In a truculent and defensive statement in response to last week’s bombshell allegations provincial officials improperly pressured Alberta Health Services to sign bad deals with private contractors, a stormy Danielle Smith took to social media yesterday to channel Richard Nixon and declare herself not to be a crook.
“As Premier, I was not involved in any wrongdoing,” Ms. Smith stated, echoing the 37th American president’s notorious 1973 assertion during the Watergate Scandal that “I am not a crook.”
“Any insinuation to the contrary is false, baseless and defamatory,” she continued in the statement, which was also published on the official Government of Alberta website.
Was this a threat to sue ordinary Albertans, journalists and commentators who question the motives and intentions of the politician at the top? It sure sounds like it.
Needless to say, whatever Ms. Smith or the person who drafted this statement for her intended, this is not best public relations practice. It likely reflects the government’s panic at the harsh public reaction to the allegations, which amount to the most serious crisis faced by Ms. Smith and her United Conservative Party Government.
The premier and her political advisors are struggling to control the damage caused by former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos’s allegation she was fired for launching an investigation of sketchy procurement deals and private surgical contracts pushed by influential staffers working for Ms. Smith’s UCP Government.
The Globe and Mail reported late Wednesday that a Jan. 20 letter from Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s lawyer to the AHS general legal counsel alleges she was fired as CEO “because she launched ‘an internal investigation and forensic audit’ into AHS’s contracts and procurement processes.” Ms. Mentzelopoulos is seeking $1.7 million in compensation for wrongful dismissal, the Globe reported.
The Globe’s story also tied together alleged pressure on AHS executives to ink bad deals, gifts of NHL playoff tickets for politicians and senior UCP political staffers, and controversial expenses such as the purchase millions of bottles of Turkish-made children’s pain medication during the pandemic that ended up not being used.
The metaphorical fire set by Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s dismissal, the dismissal of the entire AHS Board, and the former CEO’s subsequent allegations has been, as the fire department puts it, fully engaged ever since.
In her statement, Ms. Smith said “I will be writing Auditor-General Doug Wylie to ask for an expedited review and his findings on this issue.
“I have also directed my officials to ensure that any request for information from Mr. Wylie or his office is dealt with on a fully transparent and expedited basis,” she said. “We need to get to the bottom of this issue quickly to identify any potential wrongdoing, correct it, and address it appropriately.”
This is all very well, but the result of rushing Mr. Wylie’s report into her hands – which will take a while, expedited or not, during which the government will refuse to make any comments – will be that she and her aides will have an opportunity to spin the results before the rest of us get to see them.
False, baseless and defamatory or not, Ms. Smith’s own office is implicated in this situation. The report should obviously not be delivered first to the people whose conduct is being investigated.
Moreover, while he is technically an officer of the Legislature independent of the government, the auditor-general keeps his job of the pleasure of an assembly with an obedient UCP majority.
So while there is nothing wrong with asking the auditor-general to investigate, and while there are aspects of the allegations that could be investigated by the police and by the Legislature’s ethics commissioner, as NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi argued Thursday, a judge-led independent inquiry is required to clear the air.
Indeed, if there is no independent investigation, the public is entitled to seriously doubt the premier’s assertions of innocence!
Getting back to the statement by Ms. Smith, who has not appeared in public to answer questions about the allegations, she also said she has instructed “that AHS’s internal review be completed as quickly as possible and delivered directly to me so we can study the results and make improvements or adjustments to these processes.”
Note first that she is not promising to make public that investigation, which will be conducted under the leadership of AHS Official Administrator/Interim CEO/Deputy Health Minister Andre Tremblay.
Having the report delivered to someone named in it, no matter how unjustly, is on its face a coverup. And as President Nixon learned in 1974, the coverup is often more dangerous to a politician’s survival than the act that was covered up.
“This is simply not good enough,” Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said in a feisty statement yesterday. “The investigation can’t be handed over to the people being investigated. How dumb does she think Albertans are?”
“An AHS inquiry that only reports to the acting CEO, who only reports to himself as official administrator and who only reports to himself as deputy minister, is at this point worse than worthless. He himself is named in the allegations.”
Accusing Ms. Smith of wanting to sweep the scandal under the rug, Mr. Nenshi renewed his call for the premier, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams and Mr. Tremblay “to do the right thing and step aside now to ensure that these investigations will be conducted without political interference.”
Ms. Smith wrapped up her statement on a sour note: “It’s no secret I have been unhappy with the level and quality of service delivered by AHS and in the inability of AHS to deliver quality and timely healthcare to Albertans,” she complained. “There is a widespread and deep-seated resistance to change that we must overcome.”
Every front-line employee of AHS – every nurse, every physician, every medical technician, care aide, and support staffer – should be offended by the premier’s effort to blame them for a situation that is being caused by her government.
This statement is not going to make the government’s problem go away.
A NOTE ON COMMENTS ON THIS POST: To my extreme irritation, someone somewhere on social media has urged supporters of Danielle Smith to comment on this blog, then provided their readers with the URL of the main photo. This call even attracted a few comments supporting me. We are committed to free speech, around here, so I am going to publish most of these comments and leave them in place at this link for about one week. After that, I will delete the lot because no one will ever be able to find them anyway. Comments are welcome, even negative ones. But for crying out loud, people, go to the actual story and put your comments in the form there. Next time this happens, I will simply delete all such comments they instant they show up. DJC
Ms Smith appears to be buckling from the intense pressure due to her actions.
That comment “widespread and deep-seated resistance to change” really angers me! Perhaps the “resistance” she’s encountered in her quest to dismantle our flawed but pretty darn good public health system is simply highly skilled and dedicated professionals trying desperately to preserve what good they can and prevent ill-informed idiots from changing things for the worse!
Not just healthcare corruption from the UCP, it’s allegedly much more. It appears as though there are plenty of places where the UCP have allegedly demonstrated unethical/corrupt behavior. All need to be fully investigated. (Sorry, Martin, the risk of SLAPP suits is too high for me to name names, even though the corruption you point to is obviously going on in all cases. DJC)
Sounds like an admission of guilt to me for being the resistance. Too bad you couldn’t work for the good of the health care system instead.of playing resistance and work together. We are not naive and see just what is happening..
The op remarks about UCP commentary shows me he is not committed to other than his own view
Yes, it is often the cover up that makes things even worse. Smith should not now be requesting secret reports or pressuring the Auditor General to wrap this up early. With people in her own office close to her implicated, she surely shouldn’t be trying to direct or control this investigation of this in any way.
This already goes beyond the Auditor General’s mandate, as it is about political abuse not just poor spending choices of AHS. So a pubic enquiry rather than private reports to the Premier, or to suspects now running AHS, makes sense.
There has been a lot of sudden departures here recently, the AHS CEO, its board and lest we forget Mr. Smith, himself the subject of allegations in this scamdal, who worked closely for the Premier. I wonder why he really left?
So lots of questions, suited for a vigorous legal process under oath such as a public inquiry. After all, if our Premier is as innocent as she claims, she should not fear such a more rigorous process, should she?
Denial, anger, “spin”, “investigation”, and “coverup”; the politician’s stages of grief.
But never shame nor guilt.
And we know politicians get two more stages: retire to cushy patronage position and occasional “hoary sage comes out of retirement op-ed”.
And Danielle knows this having already had 2 failed political careers.
I can hear it already… “Trudeau’s inability to keep children’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen in supply, forced the UCP to bypass proper procurement practices in their rush to protect Alberta’s most vulnerable”.
Cirnell: Didn’t they say just that at the time? Certainly has a familiar ring to it. DJC
“a stormy Danielle”. Well done!
There is no way this corruption stops at just private suites for playoff games. An independent investigation with experienced forensic auditors is needed now (before Smith’s underlings have shredded all the paper and deleted all the electronic files). Follow the money. Where are the tens of millions of dollars that went to Mraiche for defective and dangerous medical products (a lot of which was never even received)?
And isn’t it convenient that Lagrange is attending the big hypocrisy festival on our dime so she isn’t available to answer questions? And wasn’t she already deeply involved in a previous procurement scandal that she barely weaseled out of?
The last straw was Marlain-a-Lago throwing AHS under the bus (again). She wouldn’t last one shift at a health care worker’s job and yet she delights in disparaging nurses and doctors every chance she gets.
I don’t have much faith in the RCMP or the Auditor General, but an independent judicial inquiry with forensic auditors might be able to uncover enough evidence of the blatant corruption that surrounds this government.
Would it be enough to rid us of Stormy Danielle’s incompetence and corruption? It will be hard for her to blame this on Trudeau and that is usually enough for the rubes.
To answer Nenshi’s question “how dumb does she think Albertans are?” Albertans voted for Smith. Albertans voted for Kenney. Albertans voted for Klein, four times!!!! That is beyond dumb, that is masochistic. We taught these politicians how to treat us. Maybe some day someone will look into why Albertans insist on voting for such terrible politicians.
Premier Smith seems to think this whole thing will blow over while she burrows in her pillow fort in her hidey hole, rumored to be in Panama. The staff issue statements/veiled threats while her banana republic in the hinterlands burns. This is no way to win at Tropico. Surely any aspiring dictator knows that. She needs to return to her colony, before the peasants with pitchforks depose her. On second thought, she should keep hiding.
Totally unrelated to this situation, it is remarkable that all it takes to gain influence with the feeble-minded is to dangle a few dollar store trinkets in front of their faces. If I were a foreign power wanting to annex Canada, that’s what I would do. Maybe it’s a little too remarkable. Don’t evil overlords usually grease palms?
Oh, well. Back to the palm trees, and let’s hope that palm trees don’t talk.
Someone needs to make a game called Trumpico. It designs itself.
Not a complete survey of MLA social media (I do have a life!). However, a cursory look at the social media of several cabinet ministers on Saturday revealed that only Mike Ellis reposted Danielle Smith’s statement. Wonder what the rest of them were doing? Chatting over tea and cookies? I did notice that Brian Jean still has his cover letter and resume for the party leader job pinned on his FB page. Why?
I understood she cancelled her weekly radio show. I also understand that an AHS all-staff Town Hall with the CEO/Official Administrator/Deputy Minister/Generalissimo that had previously been scheduled for Friday was first delayed to later in the day, then rescheduled for Monday. You have to wonder why they had to delay? Punching up some talking points? Stocking up on high-capacity shredders?
Will this affair do any serious damage to Daniellezebub’s government, or just be a tempest in a teapot? I hope for the former, but fear it may be the latter.
How many tempests can one teapot handle ?
I have hope.
Maybe it’s time to launch some recall petitions — for Smith and a half-dozen of her cabinet ministers and MLAs. See https://www.elections.ab.ca/recall-initiative/recall/recall-process/
Only costs $500 to get the ball rolling, although it’s a steep uphill climb from there: “A successful petition will contain valid signatures from 40% of the total number of electors on the post-election day list of electors for the electoral division named in the recall petition.”
Worth a try?
There are four ridings in Calgary (I think – checked a while ago but may not be recalling correctly) where the UCP candidate won by a narrow margin in the last election.
Those ridings might be good places to start.
Lars: Five under 1,000 votes. And one in Lethbridge. Calgary-East, 698 votes; Lethbridge-East, 636 votes; Calgary-Bow, 623 votes; Calgary-Cross, 514 votes; Michael Calgary-North West, 143 votes; and Calgary-North, 129 votes. DJC
Yes. I would like to see all the NDP candidates who lost by less than 1000 votes launch recall petitions. They have already done the door knocking, they had campaign teams, etc.
Near as I can tell, the recall act does not prohibit political party organizational support. Use the recall law as written to hoist the united clown party on their own petard.
I would suggest any recall campaign only be attempted while the legislature is not sitting. If the clowns felt threatened, I can see them repealing their own recall act.
Recall, oh, now that would be fun to watch. Yes, several at the same time. If only one constituency has a recall petition, it gives Smith time to focus on that one, four at once, omg, Does it matter where the money comes for the recall? Does it have to come from Albertans only or in that riding. Its just it would be worth the money just for entertainment value of seeing smith and her gang react.
The Breakdown (link below) has produced a very long exposé on various activities the UCP have been involved in over the years, and over two premiers. It reveals a tangled web in which a lot of Alberta tax dollars have been moved and a lot of UCP ministers enjoyed some hockey games. There is a wrap-up chapter at the end of the long document if you reach information overload.
I don’t really see the kind of benefits to the UCP that would justify such egregious payments. I suspect there will be more to discover.
https://www.abresistance.ca/the_breakdown_ucp_corruption_map
Could the federal government appoint an independent prosecutor to look into the allegations?
Rob: I have no idea is that’s legally feasible. I doubt it. In the present circumstances, I would rate it as a political impossibility, though. DJC
This question reveals a fundamental — and common — misunderstanding of the constitutional relationship between the federal and provincial governments.
Provincial governments are not subservient to the federal government in the same way that municipalities are subservient to the provinces. Each is in fact sovereign in its own assigned areas of exclusive jurisdiction, as described in Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
After Confederation, legal decisions on federal-provincial relations also came into play. John A Macdonald’s initial vision of a strong federal government evolved under judicial influence to make provinces more powerful in the federation; see https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/constitutional-history.
So, there’s not going to be any Big Daddy Ottawa coming to rescue us.
As much as I would like to be optimistic about these allegations I simply cannot. This is Alberta after all. And as for Fraulein Schmidt herself, she’s Teflon coated in Vaseline and covered in oil (crude, of course)…slippery and will undoubtedly live to fight another day.
” she complained. “There is a widespread and deep-seated resistance to change that we must overcome.”
Well, we all know how fast she embraces change…crossing the floor, praying with Americans, yay 51st state, coal mine legislation, no teen transitions, pension plan, provincial police, new curriculum, everything AHS…
“Your province, NO Premier”
TBA premier Smith knows Albertans are dumb enough to elect her.
Oh yeah, mad props for the stormy reference!! I slapped my knee.
” a stormy Danielle Smith”. Don’t think I didn’t see what you did here. 😉
It definitely sounds threatening, “ … a widespread and deep-seated resistance to change that we must overcome.” She sounds like a punitive and sadistic authoritarian.
The “resistance” Smith and the UCP are frustrated with is based on the principles of public health care, Medicare, basically: that every citizen has a right to timely medical care without financial barriers. She wants to crack that nut and leave us all vulnerable to “market forces”. U.S. style care where so many citizens are one illness or accident away from bankruptcy. It’s even more egregious that she can toss public funds like candy to those who help put her in office, rewarding them as they in turn reward her and her caucus. She absolutely personifies grift and corruption, deceit and deflection. If her lips are moving, she’s lying.
Every time the poor health care-workers try to make her latest new mess work, Smith kicks it all over, like a proverbial anthill, sending them scurrying, running amok frantically trying to to save their patients and hold any kind of functional system together. She just doesn’t get that these are people who choose this work because they CARE about their fellow-human beings, and want to help them with their suffering. Not, like she and her friends, callously wanting to exploit them and the public health care system to enrich themselves.
I doubt anyone is surprised by this latest “shit-show”, but holy cow, the brazenness, the defiance is really hard to swallow.
That’s not how it works. Being a Royal Bank Manager for 22 years, of 7 branches, the managers were always held responsible for anything that happened under their watch in their branch, like they should have been. But in true Reform Party Fashion blaming it on someone else is all they know and it likely won’t work in this case. How stupid does Smith think we are, I bet she knows all about it, with her hands on stupidity.
Alan K. Spiller: Danielle Smith is trying her darndest to cover this up. I doubt she will get very far doing that.
Anonymous I think she is making backroom deals with Trump to help him screw Albertans out of billions more their money with the lowest oil royalty and corporate tax rates in the world, and what backroom deals were made with the coal corporations, and with the oil industry that allowed them to dump their abandoned oil wells in our laps without having to pay to clean them up
How stupid does Smith think we are?
Well, the UCP won the last election. That doesn’t speak well for our collective intelligence.
The other comment Smith made that jumps off the page is that she “didn’t do anything wrong”. Herself and her ilk don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking out for themselves, being motivated by power and greed, nor shafting other people. It’s called libertarianism and they are proud of it. Is it their fault they are so clever and other people are so stupid? That they use advantage to screw other people over? Like the master swindler down south whom Smith worships, people who are honest and have integrity and morals
are morons and deserve to be ripped off.
Conveniently the ‘buck’ of any meaningful accountability and ethical responsibility is avoided with the radio talk show host’s appropriation of the unaware innocent act, the nonstop denials after the obligatory rehearsals with the legal department, and her version of Clouseau cliché cluelessness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaHG1x2Bg84
The canned response and plausible deniability amounts to: “I see nothing!”, “I hear nothing!”, “I do nothing” ; therefore, I am not responsible, but I am in charge.
Comparison to Nixon is appropriate. …
NL: Your suggestion made me laugh out loud. I do try to maintain a certain decorum in these comments, however, so we’re just going to have to leave the rest of it to readers’ imaginations. DJC
Lol I love your site! We really need more intelligence on the west. Thanks!
It does seem unlikely to me that Smith would not have been informed of the rationale for the dismissal of the CEO at sometime in the last month. Was her office not asked by Ms
Tait to comment before the story broke? I believe Smith’s office was contacted. Did her staff not pass on the message?
My outrage means nothing if I don’t follow through with action.
I hope all the commenters here will join me and contact the Premier’s office in writing with cc to the Opposition Health Critic and ask for an independent inquiry.
Thanks for your work, sir.
As a former AHS employee in the Capital Management area, I can attest that many sole source contracts were awarded, not because the proper rules were followed, because the managers did not mange their time well and were pushed to get things done in short timelines, causing the need to break the rules. Having come from a strict contracting background with Alberta Infrastructure, I was surprised at the unethical approach at AHS. Fortunately I retired and since I see many of those culprits have retired, but not before passing bad habits on to the younger gang. I recall when they bought the Turkey Aspirin, the head of Contracting, Procurement & Supply Management was on TV taking a big victory lap. Now a few years later it looks like egg on face and a big failure. The scale and amount of sole source contracts is way beyond anything that can be justified. The stuff I saw is right out of the world. Those responsible should be fired.
I finally hope the conservatives will get out of Alberta. They have corrupted Alberta for so many years.
Danielle smith is destroying our land and water with coal operations, which effects our farmers. I think food is a little bit more important than coal. A couple weeks ago, she cut the finance contracts for the caregivers that take care of the disability people going to public schools stated that they should have home schooling and not bother the other children. This is so cruel, and discriminating. Then 2 days before this scandal she was gonna tap into AISH subsidy for the disabled that they receive on a monthly basis and change it. She also cut deomastris, funding that affects the elderly and the most vulnerable people, that could go bind without these subsidies. Lastly she was going to change the AISH subsidy, it goes to the disabled every month. Then the site was taken off after the scandal came about. There is more going on then just this scandal
Word of the day: Truculent
Danielle Smith changed the legislation governing AHS to give the Minister of Health and the Premier authority to make decisions regarding Alberta’s health care system.
Given that Smith and LaGrange have deliberately sabotaged every aspect of our public health system, does anyone doubt that Smith made these decisions?
I doubt that Danielle Smith can cover this up. The toothpaste is out of the tube, and it’s impossible to put it back inside.
As I noted before, Albertans like a clean, tidy government and what they like to believe is effective administration. Listen to an old SoCred annual provincial state of the province address. It sounds like an Annual Report. Any Alberta government that is seen to be corrupt or inefficient is shown the door. I suspect this scandal has legs, and arms and will carry the The United Con Party to the trash heap of history. Danielle is ill trained to be Premier and it shows.
I can only suspect that Queen Danielle’s real threat to her premiership comes from within her caucus.
For the last several weeks, Smith’s bizarre and occasionally twisted behaviour concerning winning the favour of the Orange Nutjob has made her something of a laughingstock. Though Postmedia has been slavishly defending every action and utterance of Smith, it appears that even they are scratching their heads over what to make of her behaviour. One thing that is certain, however, is that Smith has reached a point where not only doesn’t she care what people think of her anymore, she’s also taken to lashing back and anyone who has doubts over her integrity. In other words, she’s cornered and has run out of places to run.
It will be interesting to see if the UCP decides to, like have done with many a CON, throw her overboard and replace with some less trying. Given that this is the CONs’ goto when things get rough for them, I suspect that someone must be backing up the bus right now.
As mentioned, the Breakdown did an admirable job of laying out the spider web of corruption in the current govt, WITH all supporting documentation. Seems like it could be a prosecutable issue given the seeming accuracy and depth of info provided. I urge everyone to watch.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RX5aTFmiwJ4
Thank you for this link. Watched the whole video and Wow! The only thing disappointing about it is that it’s a three month old video and still under 3k views. I believe it was Plato who said the prize for not caring about who rules you is corrupt rulers.
“I’m the boss of everything until I need to know nothing until my incompetence is yesterday’s news”? Really Dani? Pull two of my other fingers!
From: Thomas Lukaszuk/bluesky……
“Albertans are paying for a bunch of UCP MLAs to fly to Washington to pray.
God apparently doesn’t hear their prayers in Alberta for free. Flights and hotels are required for God to answer their prayers.
What will they be praying for?
Fiscal conservatism.
Truculent distraction—- on X
Readers digest version :
” Where is the Fentanyl czar??? It’s been a week , I’m off to Washington, Alberta is perplexed and concerned…
Alberta also reiterates its call for a federal election to be held in March immediately following the election of the new leader on March 9th…..so that our country can negotiate a renewed trade agreement with the US from a position of strength. Failure to do so risks the imposition of tariffs …..
——–‐—————
Well, so much for that ,right ?
If we’re to take d’rump at his word, tariffs on steel and aluminum are to go into effect Monday or Tuesday.
Now about that reprieve??
And WTF is up with her and Skippy & Rustad, with the fentanyl crap. Skippy is out right lying about it, Marlaina is asking about the “Fentanyl Czar”, I’m 100% certain that the government announced a “Border Czar “. And silly me if I think you can just pick a name out of the hat and name them to such a position if they are not qualified to handle….oh! right. She thinks it’s like d’rumps appointments…..qualifications are based on loyalty and $$.
Again, welcome to Canada Danielle.
If you believe, like Walz that Canadians want to be part of the u.s., I have a question—
Q. If there are people in Canada who want to be American, why haven’t they moved to the US.
No one here is stopping them from going. So why are they still here?? Well?? As far as I’m concerned, if Walz wants our Ditchbillies, he’s more than welcome to them. Danielle is free to start her own caravan of followers and head south. Just think, plastic straws should be a big draw for them.
The hypocrisy of saying she is concerned for all Canadians is only outweighed by saying she cares for all Albertans .
Priorities Matter…Country before party!!
Verpiss dich! I credit you among others, for saving me from stitches! These German neo-nasties drink too much! I didn’t get arrested! But I did feel the spell of their songs. We must be ware. They are a significant force. Everywhere now. I don’t know what to say. I no longer have a plan, other than to fight my out of a bar in Bratslava!
Her last sentence: ““That’s my goal: better healthcare for all.”” Actions speak louder than words. Her actions and the results since she took office, strongly indicate her intent was, and is, the opposite.
My parents use to say to me that ‘lies always end bad’ – I think the UCP is starting to get in the web they created. I certainly hope so.
I just cannot understand how people in this province still say that the NDP Government of Notley was bad. We did not have one scandal the whole 4 years and things run to say the least , normal and under the stress of not having oil revenues.
I just hope this one gets them by the neck and OUT, we have had enough corruption.
Stormy D going down and all of her truculent (good word!) minions with her.
Not mentioned, Nenshi called for her Resignation. Redford went down for flight expenses fcs. 600 million is a lot of flights!
Alberta, Demand her resignation. Sign any letters circulating, send your own!protest like the brave people of Red Deer did. She must go. Many premiers have resigned for much much less from a long line of con grifters. Wow, What a legacy. Losers.
David, thank you for your insights and your informed analysis. Thank you for keeping Smitty tap dancing. You are a candle in the Alberta darkness.
Power corrupts and absolute power, corrupts absolutely.
It’s time for the UPC to go.
Another thing… Queen Danielle, a confirmed atheist, runs to Washington DC to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, with her CON fellow travellers.
This stuff just writes itself now.
The cover-up is so obvious it would be laughable if it wasn’t so corrupt. How can an investigation have any credibility if the investigator(s) are working under the authority of Smith and the UCP? We need a judicial inquiry that reports to the public, not those under investigation. Going on the attack blaming the AHS for this corruption is sinister but not surprising. After all, this is what fascists do, like Trump and Smith.
Good luck, Mr Nenshi, in getting ministers LaGrange and Tremblay to step aside pending an investigation into charges of corruption of procurement contract procedures at AHS, the beset public healthcare provider now broken up into bite-sized bits into which the swarms of profiteers have been released by the TBA-controlled UCP government like a boogle of weasels into the henhouse(s). Stepping aside while allegations of wrongdoing are investigated is what ministers in normal, responsible governments would do, but the UCP caucus and cabinet is none of those three: They’re simply in power and that’s all that matters to them. But, good luck anyway, sir!
Now returned from her junket to MAGA Logo to kiss Donald F tRump’s ring (she looks so happily posed in the Leary Orange One pics that surely it can’t be defamatory to call her “Stormy Lite”), somebody should remind Danielle that ‘responsible government’ means that she and every MLA must be accountable to both the electorate and citizens too young to vote, and so too her cabinet ministers must take responsibility for what happens in their respective ministries under their watch. Smith needs to be reminded that it’s not about whether the character of an individual person is responsible or irresponsible— like Danielle Smith herself (her Nixonian-denial seemed to imply it might be one or the other), or her two ministers themselves, all owing public account of the allegations in the former AHS president’s improper-firing lawsuit— but rather about the offices from which ministers make responses to the people who elected them. Stepping aside is not an admission of guilt per se, it’s an investigative process of elimination that, if undertaken as it properly should, absolves a minister of any perception of conflict of interest —or worse allegations, like a coverup, a crime in itself. Naturally that’s all off if the subjects of an investigation try to interfere—like editing out parts of the independent auditors’ written report—or even a perception of it. A public inquiry is always needed if the issue is particularly vital —which any public healthcare issue obviously is. But the UCP doesn’t have a normal conception of perception, a psephological curiosity to me because not seeming to care how unethical its misadministration appears is equal to not caring about its prospects of re-election. A disturbing implication, there.
One often wonders whether Smith either needs to be reminded or newly-apprised that the democratic exercise never fails to achieve its object to elect a government to act for the benefit of the jurisdiction’s citizenry, “government” meaning the collective of all elected and appointed officials of the legislative assembly, of all judicial (and Senate appointees federally) and their respective public servants which they administer and direct. For example, only 53% of voters cast for the UCP to be the governing party but 100% of the voting electorate elected a government of Alberta’s public enterprise which, in the parliament itself, is comprised of all members elected to it: the UCP caucus and cabinet, the NDP Loyal Opposition, and the Speaker. But Smith’s dismissive attitude towards NDP MLAs elected in Edmonton, for example, is enough proof to me that she really needs reminding.
Upon winning a first mandate of her own in May of 2023, Smith’s aside “to govern for all Albertans,” the traditional conciliatory note sportingly pronounced by winners at the end of a hard-fought partisan contests, was suspect the instant she uttered it: she’d already promised to undo everything the previous NDP government ever did just because the NDP did it—even though the preceding government was her own UCP, not the NDP (which ended in 2019). If somehow the 44% of the 2023 electorate which voted NDP is not included in Smith’s governing “for all Albertans,” how much less than ‘unincluded’ are the 12% of Canadian trans and non-binary citizens who live in Alberta? Or, for that matter, the much smaller proportion of gender-questioning or trans school-children whom UCP candidate, Jennifer Johnson, compared to poop in the cookie-dough? Smith’s perfunctory promise to govern for all Albertans has evidently proved insincere, and her re-admission of the bigoted Johnson (who won her riding as an Independent anyway) into the UCP a year-and-a-half after booting her out for that odious remark during the 2023 campaign, quite unabashedly so.
Although CPC/UCP/PPC voters might disagree, Albertan voters, along with all voting Canadians, elected the federal government. That most Albertans voted in 2021 for one or other of those right-wing parties instead of the incumbent Liberals nevertheless made important electoral contributions to, of course, deciding which party would govern the nation, but also to informing Canadian politicians of public attitudes towards their parties’ platforms and issues of public concern, and demonstrating that elections are conducted freely and fairly. As it happened, Alberta is strongly represented in Ottawa by the CPC which took almost every seat in the province, a fact federal politicians and parties need to know in order to respond to Albertans’ concerns (indeed, from BC’s Interior and Plains to Western Ontario is CPC blue) and cooperate on matters of mutual concern. And other Canadians want to know too what Albertans (and others compatriots outside their respective provinces) freely chose and why. But one might as well be talking to a concrete wall as to CPC/UCP/PPC supporters.
One more responsibility a premier has is to Canadian citizens outside of cher province, even though they aren’t eligible to vote in that province, which is the nature of federations: each federate, or province, relinquishes a bit of its sovereignty to federal authority in order a federation can function. As remote Smith&Co’s responsibility to their own citizens consistently appears, and as performatively hostile to the federal governing party they behave, is it a wonder the all the ROC+Q sees are rabid pistoleros trying to renegotiate confederation with their backs up against the wall of Continental Divide, screaming out of their redoubt that they’ll be happy to unite with the Canadian front against tRumpublican tariffs, “—if y’all meet all our demands!” Queue Ennio Morricone and an echoing ricochet stop.
Smith strongly endorsed the secessionist booklet, Free Alberta Strategy (FAS), before she returned to politics and is closely associated with its authors (one of which was a former Wildrose/ProCon MLA, campaign chair for her UCP leadership bid who became her UCP chief of staff), and tabled the FAS-inspired Alberta Sovereignty Act immediately upon taking her seat in the Assembly after winning a by-election in a safe UCP riding. The Act instructs officials not to comply with federal laws if deemed detrimental to Alberta’s “interests.” Deemed unconstitutional by legal experts, Smith “amended” it by adding: “In a United Canada.” Just one of a litany of Acts so-deemed, it has likewise not been tested in court. The acid test was Danielle committing to national solidarity when meeting with her actual colleagues, but then trying to carve out a separate deal with the Orange-Goo-Tanned One the very next day. Like, “separate” squared.
Such duplicity is part and parcel with Smith’s pimp-pumping Alberta goo to tRump.
The divide between Canadians—and a not insignificant number of Albertans, too, I bet—and the Smith&Parker Gang grows more galling every day. An ape on a mule couldn’t miss how much tRumpublican attitude and rhetoric the Canadian right has adopted—which of course widens the chasm. All things considered, one isn’t surprised that the UCP is just fine with that, yet Smith seems blind to the straits she’s effectively sailing the prickly PP into, the punk who wants to rule Canada—all of all of it—and whose party the large majority of Albertans vote for and almost certainly will do so again whenever the every-soon next federal election is. Pierre Poilievre naturally needs distance from her secessionism—and, increasingly, from the ghost-author of the “Art of the Steal” and his buddy, Melon Hussk, all associations that threaten to make PP look like a fifty-first 5th columnist. But, as the lot seem to be suffering from the same impolitic disease, it’s probably not surprising the Polemic Poet was lately seen mushing his dogsled of slogans in Canada’s Arctic, promising the impractical like Smith does the unconstitutional, but in particular aping, almost verbatim, to copy tRump’s odious suspension of foreign aid. (I knew it! I knew it! Soon’s PP leaves off his nasty nursery rhymes he gets lost in the weeds—even in the frozen wastes of the high Arctic!) If Canadians were up for absurd dissonance, these flailing fortune-fellers of the far-right could be elected for life.
I’m still confident the majority of Canadians are getting, and will take, a lesson from the preposterous pretences and perfidious policies of tRumpublicanism and its Albertan supplicants, and, by inference, what a PP Parade would be like: unlikeable.
Take heart, my Alberta compatriots! Let us wrap up by paraphrasing Danielle Smith: “It’s no secret I have been unhappy with the level and quality [of fuck-ups our sabotage of AHS] has delivered…” Remember: BC premier Gordon Campbell was fired in disgrace by his own caucus when [drumroll] his Gallup poll numbers tied with Richard Nixons, 9%, the lowest Gallup ever registered. And that MAGA Logo thing? Don’t worry: although tRump probably didn’t know who that woman from Alberta was (she needed O’Leery to introduce her), he didn’t mistake her for Marla Maples. And Danielle’s probably not his type anyway.
“stormy Danielle Smith”
I see what you did there, inadvertently or not.
🙂