Claiming that “the West wants Ottawa out of its hair,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith yesterday named 14 members of her so-called Alberta Next Panel and recited a litany of grievances she has with the federal government, many of them allegations about how the feds are “punishing our energy sector and layering on policies to keep it in the ground.”
Also yesterday, news media reported the latest forecast by the influential S&P Global Commodity Insights, which indicates that oilsands production in northern Alberta will reach an all-time high this year with average annual production reaching 3.9 million barrels a day by 2030.
In other words, Globe & Mail columnist Andrew Coyne said of Ms. Smith’s announcement yesterday afternoon in what used to be known as a tweet, “the whole thing’s bullshit.”
“Alberta’s economy is not ‘under attack,’” Mr. Coyne’s tartly worded message continued, “the ‘status quo’ does not ‘threaten’ the province’s ‘way of life,’ there is no ‘constitutional right to prosper’ — though Alberta is prospering mightily, far more than any other province — and Alberta already is an equal partner in the federation. But hey, let’s have a referendum anyway, on … something.”
I am grateful to Mr. Coyne, who is not exactly a woke cultural Marxist, for concisely summing up Premier Smith’s commentary in appropriate terms.
As Alberta-born economist Jim Stanford reminded us last May in the Toronto Star, Ms. Smith’s never-ending fight with Ottawa is an obvious diversion from provincial policies that are driving down wages and driving up living costs here in Wild Rose Country. Albertans need to remember, he wrote, “it wasn’t Ottawa that laid them off, cut their pay, froze the minimum wage, drove up electricity and insurance costs, and put their health care at risk. It was the enemy within.”
Despite the premier’s transparent claims to the contrary, the obvious if unstated goal of the Alberta Next Panel – a supercharged version of former United Conservative Party Premier Jason Kenney’s equally ridiculous but less sinister 2019 “Fair Deal Panel” – is to push sovereignty-association, or outright separation.
Mr. Kenney’s panel only flirted coyly with separatism. Ms. Smith’s, which she will direct herself, appears intended to set the stage for Alberta separation if that’s what it takes to free the fossil fuel industry from environmental regulations, fair royalties, anything that stands in the way of a pipeline, and the polluter-pay principle in its declining decades.
The mechanism will be easy-to-manipulate referenda – which Ms. Smith described yesterday as her favourite form of democracy – on all those bad ideas that Albertans have made clear repeatedly they’re not interested in: Replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta pension, replacing the RCMP with an Alberta police force, replacing the CRA with an expensive provincial tax agency, and demanding constitutional changes not within any province’s power to make unilaterally.
If Ottawa won’t truckle to this nonsense, the threat of separation or 51st statism can be rolled out in the guise of “Alberta sovereignty (in a united Canada).”
“The work will include identifying solutions advanced by Albertans on how to make Alberta stronger and more sovereign within a united Canada that respects and empowers the province to achieve its full potential,” the government’s press release stated cutely. “It will also include making recommendations to the government on potential referendum questions for Albertans to vote on in 2026.”
“We aren’t putting a separation question forward,” Ms. Smith insisted to a reporter at her news conference at Calgary’s Heritage Park, “we’re putting forward a question that would strengthen Alberta’s sovereignty within a united Canada.” (Remember, when Ms. Smith and the UCP talk about Alberta sovereignty, they mean that Alberta alone should have the right to exercise its sovereignty in federal jurisdiction and on other provinces’ territory. This kind of sovereignty, naturally, is not reciprocal.)
“There are two potential questions that are being put forward for citizen-initiated referenda,” she continued. “One from Thomas Lukaszuk, which has one perspective, and one from the Alberta Prosperity Project, which has another. I’ve indicated if there are other referendum questions that get sufficient numbers of signatures from the people, 177,000, we would add those to the referendum.
“But at this point there isn’t an active petition campaign, there’s just a couple of questions that have been filed,” she shrugged. “And I don’t know if either one of those, or both, are going to get the number of signatures. But we’re gonna go ahead and put forward the questions that we hear from Albertans.”
“She should know that there can only be one petition, and the one that is filed first goes ahead,” Mr. Lukaszuk, a former Progressive Conservative deputy premier told me yesterday evening. “She should also know that the question that the APP is proposing is not constitutional and cannot go ahead as a referendum question.
“It is troubling that the premier who just amended the act has no clue what the act sets out in law,” he added.
It’s also troubling, one might observe, that there’s not enough money in Alberta to pay for COVID shots, but there’s always enough for another “panel” engineered to undermine the country and advance the cause of separation.
In addition to Ms. Smith, the 14 panel members named yesterday are:
- Environment Minsiter Rebecca Schulz
- Leduc-Beaumont UCP MLA Brandon Lunty
- Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock UCP MLA Glenn van Dijken
- Just-elected Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills UCP MLA Tara Sawyer
- Fraser Institute vice-chair Andrew Judson
- Retired appeal court judge Bruce McDonald
- University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe
- Business Council of Alberta President Adam Legge
- Private home-care company executive Sumita Anand
- Agricultural consultant Melody Garner-Skiba
- Whitecap Resources Inc. President Grant Fagerheim
- Didsbury physician Akin Osakuade
- Acupuncturist Benny Xu
- Questerre Energy President and Manning Foundation Chair Michael Binnion
Ms. Smith said one more member from an Indigenous community will be named to the panel soon.
Despite the presence of a retired judge and a prominent economist, no one is going to call this a balanced panel.
According to its snazzy website, the panel will hold managed “town halls” in 10 Alberta communities in July, August and September, and “online town halls” in October. Registration within a two-week window will be required to participate.
The website includes six online surveys that require participants to watch a short video first. One, on immigration, asks if Alberta should withhold social services from immigrants who don’t have “Alberta-approved immigration status.” What next? Alberta ICE raids?
Hmmm … seems Smith likes Carney and looks forward to all kinds of new projects. At least that’s what she said last week.
I guess Alberta will still be governed by ADHD.
And it looks like Rebecca Schulz is the new Miranda Rosin.
She’s fresh-faced, but that vacant look in her eyes tells that there’s no one home.
Oooooh! Mean! DJC
Factual actually!
Cruel, but fair.
So I went to complete the surveys at https://www.alberta.ca/alberta-next-panel-engagement, and you can’t do the survey until you’ve watched videos on the six topics. You must sit through the propaganda before the government will let you speak your mind!
In addition to having to sit through propaganda videos first, you are also required to submit your exact postal code (all six digits) and provide your first and last name. I’m retired and could give a rat’s ass if Danielle Smith knows my views, but this could deter many people from completing the surveys. Then you finally get to respond to several loaded questions. In the Alberta Pension Plan survey I completed, there is no question about whether you support or oppose leaving the CPP, and not even an option to leave a comment. Plus question 6 did not even allow me to check a box due to a technical glitch.
Except they won’t let you speak your mind as you must agree to one of the answers that supports the question and if you don’t then you are not allowed to move on – at no point was I given a opportunity to express my opinion.
I’m disappointed Professor Tombe agreed to serve in this exercise. I’d thought him more sensible.
Me too. However, I am not surprised Tombe is on this sham panel. He once claimed there were advantages to Alberta instituting its own pension plan to replace the CPP, but he failed to list even one advantage. That’s when I got wise to him.
Yes, Smith recites list of grievances is becoming a cut and paste headline. However there are two important things going on here politically now.
First of all Smith is rattled by the separatist movement, which by the way she helped create by her never ending grievances. She risks becoming the Alberta version of Quebec politician Lucien Bouchard, except substitute the word grievances for his favorite word humiliations. However, unlike him she has not become an outright separatist yet and remains in the closet or on the fence so far.
I feel the noticeable reduction of UCP support in the recent safe rural seat has her wondering how to woo back those dissatisfied with the UCP. However, I would argue those voting for the separatist parties now may be as much a protest against the UCP and its handling of things like rural health care and coal mining, as it is about Ottawa.
Secondly, Smith keeps on bringing up grievances because they have been a good go to strategy and distraction from the problems of the UCP such as all the continuing investigations of her health care scandals, which seem to have resolved nothing for her so far. The problem in politics is something works until it stops working. This strategy worked well against the former PM who became especially unpopular in Alberta, but it does not seem to be working as well against the new one more interested in building infrastructure. However Smith keeps on singing the same old tune because it is her best material. Although this is starting to become tiring for people like Coyne and I suspect the CPC would like her to stop droning on about it too. She helped cost them the last Federal election and she isn’t helping their cause now either. But of course Smith doesn’t care, this is about her political self preservation not theirs.
Hi Dave. You make some good points about Smith’s loss of rural support. Dave Cournoyer says much the same thing in his latest post. Smith is trying to glue a far-right splinter back in place before the UCP’s annual general meeting in November.
However, I think Smith is “not an outright separatist” AT THE MOMENT; not since she learned that ¾ of us would vote either “No” or “HELL, no” to separation. For now, she’s hiding behind a maple-leaf flag; a textbook case of flying false colours.
As for her Base, Smith has good reason to fear a grass-roots revolt. Jason Kenney tried to rile up the latent separatist anger, and learned he couldn’t un-rile it. Kenney was kicked out because he wasn’t far-right ENOUGH. The same radical-right fringe (starting with David Parker) then gave Smith the UCP leadership—and managed to install their Chosen One in the premier’s office.
If Smith can’t or won’t deliver what they demand, the radical-right nutjobs will turf her out of the party, just like Jason Kenney. Smith knows this. I very much think Smith DOES care—about her political self-preservation, just as you say.
It amazes me the amount of horse shit that drips from Dani’s mouth…….the UCP are nothing more than POSTMEDIA cheerleaders for the publicly funded O&G industry…….how embarrassing for Albertans……this provincial government is…….
We all know the old saying, “You can fool some of the people all of the time…..”. I believe this old saw will successfully give Smith the runway she needs to push this province towards ruination with her bullshit panel.
I agree with Lisa Young, Trevor Tombe has put himself on the bench if any criticism is required for this bogus panel.
I can’t speak to why Prof. Tombe has chosen to spend his credibility on this panel, but I can tell you what happened to some prairie academics who spoke out about PM Harper’s ill-advised agricultural policies. They were quietly told in no uncertain terms that they would never have funding for another graduate student if they did not STFU.
I predict this traveling gong show will last perhaps 1 month. She will fold it up quietly on Friday in late July, after receiving receptions that makes the latest brouhaha in Ft. Macleod look tame.
Gerald: We can hope. I expect they will control who gets into these meetings pretty tightly. DJC
One could suggest with Traitor Danis’ open arm and wide on policy with the industry that wishes to extend the process that has burdened AB with a 1/4 trillion dollar clean up bill is deserving of having her head shaved for it. AB would still be in the same fix but her imaginary federal bat entanglements might finally get the exposure they deserve.
Why is University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe lending his academic credibility to this charade — and damaging his own?
Presumably, the other members of this panel have no credibility to lose.
Smith chose a living history museum for her press conference when she really meant to go to the one for fossils. I suppose Drumheller is too far to drive, and besides, we wouldn’t want people to know that dinosaurs still walk amongst us.
In other news, I’ve heard someone is trying to generate interest in a statue to remember the Smith era. It will be a plain aluminum pole erected in the Ralph Klein Memorial Swamp in southeast Calgary. People will gather to air grievances, much like the annual Festivus celebration, but every day because it’s Alberta.
I don’t see Preston Manning on the list?
So, I just checked out the survey about replacing the RCMP. To start, there’s a three-minute video (I turned off the sound). Then you have to give your:
-postal code
– first name
-last name
That gets you to the survey. First question is “What do you like about the Alberta Police Service?” Responses:
-Accountable to Alberta
-Organize to better serve rural communities
-Officers permanently stationed here, vs. RCMP temporary postings
Second question: “What concerns you about shifting from RCMP to APP?” Responses:
-Startup costs
-Hiring staff
-More expensive long-term
That’s it. Two questions. 20 seconds. Click “submit” and a screen for comments pops up. You have to re-enter your contact info. Oh yeah–they tell you up-front, and again under the comment, that non-Alberta opinions will not be counted. Sorry, native Albertans only! (I.e., people not resident in Alberta need not bother ’cause we won’t listen. It sorta makes sense. At least they’re honest about it.)
JFC Trevor Tombe, running low on intellectual standards / credibility much ?
I am stunned! I just watched Global news and saw a UPC government video. It says. that “if we are not satisfied with the kind, or type of immigrant, that comes to Alberta , we can with hold their Alberta immigrant papers and refuse them healthcare, education” and one other that I can’t remember. Is This really who we’ve become!? This UPC government is racist down to it’s core!
Good to see that there’s an acupuncturist on that panel. I’d hate to think that the Alternative Medicine sector didn’t have representation when totally bogus concepts are being debated on a provincial scale.
But where’s Preston Manning? I thought that he was Smith’s go-to guy when it was necessary to polish a turd.
They’re keeping Preston in reserve, in case, you know, in case the panel doesn’t hear what Smith wants to hear.
I would be curious to know Garner-Skiba’s views on coal mining in the Eastern slopes and the management of our watersheds, and also her opinion of Smith’s approach to gender affirming care. Maybe real dialogue is possible?
A quick web search showed Garner-Skiba has a consulting company, https://www.garneringresults.ca . Her bio lists a lot of organizations.
The maple MAGAts love Smith and her hate. And she never fails to deliver. These conditioned stooges are ripe for the picking and deserve to be fleeced by the pilfering corporate class, even though they haven’t a clue it’s happening to them. Fascism arrives as your friend.
Keep trying Danielle you are losing a lot of ground with your mouth spewing garbage
Touch our pension and see what happens
Seniors rely on our pensions to live
So while Smith has nothing but praise for Ralph Klein and what he did to Albertans she is copying his panel stupidity as an excuse to waste more of taxpayers money.
I was told Klein paid them $780. per meeting and it was proven that some didn’t bother to go but we’re still paid, does anyone remember that?