Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sounded as if she were almost cackling with glee at a news conference Friday morning where she announced the creation of a “New North American Initiative” in cooperation with the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy to “foster a better understanding of the changing Canada-U.S. relationship.”
“This initiative will deepen academic and policy partnerships, and expand Alberta’s research capacity, to support and develop effective responses to shifts in Canada-U.S. relations,” Ms. Smith vowed in the canned quote included in the government’s press release.
Never mind the ambiguity of the title – is this a new initiative or an initiative about a new North America? Despite the paltry $6.5 million over three years the Alberta government is ponying up, mainstream media treated it as if it is a serious academic effort to understand and ameliorate the ever-changing whims of Donald Trump, not merely a bit of grandstanding in the United Conservative Party’s never-ending quest to own the Libs in Ottawa.
“Researchers will be tasked with developing a vision of what the continental relationship could become at a time of increasing trade uncertainty and geopolitical turmoil,” the CBC intoned, as if such a modest sum would buy much understanding of what’s going on in the great minds of the Trump Administration.
For a government that seems to distrust and sometimes despise academic institutions and scholars, at least those not in the business and engineering departments, the UCP sure craves a gloss of academic respectability on its efforts to serve and protect the oil industry.
Alert readers will recall that in 2019 when Alberta’s first UCP premier, Jason Kenney, announced his hobbyhorse Alberta Energy War Room, structured as a private company misleadingly called the Canadian Energy Centre, he boasted about how it would use its $30-million annual budget to pay for “data and research” that would provide “factual evidence for investors, researchers and policy makers.”
In the event, most of the money seems to have been spent on advertising in out-of-province cities that had little impact and writing ranty letters to editors about Bigfoot cartoons and the like.
Premier Smith’s government sensibly dissolved War Room 1.0 last year and moved its remaining employees into the civil service under the Intergovernmental Relations Department. “Researchers will now be supporting IGR in order to seamlessly continue this important work,” the government said in a statement at the time. Call that one War Room 2.0.
Now we have something that sounds like more of the same announced by the UCP at the University of Calgary.
“Today marks an important step forward, not just for Alberta, but for Canada and our academic and policy communities across North America,” enthused Rajan Sawhney, who on Friday morning was still Ms. Smith’s minister of advanced education.
“Right now, most research and analysis on Canada-U.S. relations originates from east of the Prairies or from the U.S. itself,” complained Ms. Sawhney, who that afternoon was shuffled into a new portfolio. “This narrow focus too often fails to reflect the priorities, or even the realities, of Western Canada. If we are to respond effectively to these shifting dynamics all parts of Canada must be heard and reflected in our academic and policy thinking.”
That, it is said here, sounds like an unexpectedly frank admission the purpose of this modest expenditure is to provide justification for the ideology and policies of the UCP Government.
Just how respectable the School of Public Policy is as a source of truly independent research has been subject of past debate, although media reporters reading Friday’s press release seem not to have picked up on it.
In 2014, former Simon Fraser University professor Donald Gutstein described the School of Public Policy as “a neoliberal think tank embedded in a university” and “a marriage of business and ideology” in his then just-published book, Harperism.
Mr. Gutstein observed that it should come as no surprise that “the school emphasizes research supporting the oil industry, given the industry’s influence, at least at the administration level.”
Things may have changed in the intervening years, of course, but the likelihood is that we now have another ideologically correct War Room, with a little academic lustre provided by its association with the U of C.
Let’s call it War Room 3.0.
Given what Mr. Kenney was prepared to spend on the first War Room, taxpayers should be relieved they’re only being asked to fork over $2.2 million a year. That should cover a few trips to the universities of Lethbridge, Colorado and Nebraska, which are said to be somehow involved in this effort.
Pollster publishes detailed information on survey mentioned by Postmedia
According to a column published by Postmedia on Thursday, a new survey by respected Alberta pollster Janet Brown indicates a majority of Albertans now support replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta pension plan.
“Yes to replacing the CPP with an Alberta Pension Plan. 55 per cent,” wrote columnist Rick Bell. “No and keep the CPP. 45 per cent.”
However, the column did not include any information about the sample size, methodology, or for whom the poll was done.
Ms. Brown said in response to a query that the poll on a large number of federal-provincial issues of interest to the province was based on interviews with 900 Albertans aged 18 and over between April 29 and May 8. Respondents were randomly recruited by telephone. Ms. Brown gives the results a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 per cent, higher among subgroups.
The data was run two ways, Ms. Brown said: “Based on all those surveyed and on ‘decideds’ (i.e., excluding those who said ‘wanted more information’ and ‘don’t know’).” Mr. Bell reported only on the decideds.
Respondents were asked how they would vote if a provincial referendum were held on each topic. Questions also included respondents’ views on replacing the RCMP with a provincial force (the nays have it) and separating from Canada (the nays have it again, but not by a comfortable margin). Other topics included the province collecting its own taxes, taking over immigration, and various provincial demands of Ottawa.
The poll was done for the Alberta government, and Ms. Brown had not expected it to be released to the public. Since it was, she told me, she has now posted it to her firm’s website in accordance with the guidelines of the Canadian Research Insights Council, which advocates for high standards and ethical conduct in polling.
There is a lot of data here and it is extremely interesting – not just about what Albertans think, but also about what this government wants to know about.
While the Postmedia column accurately reported the significant number of respondents who said they would now support adoption of an APP, versus the number who oppose it, as noted it does not mention the number who indicated they didn’t know or would need more information to form an opinion.
That said, no one should be shocked that the APP idea, as bad as it is, is doing as well as it is. Its advocates have had their eye on the ball, and its foes have not.
The UCP and its allies have been beavering away for months, especially in rural Alberta, to persuade voters to back the scheme. For their own reasons, the NDP Opposition, the federal government, and the CPP Investment Board have all been acting as if Albertans would never be so foolish as to allow their government to pull out of the CPP.
Well, it’s time for them to wake up and smell the coffee. Ms. Brown is a serious pollster who knows Alberta and these results should send all those organizations to battle stations.
Looks like, either, Presto Manning or Ted Morton is getting this gig.
I vote Morton, because he’s an American/Canadian, he’s always been a closet separatist, he’s one of these family values/evangelical/CONs that the Republicans love so much, and he probably has been yelling for a UCP gig for a while now.
Got to keep these trough pigs fed.
Exactly! Nothing more to see here.
Another poll done by calling people who still have land lines. So they say 18 and over, but it will be mostly people 50+.
Easy there, cowboy. Haven’t had a landline since 1998. They just don’t work well in the car!
Danielle Smith is a deceitful as they come. Albertans have made it clear that they oppose a provincial pension plan. Her separation aspirations, which she claims to not support, are quite clear, and it includes getting a pension plan for Alberta. It’s something she wanted to avoid as a provincial election issue, because it would have stopped the UCP from getting any further in 2023. She knows this because it is a retread from her period as the Wildrose leader. It still doesn’t matter who conducted this poll, Albertans do not want their CPP put at risk. Stephen Harper was appointed by Danielle Smith to chair AIMCo, and this was a big mistake. There were conflicts of interest concerns noted, and the the Alberta Ethics Commissioner, Marguerite Trussler, who raised these concerns, from a reliable source, was replaced with someone who is a UCP associate. At least $4 billion of pension fund money was lost in AIMCo. Under the CPC, when Stephen Harper was PM, $35 billion of people’s life savings had ended up gone in the income trust fund fiasco, which lost a whopping $35 billion. These people cannot be trusted at all, yet here we are. These Postmedia columnists still are intent on glorifying the UCP and Danielle Smith, when they are making Ralph Klein look like a saint, even though he was also very bad.
A new initiative for America North, eh? I thought it was “Texas North” but I guess it might not translate from Canadianese to American that good. To expand capacity to shift a Sovereign Alberta to the United States, huh? I’m relying on that good, clear mission statement, right up front: to foster understanding of this “vision”—and that’s a good thing, I think, cuz still the only sense can be made of it is as the official announcement of a state-run intelligence-gathering and propaganda arm of the UCPolitburo. They don’t call ‘em universities fer nuthin’.
A “vision” of a “continental relationship” is called a map, the one the UCP is tasked to Crayola-in with coloured pencils, possibly a shade of purple lighter for the Sask party’s jurisdiction, Alberta’s only friend, and to use it to threaten the ROC+Q with geodictional diagalony .
“War Room 3.0” is a good name for it. Gosh!—how far it has come!! A corporate entity wholly state-owned, funded, and instructed, War Room 1.0 was a bucket of free Jupiter joy-juice used to muster rur-feral Evangelical Justice Warriors against heinous allegations that radical-left environmentalists were spreading lies, damned dirty lies calling Alberta oil “dirty”, and were so pervasively effective that it was as good as proved they were funded by dark money from deep pockets of hostile foreign interests seeking to depress the price and prospects of Alberta’s advertised “ethical oil” claimed so ethically “clean” it even mops-up those hard-to-reach places—like China— and helps prevent smog too. (Environmentalists were actually talking about wash-your-hands ‘dirty’, not ethically ‘dirty’—although calling the deposit “oil sands”, and calling hydrocarbon fuels to cook the thick, tar-like bitumen out of the sand and refine just enough gasoline-like solvent to dilute it so it can flow through a pipe “clean” is stretching the ethical aspect too.)
WR No.1’s number-one task was to collect the data proving the charge, then identify these domestic and foreign enemies of Alberta energy, expose their dirty little game, publicly embarrass them with intense, resentfully smug vitriol as only Alberta’s Foundered Father of Defederation and 1st UCP half-term premier Jason Kenney could do …and then tell them to stop? Shake your fist at them? Declare war?
$3o million a year buys a lot of data mining online. Of course pundits, journalists and news media searched independently and quickly confirmed that the anti-Alberta energy accusation was campaign-style hyperbole; some wondered why K-Boy didn’t phase the inquiry out as soon as politic after winning a landslide 2019 election; instead he foolishly let it drag on and on, the commissioner asking for deadline extension after extension, public suspicion becoming more convinced as weeks and months went by that the long-awaited report was delayed because there was really nothing much to report. And eventually the UCP was foist upon the petard of the embarrassment they intended to drop on others, the imaginary foreign “enemies” of a subfederal jurisdiction in Canada. Curious position because foreign enemies are usually a federal, not a provincial concern—federal-envy?
(K-boy, after garnering only 51% under party review, was seen leaving the building with a Bigfoot-print on the seat of his trousers, and was very soon replaced by Take-Back-Alberta’s candidate, Danielle Smith with 53%).
Still, W.R.No.1 did collect data, not the kind Kenney hoped for but probably the kind the investors, researchers and policy-makers expected (investors who took the alleged-foreign-enviro conspiracy on faith instead of waiting until the evidence was in could have jumped the gun by betting on the Keystone pipeline like K-Boy did before waiting to see if Biden won the 2020 election when he promised to shit-can the line if he won; he did win, disappointing a lot of True Believers, and a heck of a lot more Albertans who got stung for over a billion bucks of lost investment. UCP MLAs and Alberta CPC MPs enthusiastically rooted for tRump—some even volunteering as campaign workers in the USA.
At the time, especially watching then-energy minister Sonya Savage read the inquiry’s mortifying report on TV, I wondered how somebody as smart as Kenney could be so dumb as to hang onto W.R.No.1, seemingly unable to pivot away once it started yielding diminishing political returns. (What is it with these neo-rightists? —so desperate to win power that anything that seems to hold out hope, that looks like it’s working, that’s paying political —and especially psephological dividends—they just can’t let go of it when circumstances change. How did CBC put it?—like in times of increasing uncertainty and geopolitical turmoil.
To give the K-Boy his intellectual due, though, he could well have hung on to W.R.No.1 for so long on purpose; perhaps it wasn’t merely a campaign tactic but rather a longer strategy to continually amplify anti-Liberal/anti-federal/secessionist sentiment which he himself kindled when he returned to Alberta and entered provincial politics in a ruthlessly successful and probably unethical series of moves that definitely turned the corner of political and public discourse, from the high road into the centre-guttered alleyway. If that was his aim he can be said to have succeeded, dubious as it were.
However, I’m inclined to think he’s too shrewd be so bold as to ride Buffalo herd himself. His daring, often outrageous and risky tactics to put together his highest achievement so far wasn’t so bold as calculated, fairly self-assured, yet absolutely all-in on the biggest bid of his life. How motivated? If he’d fumbled any of the five, almost back-to-back races (constant campaigning like tRump) that led him from the federal in 2015 to the top in 2019, his political career might have been finished. I mean, sooner than it was.
Do you think they’ll include this paper from the Calgary School of Public Policy in their search for the truth? https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/sppp/article/view/73574
A Multiple Account Benefit-Cost Analysis of Coal Mining in Alberta:
“We find small economic benefits in the form of incremental tax revenues ($440 million, undiscounted dollars) and employment earnings by mineworkers ($35 million, undiscounted dollars). Given any individual mine’s small size relative to Alberta’s overall economy, there is unlikely to be any material increase in economic activity relative to the absence of mine development. In contrast, costs to Alberta are likely to be significant. These costs come from displacing other economic activity (primarily ranching and tourism); significant and adverse environmental impacts on water, wildlife, vegetation and air; a non-zero probability the province will be responsible for reclamation liabilities; negative social impacts on nearby communities; and interference with Indigenous Peoples’ interests and rights. Overall, we conclude that coal mine development is not likely to be a net benefit to Alberta, and the costs are likely to outweigh the benefits.”
And speaking of Ted Morton, has he also done a switcheroo on coal? Or are we just keeping quiet now about the ‘exploration’ approval? https://albertaviews.ca/how-to-quash-a-mine/
The moderates, dare I say Liberals, dare I say Laurentian-Elites, at the School of Public Policy are indeed in a bit of a tizzy. They earnestly acknowledge we must listen to the 43 loud separatist voices so that we can ‘manage their expectations’. (Martha Hall Findlay on West of Centre).
Is that their plan as well to deal with the 600 Chiefs and representatives of the Indigenous Nations of Treaty 6,7 and 8 who stood at the Legislature on Thursday- manage their expectations? https://www.readtheorchard.org/p/first-nations-unity-displayed-at?triedRedirect=true
And I am so confused. Is Trans Mountain full or not? CBC news and the demoted Minister of the Environment say no: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/one-year-after-the-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-why-isn-t-it-full-1.7525284
But Martha Hall Findlay and CBC host Kathleen Petty say that’s a dirty lie. And Trevor Tombe is hopeful. So which is it?
Signed- A baffled, flailing eco-terrorist.
On the Trans-Mountain pipeline I believe Guilbeault’s 40% percentage was an error and it’s more like 75-80% used. If your CBC story has correct figures it looks like 89% now. I daresay it varies.
You can look for yourself here:
https://apps.cer-rec.gc.ca/PPS/en/pipeline-profiles/trans-mountain-expanded-system
Page down to “Throughput and capacity” and expand the graphic.
Since the Feds bought the line in 2006 it has been running around 95% capacity. Most of that (85%) is domestic light crude (250 million barrels a day). The remainder is heavy sour crude and refined products. Most of the new capacity opened in 2024 has been filled with domestic heavy sour crude. So corporate welfare is of great benefit to Alberta oil producers, but like some welfare bums, it is never enough for the likes of Stormy Danielle.
What was ever wrong? Well howdy partner! You kept electing them! For Dani! https://youtu.be/2sky1tt8vLA
Dixie Dani and her coterie of clowns have been lying to Albertans and they know they’re lying.
I’m gonna dumb this down and say it loud enough for the nitwits in the back of the room. For today, I’ll just talk about Alberta.
Shrinking population and landmasses through isolationist policies in a global economy is the road to economic disaster.
What do I mean by this?
In Alberta’s case, let’s start with the CPP vs UCP. Oil prices rise and fall. In fact, right now–they’re tanking. When times are good, Alberta has money. When oil barons flood the market, things get bad for Alberta…very, very, fast. And since Alberta has been shrinking its business base for decades just where do they think they’re going to *get* their pension money when this happens? A larger economy can take hits like this. Just a blip in the road. In a small population it soon becomes unsustainable. Then it will be stolen and privatized. Have fun.
To add to that point, right now Alberta has one major thing to sell…oil. There’s lots of that around the world and increasingly, due to cleaner energy systems, the world needs less of it. (Which is why they want Saskatchewan to rebel along with them. Because Saskatchewan has potash and potash is far more rare and urgently needed in the world, than oil.)
The same holds true for healthcare which is why they’re trying to privatize it. If they have to spread the cost around rather than leave people to die then they’re going to have to get rid of it.
With no water shipping access, what happens if Canada or the USA gets mad at them and cuts them off their shipping lanes? What happens if a rebellion arises in Alberta or and blockades or blows up the pipelines? What if another country takes offense at them? Yeah, zero income. That’s gonna suck. And in that case, why should the USA or Canada put money behind defending them? I thought separatists all hated NATO? (There’s good reason to hate NATO. They drag everyone into the USA’s expansionist wars but I digress)
Now, one could use this “detriments of shrinkage” argument to say it’s a good reason to join the USA. Problem is–does *anyone* think the USA is going to play fair in any land acquisition deal? Wanna ask Mexico, Russia, Spain or the French about that? Puerto Rico?
Let’s add to this that there’s no provision in the UN for them to do this. So, uh…illegal in global law. Have funzies selling anything after that.
The only governments who have successfully managed in small isolationist havens (to varying degrees) are dictator-run communist enclaves. Try selling oil out of one when embargoed.
Good luck with that, Alberta. They’re lying to you by telling you there’s an economic advantage to isolationism in a capitalist system.
Someone needs to shut this sh*t down. Fast. I don’t know how to go about doing that–but it needs to happen. As much for Alberta’s sake as everyone else’s.
“Small isolationist havens” could include tax free/tax avoidance mini-countries but they’re mostly islands. Ok, how about mining bitcoin instead of coal?
YYC Lefty,
Bitcoin is the Amway ponzi scheme for the investor class who think they’re clever. Same people who tanked the banks.
To mine bitcoin you need hydro. Lots of it. And a crapton of computing power to go along with it. If China starts selling Alberta tons of chips and computers to do this, you can rest assured what they want in return for those favours, won’t be to Alberta’s advantage.
Cuz like them or not, China is playing GO! while Alberta can barely win at horseshoes.
As for becoming a tax haven, the Irish and Caymen’s would like a word. If Loblaw’s starts pushing for separation, given what’s in their investor’s sales pitch pamphlet about how they tax dodge, making interesting reading–then panic.
I’d really like to see the financials of all these separatist movements, investigated.
B— As I’ve noted before, people in Alberta are not aware of or paying attention to all the crypto mining that is already going on in the province.
When I first came across it, 2+ yrs ago, there were 40 then, some only paying. 03 cents @kwh. Too bad ,so sad for the general public paying .19c.
Also the CBC and I don’t mean the TV network has been a pet “tech” project for Marlaina; another reason for the ‘office in Texas ‘– all the business with Bitcoin Consortiums in the US and all….
And just a point of interest when d’rump tells ‘the world’ something, most people ignore what he is actually saying. He said they didn’t need Canada’s energy. Why ? They had more than enough.
Interestingly enough, there was a bit on CBC news about Guyana the other night– ExxonMobil, Shell and other companies invested in Guyana who has supposedly more oil than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Think logistics for shipping. Think a small country with around a million (?) people.
IMHO Marlaina and co and her illogical separatists should be careful of the game they’re playing or think they are. They are just peewees amongst the bonkers and mashers.
Given the news coming out about the corrupt care scandal, the files keep piling up and sooner rather later the dues have to be paid. Just another little dust devil coming down 5th ave.?? I somehow think that this one has alot more clout to it. We shall see when all the dust settles.
And speaking of dust devils, I see the Coutts boys are up to more shenanigans, this time– trying to save the ostriches in bc, from government overreach– yada yada; the owner of the farm, coincidentally the daughter of a failed Alberta ostrich farmer. Make ‘work’ project for the Ditchbillies?
Keep them out of Alberta for awhile? Hmmm!
Amen Randi.
Alberta is a small fish in the small pond of Canada and they are utterly out of the depth on the world stage.
They’re out of their depth just dealing with the USA, never mind the global corporate and banking establishments that have eaten up and spat out entire countries, not just little provinces of 5M.
Do they really think they’re smarter than the entire global south? Look what has been done to Venezuela as a simple example. “Look we’ve go billions in gold saved up to help our people outta poverty!” “Welp, nope. We don’t like who you voted into your government today so we’re taking it all”–British Banking Establishment.
Albertans seem to be like Americans. Zero idea of what’s going on in the world outside their village viewpoint.
If they were taking some kind of moral stance for or against something at the federal level–I’d have a lot more sympathy for their point of view. But they aren’t. They’re like a toddler yelling “it’s not fair” the same way Trump claims “it’s not fair, everyone is ripping us off” with zero proof of that assertion.
Bitumecoins?
Looks like I picked to right time to move back to Canada.
Cool Xenu:
You picked the right time to come home, especially if you just ran away from the USA’s fascist regime. Being Canadian there is getting dangerous.
We’re still us. We still apologize to shopping carts when we run over our own feet and while we’re all panicking and lambasting Alberta at the moment…I’m pretty sure Dixie Dani is going to tank herself soon–if she hasn’t already.
B: I’m pretty sure C X ran away from Alberta. DJC
DJC, regarding Xenu…
Poe-tae-toe, Pow-tah-toe
lol
86 47 got James Comey a dance card at the TDS cotillion leading to the goo a lago!
New North American Initiative sounds like treason tw*t is supplying more of the ingredients for a fevered unholy oil alliance, backed with faux credulity while wrapping herself in a alibi of Canadian flag sovereignty . Back channel communiques, clandestine meetings plus justifications and hair trigger referendums to place blame on the people and slick, in place plans; all with a madame auctioning off a captive virgin vibe. Coupled with a grinding, make compliant “break us to own us ” attitude to any thing else Albertan she touches she will leave the mark when we are gone.
Asking a person younger than 35 about pension is just like asking an elementary school kid on marriage. What is more is that the question asked is loaded in at least three ways. First, trusting who will provide the guarantee? Anyone in Alberta has proved itself to be able to shoulder that trust? No meddling from the provincial government? Second, that APP will provide the same or better benefit is in itself a bogus statement. When all Albertans pull out of the CPP, there would be no Albertan in the remaining CPP to compare with. Also the remaining CPP would be different than when Albertans remain in the CPP. Third, who are those Alberta seniors and who will be those Alberta seniors, say, in twenty years? Does APP want to guarantee the same or better CPP benefits for the portion of the benefits those seniors have earned in the CPP and only for those Albertans who are already seniors now? They should have used the term of “all Albertans” (then it would have me included) the same or better retirement income.
“Q1c. If a provincial referendum were held today on the following topics, would you vote for or against each one, or would you need more information? Replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta Pension Plan that guaranteed all Alberta seniors the same or better benefits than the Canada Pension Plan.”
The above said, I tend to only trust the answer by those who are 55+. This group’s answer is 35% yes to APP, 44% no, and 20% asking for more information. Still a no to APP.
Peter, the lie they’re being told is that 10 minutes after it turns into APP–it will be privatized and within a couple years, seniors will be eating cat food. Likely they’re banking on seniors fleeing the province. Alberta simply doesn’t have the population to sustain it as much of their primary resource extraction workforce comes and goes in boom and bust.
Even if they feel justified in mistrusting the feds and believe that somehow, CPP isn’t fair–at least they’ll know the cheque is in the mail every month.
When it comes to bad ideas, the UCP is like a dog with a bone who will not let go of it. So they are relentless and will take advantage of every opportunity. Maybe they will not win on separatism, but if they win on an Alberta Pension Plan and possibly other things, that will be considerable consolation.
Of course, the sudden shift in sentiment on a provincial pension plan is suspect and I wonder when things cool down after the recent Federal election, whether these numbers will return to more typical levels. Still the UCP communications has been effective in portraying Canada as an obstacle to Alberta’s economic well being. Their endless war of political rhetoric against Ottawa also takes away attention from all the problems at home. Orwell’s predictions seem to have come true.
The UCP seems to be rewarding its people a lot lately, despite oil prices being well below what was forecast in their recent budget. First Cooper and now Sawhney. You would think they might be more frugal now. However, perhaps they sense their time at the trough could be coming to an end in a few years or this may be a way to try maintain unity in a party with some significant divisions on questions like national unity.
Perhaps Smith learned something from Kenney’s war room debacle. This is not quite as big and in your face. Maybe they have concluded this is the way to move some parts of their agenda forward without triggering too much opposition.
I don’t think the message has gotten through to the rest of Canada yet that Smith’s burning desire to hijack the Canada Pension Plan will hit their pensions, too. Did they ever work in Alberta? Kiss that portion of contributions goodbye. Will the entire plan take a hit? Yes, it will. Canadians in the rest of Canada will have no say in the matter, either. Smith will keep on tweaking referendum questions until she can hoodwink enough gullible fools in Alberta to rip off the whole country. This is an itch that Smith will scratch until it oozes and festers.
I knew people who had raised their children through the upheaval of the Great Depression and WWII, got to retirement age and had nothing to show for it. They didn’t get to retire at all. OAS and the advent of public health care saved many from grinding poverty and terrible living conditions. Now Smith wants to take this away from all of us. Am I wrong in saying that her most ardent supporters are the people who have benefitted from the CPP but don’t want anyone else to have it? This selfishness and ugliness is shocking to anyone with a sense of decency and humanity. People here have let their guard down now and they aren’t holding back, usually while boasting about their latest knee surgery, cataract surgery, etc. on the public dime.
Albertans are living up to their reputation.
CBC reported that the question was phrased as (paraphrased, I don’t have the text in front of me), “would you support the APP … if it provided the same or higher benefits as the CPP”. Sure, people would say yes to that, even though its not possible with the smaller size and higher risk that an APP would have. Just distort the question to get the answer you want.
Deb: You are correct. The question in full reads: “If a provincial referendum were held today on the following topics, would you vote for or against each one, or would you need more information? Replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta Pension Plan that guaranteed all Alberta seniors the same or better benefits than the Canada Pension Plan.” Of course, for the purposes of a ginned up referendum question, they’re going to take that as a “Yes, period.” All questions asked by the government are in the link in the story. DJC
Could be I’m getting it wrong, but looks to me like Ms. Brown and her firm have joined Dixie Dani and the Corruptcare Clowns in getting the ‘correct’ answer.
Duane Bratt is involved which means it has more brains than previous war rooms ever had. I don’t know if his expectations agree with the UCP gov’t expectations ab0ut it.
https://x.com/DuaneBratt/status/1923448743937847790
Whether we like it or not, Alberta is in the process of a revolution.
Revolutions are not necessarily violent events. Nor do they require a majority of the population to join. They consist of divergent groups, all of whom are united against the governing state in an attempt–not necessarily to coup it–but to fundamentally challenge the existing structure and the groups’ relationship to it for political gain, often at the expense of the rest of the population and the state they are fighting, against. Sometimes, revolutions are beneficial to outside states and funded by them for the purposes of divide-and-conquer.
We need to wake up to this because while Dani is part of it (diverse interest groups, remember?) she isn’t the whole of it. Republican Party of Alberta, vestiges of Alberta Rose, some of the UCP, Diagolon, white supremacists, corporations and various other groups are loosely co-ordinating to gain political advantages at the expense of the rest of Alberta’s population and the country.
This is serious. Hopefully Albertans and Canadians will wake up to this and stop it before it gets any further.
How involved is Tom Flanagan with the school of public policy these days ? Dixie Dani was the protege of the “just pictures” guy, and she’s an alumni of the U of C. Really looks like she’s gunning to have something named after here from where I’m sitting; while realizing she’ll never be wealthy enough to give six million dollars of her OWN money !? It’s not like the rest of the country doesn’t realize the how far right ideologically the u of c is, especially the school of public policy. She might as well just write her arguments down on a napkin with a crayon, no one is buying them and no amount of money is going to add weight to them.
What really gets me, what really bothers me, is they seem to believe wholeheartedly if only they can just repeat their talking points enough times or with enough variety people will magically start thinking like they do. If only enough people heard the gospel of libertarian fundamentalism then capitalist Jesus will come back and finally defeat woke. We get it, you’re a hateful shrew who thinks the sun belongs to American oil companies you don’t need to find new ways to phrase it.
“Oct. 12, 2004 The invitation came from E. Burke Inlow, another American, and the first head of U of C’s political-science department. An expert on Iran and the Far East who died last year, Inlow himself had been recruited directly from an assignment with the Pentagon. There, according to his son, Brand, a Calgary lawyer, he was engaged in “cultural work—providing intelligence to people we (the U.S. government) were sending to the Middle East.”
https://thewalrus.ca/the-man-behind-stephen-harper/
Alberta is just another resource-rich area to be hived off from, or used to destabilize a larger state, like Biafra or Katanga or North Kivu. The US intelligence apparatus has been managing Albertans for a long time. These are the kinds of games that see the head of the United Nations murdered by the CIA when the action really heats up. Harpo, Skippy and Marlaina were all excreted from the bowels of the University of Calgary. But you know, just buy your Tim Horton’s food substitutes from the low-wage workers who have to throw it together and it should all sort itself out.
Second point of questioning: do any of these smooth brained geniuses understand the only way alberta could have the same standard of services (including a provincial police force and APP) without the federal government is by WILDLY raising taxes ?
The implication should be obvious, what is public will become private, the government will no longer PROVIDE services. What little tax revenue is left will be spent on a draconian police force to protect the oil companies, rip up the treaties, and keep us all in line.
It is truly a fools gambit.
Anything the neo-fascist UCP engages in is an act of corruption. This latest act of doling out money to the pro-UCP department of Public Policy at the U. of Calgary on the grounds to – cough, cough – “foster a better understanding … relationship” stinks to high heaven (what is there to understand about a whimsical, revengeful tyrant with dementia that we don’t already know?). It’s a gift to those who are on-side with the UCP and should be rejected on the grounds that it is politically tainted money. Taking this money only further tarnishes the reputation, whatever is left of it, of the U. of Calgary.
This should terrify all of us. I was reading a report about the Heritage Funding the 2023-24 report showed that they had an annual rate return of 6.4% compared to the CPP annual rate of return of 9.2%. (and let’s not forget, the UCP lost $2.1 billion of the Teachers Pension fund!). These people are the absolute worst money managers and them giving us an APP by stealing ourCPP is like setting our money on fire.
I am really sorry. But this one’s for what’s left of my “Sensei’s” profession! https://youtu.be/NNpBLcb15Y8?t=2
When Smith first started pushing her ridiculous APP, I looked up the CPP act.
She has yet to mention, and I doubt she ever will, the amending formula. It’s 7 provinces representing 2/3 thirds of the national population. That’s right – the CPP amending formula is a higher bar than the Constitution amending formula. Anyone remember the last time a constitutional change met that criteria? (looking at you Meech Lake & Charlottetown).
After that, there’s the “management plan”. One year after serving notice of withdrawal, the exiting province must submit a detailed plan of how the new fund will be managed. The new fund management must be equal or better than the CPP. Smith has never mentioned that part – it’s an extremely inconvenient truth that puts paid on her delusional fanatasy.