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 as 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.
It has been quite the transformation for Smith over the years from supposed libertarian to controlling how schools deal and the health care system deals with trans issues and now seeming to be rolling in the poop with the most vocal social conservatives. If socons had any apprehensions about supposedly libertarian Smith, surely they must be diminished now.
As for that middle east thing, despite big bombs dropping oil prices still seem to struggle to stay above $70, so those nice budget surpluses may be a thing of the past. This is probably one reason for the current austerity. If this continues the UCP might even have to cut back on their generous deals to their favourite health care suppliers to avoid bigger deficits. Oh the horror!
Trump’s attacks on Canada don’t seem to have helped Conservatives in Canada. While the effect may not be quite as strong in Alberta, I suspect it is similar.
International conflict, a struggling economy, languishing oil prices and trade wars do not make voters happy. It could turn out to be a summer of discontent. Previous Premier Kenney had one of those and that was when things started to really fall apart for him.
@Dave,
Speaking of “summer of discontent” Dave, Trump finally got his wall.
They’re building a huge fully closed-off wall enclosure around the White House as we type. So…it’s so uproarious in the USA that the president needs to wall himself off in a fortified castle before his Enriching the Oligarchy and Impoverishing The Poor BBBill passes. Which it will.
LA is already (nicely IMO) filling the streets daily, chasing off ICE brown shirts when they can and other cities are following suit. There’s even an ICE alert app so neighbourhoods can show up, document and when possible, scare off the ICE gestapo.
Dunno if this summer will have a “Storm The Bastille” moment simply because the Americans are absolute rubbish at organizing these days (“No Kings”? What is that? Where’s the List of Demands for change?) but the Oligarchs in the USA might find themselves on the nasty end of the Rule of Unintended Consequences, soon.
Dave: Good points. I think Danielle Smith is finished, and sooner than many realize.
There’s nothing that demonstrates the hateful viciousness animating glibertarians as their long history of advocating for the tobacco industry. I don’t suppose anyone here remembers a delightful turd from the Cato Institute, back in the 1980s, arguing that teenagers taking up smoking was utilitarian optimal, trading a future grizzly death for pleasure in youth. and therefore any action inhibiting such choices was what The Economist would call “illiberal”. Danielle Smith’s column here shows her to have been an active participant in this propaganda exercise, for which — in my opinion — all involved should have been hung by the neck until dead. She is a monster. Eternal shame upon the heads of the Alberta electorate.
I think we can add a looming teachers’ strike into the positive news. A good opportunity for the MLAs at their summer barbecues to gin up support for the new industry-friendly collegiate and charter schools coming soon to a small rural town near you. Funded by municipal taxes. Finally cutting the union out of a public service. And as a bonus- signal the depravity and greed of the ATA.
Didn’t quite work out for the UCP candidate in Edmonton Ellerslie to go door knocking with Jennifer Johnson (photo’s still up on Facebook) – but it will be a hit in Camrose.
From school bored daze to VP of marketing for the Alberta fossil fuel cartel the ideological consistency and messaging is sadly remarkable, but hardly surprising for an individual whose sole concern is ensuring profit maximization for economically and politically powerful private interests. It should not need to be stated that bending to the will of those same private interests also coincidentally has certain personal monetary benefits, as future considerations in payment for obedience and as implicit quid pro quo.
We can talk about the idiocy of the UCP for decades.
Until we get to the underlying stench of American Imperialism and it’s desire to own every oil patch in the world from Iran to Alberta, we’re just scratching the surface.
Because that’s what it’s all about. Dixie Dani can make any claims she wants to anything she wants including public pronouncements and chest beating about how she loves Albertans and wants the best for them and it still comes down to a simple equation.
She is the vanguard of the Balkanization of Canada so American interests can rampage across the country in any way they want including slyly hinting at military force.
Carney’s cozying up to Europe notwithstanding, Europe is a spent force, as well. Until Europe starts making honest agreements outside The Golden Billion, we’re just tagging along for the ride and the EU will *not* “ride to our rescue” should it mean they have to face-off with the American Empire. They will never put troops on the ground here. Ever. They are in no position to economically strangle the US empire. Only Japan and China combined (along with the gulf states to some degree) have that power.
Canada is on the border of a world-dominating empire. The States think we’re they’re labradoodle–which is exactly how we act–and we need to seriously start looking historically how other small states have handled this situation successfully without being subsumed.
Hate Trump all we might, all he’s done is rip the pretty face off the rotted skull of American Imperialism which, while his rhetoric upset the velvet-glove wearers, has shown Canada and the EU what the rest of the world has been begging for us to hear for a century.
If this was not true, Canada, which prides itself on standing up for human rights, would never have sunk one dime nor bullet into America’s regime change wars or colonialist outposts. We’d proposition to Article 6 the USA out of the UN, today.
Smith is just a useful idiot to accomplish American/Global oil theft goals.
The Europeans, and Canada, and Japan, were long ago subsumed by the US Empire. If you want to see what a small state looks like that actually did resist the US, Cuba is pretty much it. As the old saying goes, F around and find out.
Murphy: Yeah, but we had a deal – we follow orders and you pretend we’re a sovereign nation. Gets you more votes in the UN, too. Now even that deal is off. DJC
“Poop-cookie lady”?
That’s no “lady”—that’s Jennifer “Poop-cookie” Johnson, UCP MLA for Nappycomb-Poopnoka!
i suggest that the u.s. move regarding the dst was a result of pressure from the tech bros – especially zuckerberg.
in his rant from his part time workspace, the tyrant also mentioned that europe was gonna get it as result of similar taxes in some of their nations, and meta has been getting clobbered in the recent past with regulatory and tax violations.
this action by the tyrant is exactly what the tech bros paid for.
brad, it’s been the legislation for a year now. It was enacted in June 2024.
They’re whinging because the bill just came due and they’re trying to tax dodge.
At this point I tend to think the only way we get rid of Smith is if or when she’s retires, either that or hope the RPA splits the vote enough in the next provincial election to where it dooms the UCP but I’m not putting either of my chips in either of those bags.
Kyle: There’s this big nasty issue called the MH Care (Corrupt Care) scandal. It finishes off the UCP.
Ayn Rand on smoking: “I like to think of fire held in a man’s hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind–and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.”
Hardly surprising, then, that Smith should promote the habit.
Selenium is good for drinking water. Smoking is good for your lungs. Immigrants don’t deserve public services. Trans people aren’t people. The economy is great, what’s your problem ? Danielle Smith isn’t a real person with real thoughts and feelings, she’s a mouthpiece who will say whatever nonsensical thing one may wish, provided she’s being handsomely paid for it.
She should be in prison. So should a good number of her cabinet ministers. The UCP and their Postmedia bagmen should be ridiculed wherever they hang their slimy hats.
The feat of being so incompetent, corrupt to the point of farce, purposefully ignorant, hateful, and disrespectful, not to mention potentially treasonous with her dalliances south of the border that she’s largely managed to REHABILITATE Jason Kenneys reputation as a capable politician is gobsmacking. Danielle Smith is truly unique, truly disgusting, and truly the worst premiere in the history of this province. Add it to the list of everything else she’s been the worst at. I see this woman in person I’m screaming at her to resign, and I’m not going to refrain from the expletives I constantly am editing out of theses comments before I post them. It’s past the point of politics, she’s a criminal arsonist who must be stopped.
Why is she celebrating Canada Day? Why would anyone who wants to separate from Canada do that? It makes no sense, until I remember that she is Batshit.
The irony of the UCP/Con nostalgia cosplay for a time before oil and gas is not often commented on, nor the fact the cowboy era in America lasted less than 15 years and was mostly highlighted by labour unrest among the cowboys doing the work. The whole enterprise collapsed with the great blizzards of the late 1800s, precipitated by the climate instability induced by the burning of coal starting at the end of the 1600s.
Their whole political project is based on fantasy and Hollywood myth making.
Ode to Canada Day………Smith and her CEO handlers might have a better chance at dividing a stuffed crust pizza than devouring the Canada in all things Canadian…..Time to take out the TRASH……
Marlaina on X, 2 days ago….
“Let’s talk about an Alberta Pension Plan for a minute.
With our young Alberta workforce paying billions more into the CPP each year than our seniors get back in benefits,it’s time to ask whether we stay with the status quo or create our own Alberta Pension Plan that would guarantee as good or better benefits for seniors and lower premiums for workers.
I want to hear your perspective on this idea and please chek out the video.
Get the facts. Join the conversation . ”
IMHO, my grandmother’s old ringer washer had nothing on Dani’s ability to try and white wash something put it through the ringer ,rewash, put it through the ringer, again and again and still not see that theat poop stain is not coming out.
Which really begs the question of “just why is she so blamed persistent on the APP “???
If I was being cynical I would start thinking there was something rather nefarious going on behind the scenes that Albertans should probably know about. The ‘”Au d’farm ” is getting a wee bit pungent.
And speaking of pungent, the “Black Hat Gang”….
Courtesy of Reboot Alberta and CAC…
‘They’ve traded in their sheets for black hats. ‘
The Black hat gang , Alberta’s quiet push for US style liberties.
Ties to the UCP, main contact Jason Stefan….the list goes on.
Also— therockies.life (10 mths ago)
“The Black Hat gang rides into the UCP inner circle with guns a blazing.
The proposal to revamp Alberta’s bill of rights with NRA style freedoms ,is drawing sharp criticism online from many who think it’s a distraction from pressing provincial issues……”
So, again the question is the black hat a fashion statement or dog whistles? Maybe someone should ask Skippy as well.
In his failed “international ” Canadian video, he was wearing a white hat, the other day, doing his best home coming queen impression, sitting on the back seat of the convertible in a winter jacket, he was waving his black hat. Could all just be a coincidence.
But then when he is asking Albertans to pony up $200 for a meet and greet at the Stampede breakfast, that’s as bad guy as it gets, imo. First gouge tax payers for another $ 1.5m for a by-election in a parachute riding, then charge them to shake his hand and get a selfie with someone that doesn’t want to be there.
Conversation between a couple of L.O.L.
He is so insecure…
He always needs attention….
I want to be recognized….
I had the best marks, even in kindergarten….
“Of course you did, you were 14″…..
Orange or Timbit ?? (or both)