Let it be acknowledged that while Jason Kenney’s assessment of the danger posed by the United Conservative Party’s continued flirtation with separatism is spot on, it was he, Alberta’s first UCP premier, who sparked the fire his successor is now fanning.
In a conversation yesterday with journalists on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of Calgary-based ATCO Ltd., where the former premier sits on the board, Mr. Kenney warned that the government of Premier Danielle Smith is playing with fire by encouraging secession talk and enabling a separation referendum.
“This kind of stuff is kryptonite for investor confidence,” Mr. Kenney told the reporters.
“People who follow Alberta closely in investment circles are paying attention,” he said. “This is playing with fire. And if Albertans doubt that, look at a real historical example of what happened in Quebec’s economy as a result of merely the election of a PQ government. Quebec has paid the price for the uncertainty created by separation for going on 50 years now. I don’t want Alberta to be in the same situation.”
This is all fair, and it’s a good thing Mr. Kenney said it, and he was telling it to the right audience. But let’s not forget that it was the same former Calgary MP and federal Conservative cabinet minister who welcomed the most extreme anti-Canadian fringe of the conservative movement’s base in Alberta into the UCP when he began the work of uniting the Progressive Conservatives, still shaken by their 2015 loss to the NDP, and the more radical Wildrose Party.
As commentator Dave Cournoyer, a keen observer of the Alberta political scene, posted Monday on social media, “Separatist parties are nothing new in Alberta politics. There’s usually 2-3 occupying the fringes. The difference today is that these groups now operate inside the governing UCP …”
And while, as Mr. Cournoyer noted, it is Ms. Smith who has granted this risky situation her tacit approval and “is making it easier for them to trigger a referendum on separation,” it was Mr. Kenney who got the ball rolling.
After Mr. Kenney’s newly created UCP took power from the NDP in 2019, he announced he would set up a “Fair Deal Panel,” starting the process of normalizing separatist sentiment in Alberta.
When he struck the panel, among its nine members was Preston Manning, the superannuated Godfather of the Canadian Right, who has since taken to openly predicting Western separation if Canadians wouldn’t do as he told them and elect a government led by federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. As we all know now, the threat flopped and the Liberals, this time under Prime Minister Mark Carney, returned to power.
When the panel circulated an online questionnaire in 2020, among the questions it asked its self-selecting respondents was “how much would the following options help Alberta improve its place in the federation?” One suggested answer: “Alberta alone or with other Western Provinces separating from the rest of Canada.”
As one Internet wag wondered at the time, “What could go wrong?” Now we know.
As I wrote on March 1, 2020: “We know from the history of the postwar world that separatist movements are among the greatest threats to peace and security in modern nation states, whether those with some historical and cultural justification as in Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec, or those that exist only to serve the mischievous ambitions of local power elites.”
So we can say tonight, with a combination of sincerity and heavy sarcasm, “Thanks, Kenney!”
Yesterday, Mr. Kenney went on to say that he believes Albertans would overwhelmingly vote against secession.
He may have drawn this conclusion from the harsh reaction his panel got to some of his ideas – mostly ripped from the notorious Firewall Letter, the risible independantiste screed penned in 2001 by Stephen Harper, three of his market-fundamentalist college teachers, and a couple of hangers on.
As one citizen, speaking for many in the hall, told the panel in Fort Saskatchewan in January 2020, “Albertans do not want to leave the country, they don’t want their own pension plan, and they don’t want to lose the RCMP. We’re in the best country in the world and it shouldn’t be messed with!”
But even a small but significant “Yes” vote, Mr. Kenney cautioned this week, could drive investment in Alberta away.
But if he thinks this is going to discourage Ms. Smith from encouraging the separatist faction in her party, he and the rest of us are probably out of luck. If nothing else, it’s just too good a distraction from the many self-inflicted wounds now faced by the Smith Government.
Case in point: In the Legislature’s Question Period Tuesday, former infrastructure minister Peter Guthrie, now sitting as an Independent after being kicked out of the UCP Caucus last month, added to the long list of alleged improprieties faced by the government when he asked the premier what her husband was doing at a meeting about a proposed railway megaproject last year.
He said: “Has your husband ever been a registered lobbyist while you were premier, and if so, for what purpose?”
She said: “He has never, ever been registered as a lobbyist because he has never, ever lobbied any government, including ours, and I would ask for any innuendo and the slander to stop!”
Mr. Guthrie’s suggestion, clearly, was that David Moretta’s role at the meeting was as an unregistered lobbyist.
UCP House Leader Joseph Schow jumped in: “I find the nature of that question absolutely repugnant and disgusting!” He challenged Mr. Guthrie to say it again outside the house – suggesting, presumably, that Mr. Moretta might want to sue him for defamation.
Speaker Ric McIver, seeing his first day on the job take a turn, struggled to get the exchange under control.
This is entertaining stuff to watch, of course. But it goes to the fact, in Mr. Cournoyer’s words again, that the Smith Government now faces an “ethics crisis.” And a rather extensive one at that.
And how does Ms. Smith instinctively respond to allegations? Deny! Deflect! Distract! And how better to distract everyone than cranking up a separatist threat, real or imagined?
Kenney has perhaps learned from his own sad experience, when he humoured and encouraged the extremists with grievances against Canada too much. While he won his equalization referendum, it accomplished nothing. So in the end his own efforts were judged ineffective and were one reason he lost the UCP leadership to the current more extremist voices.
Of course Kenney, who dabbled in western alienation for political gain, has roots in Ontario and Saskatchewan and a strong interest in national politics. So he is certainly not a separatist, despite his past mistakes. He may now be positioning himself to lead the fight against it (and Smith?) here and to try save Canada. Of course for that to happen a lot of things unlikely to happen would have to occur. However, creating the UCP and becoming Premier also seemed a long shot too at the time he undertook it. Heck, what else does he have to do with his time now except to attend some corporate board meetings, which he probably doesn’t find that exciting?
So Smith may not only have to worry about Guthrie, who seems to know where more of her ethical lapses are, but now her predecessor too. In addition, the Alberta business community, which Kenney has close ties to now, is also starting rumble in discontent about Smith’s over encouragement of separatists. Well I suppose she still at least has Manning, who 30 years ago might have been a powerful ally, in her corner. After all she did give him a nice top up to his retirement fund for his COVID report that could have been ghost written by her, so I suppose he has to at least return that favour.
Perhaps this will be enough to save Smith, now weighed down by increasing scandal and in a potential multi front war with political adversaries, but somehow I doubt it.
Typical conservatives. Create chaos and then blame the other guy for the ensuing calamity. Jason Kenney is nothing more than a sickening opportunist if there ever was one. The UCP and their supporters are nothing more than teeth gnashing bullies who, just like Trump, are thin skinned mentally ill criminals and thugs. That the general population does nothing but sit back and watch these awful cretins destroy the public trust and worse is exactly the scenario Musk et al. and the people like him have been working on for decades. How brilliant to successfully have convinced the people that all is just fine and dandy when in fact the same people are living in a purposely created dystopian and dangerous human construct. Ergo: human society and by extension the Earth itself.
You are CORRECT………
Guthrie’s question is reasonable. All Smith had to say was no and then sit down and the others keep quiet, but they took the bait.
Now Jason is all concerned about the economy of the province? ah well perhaps he sees himself returning to his former position if Smith takes a walk or she is sent on a walk. If the Alberta Leg. is going to have question period such as this one, gee might be worth a drive over to watch the show.
@eaf
I could be wrong here, but I think Kenney might be positioning himself behind someone else he wants to run against Dani as the leader of the UCP.
Let’s see if my prediction comes true.
Danielle Smith keeps on digging a deeper hole and her and the UCP will see the whole thing cave in on them. Ric McIver isn’t up to the task of being the Speaker. What an incredible mess Alberta has right now with the UCP. What else does Peter Guthrie know? He seems to be a truer Conservative than the UCP are.
I claim that conswerveatives in Alberta smell funny, and not in a good way! It’s all kinds of flop sweat, alcoholic expostulations and just plain old poor hygiene!
Any way, our Hillbilly honcho premier got us a laugh line in the worst place for gophers! For our Dani then. A cautionary ballad from a Ringo! https://youtu.be/b5rpAqfd35Q
Personal note, POGO: Arigato! This is your blogger’s No. 1 karaoke song, which won me plaudits from the big honchos of Uechi-ryu karate in Okinawa. Alas, it went to my head and I tried, disastrously, to follow up with this one. https://www.google.com/search?q=o+danny+boy+youtube+johnny+cash#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:a150539d,vid:l_d6d-E_DwQ,st:0 DJC
Please sens, if I may. Ignore other posts, from POGO. Their battle is not winnable. The course is long. Centuries deny us.
The assumption is that only conservative groups will take advantage of the easier referendum rules – they are after all most likely to subscribe wholeheartedly to the idea of direct democracy. I think this is a great opportunity for progressive groups to join in the fun and make the UCP regret their misguided choices. Here’s a few ideas to get the ball rolling. How about a referendum directing government to reverse course on privatization of healthcare and fund the public system adequately? I bet Friends of Medicare wouldn’t have much trouble finding the minimum number of signatures to get that on a ballot. Or how about a referendum question led by the rural municipalities association demanding per-capita funding to municipalities be restored to 2018 levels, adjusted for inflation, or that the province “stay in its lane” with respect to municipal governance? I think there’s fertile ground in this referendum situation to make the UCP rue the day.
@Joiner,
Therein lies the problem of unleashing direct democracy for right-wingers inside a parliamentary system rather than a representative democracy structure.
Let the fun begin!
Was thinking the same thing…when life gives you lemons…
We know that PP is running for federal office in Battle River-Crowfoot. We know that he has publicly said he does not support separation. Is there a large enough cross-over between Alberta Separatists and federal Conservatives to force a leadership review to oust PP to replace him with someone more favourable to the separatists? Is the Alberta separatist movement too small in numbers within the federal Conservative tent to do that?
LM— given the connection between Maxine Bernier and Dr Modry (?) and the other anti vaxxers who along with Preston Manning/Keith Wilson and friends on the “Candice Malcolm show; all seem to be working together to break/ disrupt democracy. According to Mad Max, he posted that the PPC lost 700,000 of the 840,000 from 2021–83%.
” I suspect that the vast majority voted for the Cons , having succumbed to the- don’t split the vote-we must beat the libs this time- hysteria ”
(As to how accurate Max’s numbers are, going by the % of votes during the election, I haven’t been able to find the final numbers from elections Canada , and as to which way they would vote on separation, your guess is as good as mine. )
Max doesn’t seem to happy with the Cons and if I remember right, there was a PPC candidate running in the Battle River riding in the just run election. Would they make a play to try and oust Skippy– again–according to Max the Cons are still accusing the PPC of helping to elect Carney.
I saw a sign the other day, that IMHO, seems to sum up exactly what these people seem to want and what they are proposing……
Some people aren’t just missing a screw—– the whole toolbox is gone.
So to your question about numbers of separatists in the party, its hard to say. The three Conservative MLAs from Rustad’s caucus, especially Dallas Brodie , are all making the same noise in BC and even Scott Moe admitted there was a faction in Saskatchewan, but that he didn’t agree with them and wants to work with the new PM….. which must have been a disappointment to the agitators.
Preston Manning on CM show/Juno news saying Mark Carney is going to be Canada’s last PM. ….along with other sensationalized headlines on YouTube makes one wonder just what is in that Koolaid jug they’re sharing with Danielle’s extra long plastic straws.
I also have a question that no one seems to have picked up on: has anyone thought to ask to verify the so called signatures of the signees to prove that they are all actual Alberta residents?
If they have “outsiders” canvassing the neighborhoods in Edmonton, how do we know who has signed the petition.???
I seriously think that should be investigated. Especially since the UCP had the thing about signing up under age kids as members (ones not old enough to vote.
Randi-lee: Of course they’re not all Alberta residents, and not all real people either. But since you have to provide an address and phone number, there would have to be some organized chicanery to achieve that goal. DJC
Now that Kenney will be making the rounds with the media trying to be the next “Captain Canada” in his bid to reenter politics and save the country, it would be nice if someone in the media, say, David Cochrane, would remind Mr. Kenney that he did indeed start this fire.
As an aside, has anyone heard if Poilievre has moved his family out of Stornoway or are they squatting?
JE: They are squatting, apparently with everyone’s approval. Deplorable! DJC
Carney should have told Poilievre that remaining at Stornoway was contingent on him getting his long awaited security clearance.
JE, I believe Prime Minister Carney consented to Poilievre remaining in Stornoway as a way to “play the bigger man,” same as he consented to call a byelection as soon as possible.
That might get Carney some cool points for civil (and civilized) behaviour, but it won’t do him a damn bit of good here in Oilberduh–the whiney rich kid of Confederation.
@Mike:
The part I find odd is…
Regular people in Alberta are NOT doing well…which is why they’re upset. But nobody thinks to tell them that most of *what* they’re upset with, is the province. (other than indie news)
The province, with all that oil money; could have built rent-geared-to-income housing, provided excellent healthcare, increased their childcare budget, had superior social service safety net, etc etc. but it didn’t.
Where IS all that oil money provincial corporate tax, going? Or are the oil companies tax dodging? We know they’re receiving massive *federal* subsidies out of our pockets which is why the rest of the country want to slap Alberta for being whiny. We pay for their pipelines, we pay for their clean up, we often pay for their fires, we pay their spillage outside the province, we pay for their transportation infrastructure costs.
And…where are all the unions in this? Haven’t seen a whisker from those cats since this uproar, began.
That was quite a performance by Marlaina. Everything she does is ethically questionable. Putting on a show for the rubes doesn’t change that. Hopefully she will be able to get some rest in the next 5 months before the legislature resumes sitting. I’m sure she will manage to take a few more vacations on the taxpayer dime in that time.
Why is the media giving Kennochio the time of day? Can’t he just go away and enjoy his lucrative board appointments?
If Kenney looks like a bad penny, walks like a bad penny, and talks like a bad penny, he’s a bad penny.
He’s not wrong, but he should be offering mea culpas rather than sage remedies and warnings.
Can you imagine if Quebec had the same low bar for an independence referendum that the UCP just passed into law (a minimum of 10% of actual votes cast in the most recent election)? With the relative strength of the Quebec sovereignty movement, there would be an independence referendum there every six months.
Preston Manning should be deported to the USA.
I’d also nominate Danielle Smith, Rob Anderson, David Parker, Barry Cooper, Jeff Rath and Cameron Davies. Others will no doubt come to mind.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alberta-separatists-key-issues-1.7534003
Didn’t this soothsayer once crow “Watch out the lunatics are going to take over the asylum” right before the lunatics took over the asylum?
Nice move Jason , you might be the kryptonite.
Deny! Deflect! Distract! Dani! 4th Dimension chess again.
Looks like Mr. Guthrie struck a nerve with Smith. As they say, “if you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen then get out” so perhaps Smith should resign? What a great day that would be.
“Deny! Deflect! Distract!” appears to be the same tactic Donald Trump has been using for many years for all the nefarious things he has gotten into. Perhaps Trump coached Smith about that while she was in Mar-a-Lago kissing his ass?
By now everyone should have already received the heaviest of heavy memos. After a couple of decades of repetitively stoking of the grievance fire it is hard to miss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjCtHgNEcV0
Naturally, over the intervening decades, numerous high profile individuals qualify as lead vocalist, depending upon the amount of opportunistic attention seeking behavior desired, i.e., ‘publicity’, political and/or personal.
With that in mind, or not, is Special K drinking his super sauce again?
(i.e., When you find yourself in danger, or when you’re threatened by a stranger, or when it looks like you will take a lickin’, there is someone waiting who will hurry up and rescue you. Just Call for Super Chicken!)
Because, as noted above, “it was he, Alberta’s first UCP premier, who sparked the fire his successor is now fanning.”
Besides, B(ig) S(moke) knew the job was dangerous when she took it and she also knows that in a carefully cultivated symbiotic relationship old political dogs simply cannot wag their own tails without help from the separatist pawns occupying the outermost political fringe.
Not a Kenney fan but he’s smart to call this out even if I mistrust his agenda. Unlike Smith though–he never actively legislated to make calling a referendum, easier.
I mean, what does Dixie Dani *want*?
By her public behaviour she is actively driving investment *out* of the province then demanding the rest of the country cover the costs that corporations would ‘normally’ assume–as per conservative privatization, thinking.
Understanding her public utterances is like nailing jello to a wall. She reminds me of Kelly Anne Conway. Lots of gish-galloping and pivoting and reframing without a single cohesive thought behind it and anyone listening just winds up with a migraine after ten minutes of trying to follow her twelve trains of thought speeding full bore down the tracks and none of them meet at a station, anywhere.
That kind of public nonsense doesn’t inspire confidence in anyone.
Don’t know how anyone else takes it but to me, it reeks of unhinged panic–unlike Conway who used obfuscation as a professional political tactic.
Is it possible that at least some of the push for an independence referendum is actually an(other) attempt to get rid of Danielle Smith as UCP leader? It appears that there are people in the new Republican Party of Alberta who have ties to the 1905 Committee, which tried and failed to orchestrate a coup at last year’s UCP leadership convention. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the separatist furore is actually based on the anti-vaxx, convoy lovin’ folks’ belief that they’ve been persecuted and unfairly punished? Not the economy. Not pipelines. Not Bill C-63. Just a bunch of disgruntled people who don’t understand how government or courts function in a democracy. A certain former talk show host might just be regretting all those hours spent promoting ivermectin and casting doubt on mRNA vaccines. Not to mention cheering on the Coutts’ blockade.
As for Dear Leader, he wants to be prime minister of all of Canada – not just the eastern bit. And perhaps serve up some revenge. Well chilled, of course.
Highwood Hippie: It’s not only possible, it’s damn near a certainty that the 1905 Committee, the Republican Party of Alberta, Take Back Alberta, the Maverick Party, various “think tanks” and “legal charities,” the Alberta Prosperity Project, the Free Alberta Strategy, Injection of Truth, various education “choice” groups, anti-abortion groups and so on involve many of the same people, often simultaneously, and that they mostly know one an other. DJC
It’s a power grab for sure. And dimwitted Dani just handed both sides more power to topple her by handing a bunch of them pretty chairs.
She’s going to get strung up by both red tory-style conservatives and separatists because those two are in completely alternate camps while they’re both gunning for her. Nothing she offers either side will ever be enough for them because it’s not about political belief systems, it’s about exigent power grabs.
This is what happens when power-wielders don’t have a basic understanding of how actual politics and power, works. They don’t have to be sociopaths–they only have to have a pragmatic grasp of power dynamics.
As for PP, if there’s a single crack in the conservative feds’ focus–someone clever is going to drive a mack truck through it and dismantle it from the inside. Only a matter of time.
So Jason “Randy Bobandy” Kenney is back at it with his Captain Canada routine. Keen observers may recall my prediction in this space back when Kenney quit…well probably not but it strokes my ego to type that haha. Anyway, back then I predicted that Kenney would be replaced by someone so horrid and even more utterly corrupt that Albertans everywhere would be pining for the good ol’ Kenney days, even though they really weren’t good at all. One day that horrid person would finally be run off due to their own incompetence/hubris and then low and behold, Kenney comes riding back to town on his white horse to save the day once more. He would be welcomed back into the premier’s office with open arms by the rubes with long term memory loss because hey, at least he’s not that vile woman!
Impossible, you say? Not in Alberta.
Well I used to call “cranky brat”. Now I call “Yankee!” Fight now or fight later. These dogs want a tussle!
UCP inspired talk of separation is at least the second thing the UCP has done to restrict investment in our province – the first one was stop the development of renewable energy.
The UCP have a good thing going for themselves. They can implement ideology based policy without worrying about its impact on the economy, then when the economy sours they can blame the federal Liberals.
Anyone promoting the idea of separation at this early stage has their fingers in oil and gas. Smith is a full-blooded separatist posing as a mediator. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t been paying attention to Smith over the last decade.
Her and her UCP party are all fake Canadians, corporate mouthpieces who want to drain the province of its resources to line their own pockets at the expense of the people.
There is no doubt that talk of separation will kill investment and the closer we get to the vote the more people will ready themselves for pulling-up stakes and getting out of the province. A mass exodus will obviously kill the economy, but these so-called “saviours” of Alberta will see this as an opportunity (less opposition) to push their corporate agenda even further, selling-off our public services (health care, education, etc), whatever is left of them, to the private sector. And the UCP base of medieval peasants will be too ignorant to understand, celebrating their own demise.
Isn’t there some aphorism about wind and reaping whirlwinds? I don’t know if it’s biblical or from the Bard, but it perfectly encapsulates Kenney’s role in all this.
The parallels between the inception and evolution of the Alberta UCP and the federal Conservative Party are pretty obvious.
A cabal of hard right political agitators from Alberta and Saskatchewan found out that their firebrand version of conservatism wouldn’t fly in other parts of the country, so they orchestrated a “merger” — actually, a hostile takeover — with Canada’s original conservative party, then purged the new entity of the “Red Tories” that had been part of the old party’s big tent since Confederation.
Here, a similar cabal of hard-right political agitators, mostly from rural Alberta, found that their firebrand version of conservatism wouldn’t fly with more urban mainstream Albertans, so they and an ambitious federal carpetbagger orchestrated a “merger” — actually, a hostile takeover — with the more “big tent” conservative party that had governed the province from 1971 to 2015. They then purged the “Red Tories” from the new party.
Canadians outside Saskaberta aren’t buying Poilièvre’s act, and Albertans in Edmonton and Calgary are not buying the UCP’s act.
Jerry: Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.” DJC