Even considering the bad reviews the ridiculous Alberta Next Panel has been getting since Premier Danielle Smith announced it on Tuesday, her United Conservative Party is sailing into the Canada Day long weekend with favourable winds in its sails.
Three issues are unfolding just Ms. Smith and the UCP would want – although in none of those cases are they likely to admit they’re pleased with the way things appear to have turned out.
First, an Alberta judge granted an injunction blocking the government’s anti-trans health care legislation.
Second, U.S. President Donald Trump threw a tantrum and pulled the plug on negotiations with Canada for an exemption from his anti-everybody tariff policy.
Third, Mr. Trump’s intervention in the Middle East snake pit on the side of Israel has the potential to raise oil prices in ways that could drive the U.S., Western Europe, Canada and Australia into recession.
So how do these developments benefit the UCP?
The Injunction
Trust me when I say the UCP would not have been as pleased if Court of King’s Bench Justice Allison Kuntz had said no to the temporary injunction sought by opponents of the government’s ban on physicians providing gender-affirming health care for young people.
Sure, they would have called it a victory, but it would not have advanced their agenda of fomenting hate and fear against a tiny minority of Albertans to placate their MAGA base, raise political donations off the issue, and complain about “woke” judges. It’s a deadbolt cinch that this ruling will be the topic of the next round of UCP fund-raising emails, if they haven’t been sent already.
“Alberta’s government will continue to vigorously defend our position in court and is considering all options with respect to the court’s decision,” said a spokesperson for Justice Minister Mickey Amery. All options, of course, is a hint the UCP will use the Constitution’s Notwithstanding Clause to get its way if the courts declare the legislation to be unconstitutional.
Just yesterday, Ms. Smith was hobnobbing at the Ponoka Stampede with Lacombe-Ponoka MLA Jennifer Johnson, well known in Alberta as the “poop cookie lady” for her 2022 remark at a meeting of supporters where she compared trans children in school to cookie dough with “a little bit of poop in it.”
Her deplorable remark having come to light so close to the 2023 election there was no way to get her name off the ballot, she spent a few months sitting as an Independent before Ms. Smith welcomed her back into the bosom of the party in October 2024.
The great thing about this from the UCP perspective is that the party’s coded signalling will barely be noticed by urban voters who are likely to be offended, but it will be plain as day to bigots in the party’s base.
NDP leader Naheed Nenshi was certainly right when he said “this was never about doing the right thing: it was always about demonizing vulnerable kids to boost Danielle Smith’s political fortunes.” Sadly, saying that is unlikely to win the Opposition any votes it doesn’t have already, and it may cost it some. The UCP knows this.
Trump’s Tantrum
U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that trade talks with Canada are off because of this country’s digital services tax, which comes into effect on Monday.
“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” Mr. Tump honked on his Truth Social platform. “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”
“We have all the cards,” he boasted to reporters at the White House later. “Economically, we have such power over Canada.”
It’s a typical Trump tactic, of course, and no one should be astounded that the man is incapable of bargaining in good faith.
But since it had been looking as if things were moving along swimmingly for Prime Minister Mark Carney, you can count on it that Ms. Smith and her political advisors are delighted at this turn of events. Indeed, one wonders if one of her allies with access to the president didn’t suggest it to him. Certainly Mr. Trump would have been annoyed by the idea Mr. Carney was something of a “Trump whisperer.”
It won’t take long for the UCP and the Conservative Party of Canada, which nowadays it’s tempting to call the UCP’s federal auxiliary, to get back to complaining about Mr. Carney’s lack of success dealing with Mr. Trump and calling for Ottawa to adopt the UCP’s collaborationist approach to negotiations with the United States and surrender without a fight.
World Oil Prices
Well, this one’s pretty obvious – and, just as obviously, the UCP isn’t going to come out and say it would love to see a wider war in West Asia.
Nevertheless, it is a cruel reality that continued fighting in the region, especially if Iran moved to blockade the Persian Gulf, would send oil prices skyrocketing and a lot of that increase would find its way into Alberta coffers, at least in the short term. In other words, what would be very bad indeed for almost everyone in the world could turn out to be quite good for Alberta, and by extension its government.
It would also support UCP arguments that there’s a viable market for Alberta bitumen, even in a rapidly electrifying world, if it could double oilsands production.
Ms. Smith’s hero Mr. Trump may very much not want that to happen, so she’s not going to publicly disagree. But that doesn’t mean the prospect doesn’t warm the hearts of her party’s strategists.
Also yesterday, Finance Minister Nate Horner announced a bigger-than-telegraphed $8.3-billion budget surplus, thanks in significant part to increased oilsands production, helped by that pipeline the Trudeau Government built for Alberta. (Mr. Horner, of course, didn’t mention that last bit.)
The UCP Government will squirrel a lot of it away for the time being, to scotch demand for more social spending.
Also, the government’s news release mentioned as if in passing, “as a part of a Canada-wide settlement, a $713-million payment from three major Canadian tobacco companies also contributed to the surplus.”
That’s just part of Alberta’s share of the historic Canadian class action settlement reached in March against three major tobacco companies that will see $32.5-billion in compensation paid to Canadian provinces, territories and former smokers.
It’s ironic that a politician and former lobbyist who once argued in print that sometimes smoking tobacco could actually “reduce the risk of disease” may see her career boosted by this settlement.
