.
The secessionists in Québec can keep trying and trying to get the result they want, and still won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. But they only need to get a ‘Oui’/’Yes’ once to try to break up the country, with who knows what consequences, especially for Atlantic Canada, which would be literally isolated from the rest of the country.
At some point, do we as country decide that secessionist politics is no longer an acceptable idea to promote? Do we dare to ban the PQ, the BQ, Québec Solidaire, and any other secessionist political parties from our political system? Would we ever be so bold as to prosecute their leaders for sedition?
Speaking of Ignatieff, he had a very good essay in the Washington Post this week about the challenges facing Liberalism in general. This link should get you around the paywall: https://wapo.st/4hfyCcr
Well said David. This article needs to go viral. Smith is dangerous to Alberta and Canadian unity. In my opinion on the threshold of treason.
Bill—check out ” Charlie Angus bluesky ” , (he added the word quislings to my – learn a new word list. )
Question: Why isn’t the electricity Quebec sends to the eastern US seaboard an option for tariffs? I can’t figure that out. Oh, right. Quebec has a voting block that can keep the Liberal government in power. I’m with Danielle on this. Alberta has to look after itself. I lived through the NEP and I never want see the catastrophic damage it inflected on our economy occur again, which it will if tariffs are imposed on our energy sales to the states. So you go first, Quebec. Then we’ll think about adding tariffs to our energy.
Elizabeth: Tariffs generally are imposed by the importing country, so that would be up to Mr. Trump, who does not benefit from any Quebec voting bloc, real or imagined. That is what is causing the current brouhaha. What has Ms. Smith’s knickers in a twist is the possibility of an export ban on energy. Ontario has threatened to cut off electricity exports to the U.S. Quebec and British Columbia would certainly be asked to do the same. The “catastrophic damage” inflicted by the NDP is a myth, nurtured for generations by Conservative politicians in Alberta. The timing of the NEP was certainly unfortunate, coming as it did when world oil prices fell for reasons that had nothing to do with Canadian policies. It would also have seen pipelines built all over the country – part of Pierre Trudeau’s energy self-sufficiency plan. Ironically, Alberta Conservatives have been screaming for an NEP ever since, just rebranded so that Liberals wouldn’t get any credit. DJC
Dear Mr. C: Amazing as it is, people are still whinging about the NEP. They have been complaining about it longer than it was in effect. Let’s remind the good people of Alberta that the NEP was signed on the dotted line by no less a Deity than Premier Peter Lougheed. If it was good enough for Peter it should be good enough for the rest of us.
Lougheed was INSTRUMENTAL in its abolishment, he literally threatened to cut off all exports out of alberta. Can we stop talking about this guy like he is the second coming of Christ ?
The NEP blows my mind for three reasons 1) it was Forty YEARS AGO, a lifetime in general terms, in politics, an eon. 2)very few people remember what the argument was even about (“new”) oil. 3.) the primary beneficiaries were Americans, not albertans. 4.) and this is the one that really, really annoys me. CONSERVATIVES WON. The NEP was repealed, it was the end of Trudeau, (then we got Canadian Reagan, yay) Albertas markets were able to be fully exploited by America and look now, we’ve got all our eggs in one unstable basket and everyone is freaking out about the ability of the US president to turn our economy off.
Bravo everyone.
You don’t really know what you’re talking about, do you? Like many Americans did after Trump won the election, you might want to google what tariffs are, because heaven forbid you find out before commenting.
Elizabeth Grotkowski: The NEP is a tired old regurgitated excuse that holds no merit. The oil price collapse and its ramifications was global. Phony Conservatives and Reformers left Peter Lougheed’s sound ideals in ruin. This was from abysmal oil and tax rates, which lost Alberta hundreds of billions of dollars, a gargantuan orphan well mess, which is $260 billion to rectify, millions and billions of dollars more were thrown away on very pricey shenanigans, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social services were given severe cuts. It’s a self inflicted problem from the Alberta government. Phony Conservatives and Reformers did it, and were allowed to do it, without being stopped. Where’s the sense in that?
Smith is taking an interesting position. Basically she is saying “whatever you want to do to us Mr. Trump, we will offer no resistance”. This is beyond appeasement, this is pre-surrender.
Not quite. The word “Quisling” comes to mind!
This article is hilarious. Daniel Smith is standing up to the East and it’s bullies who have been mooching off of the West for far too long. Diplomacy is something the Liberal’s know nothing about. The carbon tax will be gone soon. Woke ideas will be gone soon as well. These comments show the extent of the brainwashing. She has every right to defy the rest of Canada. She know’s a Trump presidency gives Alberta immense leverage over the East who has sold out to Trudeau and have accomplished nothing.
Pierre will win a majority soon. The tide is shifting. I suggest many of you leave from the echo chamber you have likely been in. Try to understand the other side of the issue a bit more as to not be blinded.
There will be no revolt in her party – the confidence vote for her was not long ago and it was in overwhelming majority. Any new Liberal candidate for PM is just as bad as the narcissist that is Trudeau. Smith is more of a patriot than most.
Alberta is gaining more and more power. People from the East are coming here and you all know it and it is only a matter of time before this province finally gets the respect it deserves.
Oh my goodness, Sarah. You are sadly missing the point. This is not about sticking to Alberta. This is about figuring out how to deal with the threat of devastating tariffs right across Canada. So you are okay, even gleeful that there are potentially huge losses to our Canadian economy, right across the country – even Alberta? Because, you know, there is more to the Alberta economy than oil and gas. Lumber, beef, agriculture and agri-foods, and chemical manufacturing may not be the huge export that is oil and gas but they provide jobs for a lot of people. So climb down from your outrage and develop a sense of community. Like it or not we are in this together.
Define woke. I dare you.
Seems that posterity and, you know reality think that the Liberals did an excellent job of negotiating with the Trump administration last time, which is really something considering that “diplomacy is something the Liberals know nothing about.”. Though cutting out the legs from your own side before the administration you have to engage in diplomacy with is even in place (particularly when it is literally not one’s place to be trying to negotiate with Trump at all because that’s a federal responsibility), seems like maybe Smith doesn’t know about diplomacy – especially since she seems to have failed to get the orange idiot to offer a carve out for Alberta oil.
So it seems Danielle has found herself stuck in the same boat as the rest of Canada – no special treatment for Alberta, waah – which perhaps makes one think that maybe she should deploy some diplomacy on her fellow Premiers and the federal government, working with them to protect everyone in the boat.
Believe it or not, the rest of the country isn’t Alberta’s enemy, despite the narrative obviously engraved in your brain.
And those people moving from the east, what makes you think that they aren’t going to turn Alberta more to the left, especially in Edmonton and Calgary where most of them are moving to?
Regardless, I bet you still wouldn’t actually be able to define wokeness.
Sarah Walker: How could Eastern Canada be mooching off of Alberta, when it was pseudo Conservatives and Reformers in Alberta who destroyed what Peter Lougheed created for us? The worst oil royalty rates possible, lost nearly $600 billion, the worst tax rates lost so many billions of dollars, a humongous orphan well mess, that is $260 billion to handle, followed by one very pricey shenanigan after another, which were millions and billions of dollars. Infrastructure, healthcare, education, and social services, all received harsh cuts. Utility costs went through the roof. Danielle Smith isn’t concerned about anyone other than herself, and she always has to attack and blame others. Danielle Smith isn’t a patriot. She is a divider. The carbon tax happens to be something that the Conservatives instituted in Canada. You can’t cut any more foolish than believing the lies that these phony Conservatives and Reformers give you.
If anything is hilarious it’s the extent of your naïveté.
I agree we are leaving the era of “woke” politics, which is a largely manufactured distraction (culture war) in order to distract folks (although not reactionary conservative werewolves it would seem) from the very real CLASS WAR that has been waged on working people since the 1970s. I would say it’s not Trump, but rather a certain Luigi that has put that to bed.
And no, Trash Can Dani does not have “every right” to engage in unilateral trade negotiations on behalf of the rest of the country, she in fact has NO right to do so.
Also, “patriots” is an American thing, your sycophantic worship of a dying empire is embarrassing. Team trump isn’t an asset, it’s clearly an anchor Dani has defiantly tied around her neck as she begins her slow walk into the sea. Ok? I guess ?
I don’t understand the UCP, your party’s whole brand is being the rabidly outraged opposite of anyone who is even slightly different from you. Why would anyone want to work with you ?
First of all it’s Danielle. Ontarian here. This is NOT the time for discussing inter-provincial or national politics. Canadians have got to stand together and your Premier has just made Alberta a pariah province and a disgrace. My Alberta friends are mortified. She needs to join Kevin O’Leary and Wayne Gretsky and move her butt to the US. She just put politics above country. An economic attack is akin to a war and Ontarians and Albertans have fought along side each other in at least two of those. All the provinces have presented a formidable and indivisible common front despite their fears, and every one of the industries critical to each of the provinces’ financial health have ALL been put on the line. For instance, Alberta’s oil is Ontario’s auto industry – and Trump specifically named that industry as being completely expendable. I understand that PEI won’t even be able to pay for healthcare! Alberta will become Canada’s Texas with behaviour like this. No reasonable case can be made that Alberta should shoulder any less of this weight than any other province. It was the taxes of ALL Canadians that paid for the Trans Mountain Pipeline, and also the funding of the Trans Mountain Expansion project.
Smith has become a squalid nuisance. The UCP wannabe American ethos is no longer a laughing matter. Only Smith could make a character like Doug Ford look like Captain Canada.
It’s interesting that you, David, and other commentators have raised another significant piece of Alberta energy industry history: The National Energy Program more than four decades ago, when the Feds essentially sought to assume greater control over the province’s energy resources.
Because Alberta society has changed so much since, the infamous NEP may not offer as dire a cautionary tale as I fear. But I am less optimistic than you that a majority of Albertans would not still support Premier Sith and her current position on oil exports, and her defense that these resources belong only to us Albertans.
I’m old enough to still remember vividly the extremely negative response of Albertans to the NEP — led by the outlandish and intemperate posturing of then Premier Peter Lougheed. Echoes from the NEP still linger today.
Lougheed’s anti-Ottawa rhetoric was supported by a strong majority of Albertans, and, I contend, that had a big influence on subsequent events in Alberta, including the victory in a provincial byelection of a separatist candidate in 1982.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi does seem slow to respond to the current crisis, but my fear is, that straying too far from the Smith position, will not help the NDP cause here. It could otherwise easily be misinterpreted as an NDP sell-out.
I believe Smith licking trump’s boots will come back to bite her and Alberta. She is a dangerous traitor to Alberta and Canada and completely out of control now. It’s a case, like trump, of combining arrogance, stupidity and likely mental illness that makes her so very dangerous. I fear for my Alberta!
David, a little off topic but still about Danielle, I would love to read your opinion and analysis of the web of potential corruption that the podcast The Breakdown AB is getting sued over by Sam Mriache.
Tyler: One of the major risks of publishing opinion pieces on your own through a blog, Substack, or independent publication is the risk of being sued for defamation. This is especially true in Canada and the U.K., where defamation law continues to tilt the playing field heavily in favour of plaintiffs. Having been there and done that, I try to minimize risk through a number of strategies. One is writing and making arguments carefully with the way Canadian defamation law works in mind. This usually works, but there are always well-off and determined litigants willing to bring meritless suits that are nevertheless extremely expensive and time consuming to defend. Another, frankly, since I am interested mainly in commentary, is tipping off media organizations with deeper pockets and then commenting when they have broken the story. (I am not suggesting that is what happened in this case, by the way, because it isn’t.) And one, unfortunately, is sometimes just not commenting about stories with a high potential for litigation. I suspected early on this story carried high risk and I have largely steered clear of it for that reason. I do believe that we will see the plaintiff’s enthusiasm for the case diminish if The Breakdown can secure enough funds for a good defence. The possibility of being deposed or cross-examined in a fortnight concentrates a plaintiff’s mind wonderfully. DJC
Ontarian here. SMITH IS A TRAITOR TO CANADA. All my Alberta friends are mortified. ALBERTA OIL MUST BE ON THE TABLE! She actually wants everybody to shoulder the burden of what’s about to happen instead of Albertans. Doesn’t she understand that some provinces’ healthcare is actually jeopardized forgawdsakes!The lady has to go ASAP
Ontarian here. Smith just became a traitor to Canada. EVERYTHING has to be on the table and that has to include the export that constitute Trump’s Achilles heal – Canadian oil and Canadian electricity. All my Albertan friends are mortified. Team Canada’s retaliation will be even handed. No province will be expected to shoulder more of the burden.
Thanks David. Insightful as always.
Wasn’t surprised at all that Smith didn’t vote with the others. She thinks she and Alberta are special. They deserve more consideration and she most likely received “praise” while visiting the maga meeting.
There are people who don’t care about their group/country. Its only about them. Smith is concerned about not being able to ship oil to the U.S.A. or whatever else the group decides. She isn’t interested in Canada. Its all about her. Don’t expect that to change. An election in Alberta is a good idea, in the meantime those caps with “Canada is not for sale” might be a good idea.
I’d suggest people have a very good look at Smith. PP will simply be a re run.
Smith was born in Canada, calls Canada her country and travels with a Canadian passport but is acting in a high handed manner against Canadian interests. When Alberta needed help to fight the fires in Banaff, and during the floods, Canada provided that help and even built the pipeline for Alberta. She is a traitor to Canada and should be charged for treason.
Ms. Smith & her followers in Alberta must be forgetting that the CANADIAN TAX PAYER footed the bill for the purchase (2018) & the upgrades to the pipeline to the tune of 9 BILLION dollars!!!! So perhaps the oil originates in Alberta but without the pipelines being built by the rest of Canada, it wouldn’t get from A to B. Just one example but there are many. I think that most Canadians put the good of ALL Canadians before anything else which is one of the main components of what makes us so proud to be Canadians in the 1st place!
Harper’s reign is proof that a boring technocrat can win. But more importantly, we are entering a “shit’s gettin’ real” period of governance with all the hazards Trump is posing to Canada, & someone who has the perception of professionalism, level-headedness, a track history of navigating two countries through two cataclysmic financial crisis (Canada 2008 banking crisis, UK Brexit-fallout) might have some real appeal right now.
Boring is appealing when it’s competent and steady, in the midst of chaos. We need strategic & long-game-minded actual professionals in charge right now, not sloganeers & populists who are riding the waves of votes & trends.
I understand a Prime Minister can place an export tax on products without a Premier’s consent. Melanie Joly sure has been clear that everything is on the table. Is that what Smith wants to happen? Anybody?
Smith has her nose so far up Trump she’s practically giving him a prostate exam. SHAME ON YOU FOR BEING PRO-AMERICAN RATHER THAN PRO-CANADIAN … YOU NEED TO RESIGN!@@
Agreed she should be fired or resign or disappear down to MAGA land in Florida and join Trumps government
A perfect match for him and a danger to our Canadian respected way of life. Shame on you Mrs Smith.
Am I misunderstanding things? I always thought that the importing country applied the tariffs, not the exporting country. So will Smith blame Trudeau for tariffs that Trump puts on O&G?
Reminds me of the convoy truckers who were blaming PMJT for the requirement that folks crossing into the USA had to be vaccinated. Sorry but it is the USA who put that in place …
PS: Most of us also thought the country into which illegal migrants were flowing was responsible for border security also. Apparently no more. DJC
Danielle Smith is a traitor and should be fired. What are the charges for being a political traitor. She should have to step down now. We all have to be unified to stand up to Trump. She had no right going to Florida and sleeping with the enemy so to speak! She is only speaking on behalf of her Alberta MAGA Camp and not on behalf of all the people of Alberta which is who she is suppose to represent! Shame on her! How can this be allowed. A traitor and a disappointment to women in government and women in business. I lost all respect for her. We need to remove her from her position as we are all in danger of her actions and all she is saying and doing with Trump and the mags team. I feel sick about her and the whole situation. It’s a no brainer decision to support Canadians over Trump and his Tarriffs. Fire her and remove her power now! She is a threat to our national security. Who knows what she is giving up to Trump – classified information strategies etc. I have seen many governments change hands and she is a traitor and a maga threat.
Woah… As I was happy to see, in other posts, that we were ideologically closer than I thought, your post, sir, just destroyed every positive and hopeful thought I had about Canada. Thanks for reminding me, a french canadian from Quebec, a separatist that still is standing beside you against the US (in opposition to your MAGAPM), why I am a separatist…People like you might just make my dream come true 😉