WHITEHORSE, Yukon – After that putative pipeline deal with the feds riled up the substantial posse of Alberta separatists at the United Conservative Party’s annual general meeting last weekend far more than the premier obviously expected, it’s hardly surprising Danielle Smith looked south for an inspiration about how to get the party’s lunatic fringe to settle down.
The fact that the premier was soon talking about guns, guns, guns was paradoxically mildly funny and deeply disturbing.
It’s mildly amusing – at least to me – that folks who justify their need to be armed to the teeth with the claim they must be ready to battle tyrants are so easily frightened by the suggestion a woke mob of liberal snowflakes who cry easily and worry about their pronouns might be coming for their precious firearms.
This seems to work almost every time south of the Medicine Line. Leastways, the U.S. Republican Party’s highly suggestible Red State voter base can be reliably worked up into enough of a tizzy by it to ensure they don’t notice what’s being done to their health care and their job prospects south of the 49th Parallel.
Presumably someone in the premier’s entourage thought, if it works in Oklahoma, it’ll probably work in Alberta too – at least with the minority that’s making Ms. Smith feel nervous right now.
It’s tellingly ironic that in the United States, which is nowadays threatened by a real tyranny – even if the tyrant himself seems to be rapidly running out of steam – the very people who insist they need to be armed to fight tyrants are the very same ones who support the tyrant most enthusiastically.
There is a lesson in this fact, I would suggest, about our own domestic gun nuts. Indeed, I believe if you scratch an Alberta separatist, 51st Stater, Trudeau-hater, anti-vaxxer, or F-flag purchaser, you will find someone who believes that the solution to all of Canada’s problems is more guns in more hands – as long, at least, as they aren’t woke hands.
So it was unsurprising, at any rate, that the UCP trotted out its weird Americanized fetish for firearms as an apparent antidote to the distemper gripping the UCP’s most Americanized fringe.
It didn’t seem to occur to the UCP leadership that just as most of us prefer to live in Canada, we also mostly prefer to live without the entire predictable depredations of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Either that, or they determined the vocal rebellion by the UCP base to be so serious, that the alienation of other classes of potential UCP voters would just have to wait to be dealt with.
What’s deeply disturbing is the kind of genuinely anti-social and dangerous rhetoric Ms. Smith and her flunkies decided to use to get the dudes to settle down. They even trotted out their supposed constitutional get-out-of-jail card, the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, to demonize the people Ms. Smith was in trouble for cutting a deal with.
“It’s time for Ottawa to stop targeting the wrong people,” she performatively hyperventilated in the government’s press release.
This was a canned quote. Ms. Smith didn’t show up at the government’s news conference on Tuesday, presumably out of concern she might be asked questions about why the wheels appeared to be starting start to come off her bus during the AGM.
“Albertans have the right to protect their homes and their families,” the quote continued. “No one should hesitate to defend themselves when faced with a threat at their own doorway.” Now this in not just hyperbolic, it is highly irresponsible, the kind of rhetoric that gets innocent people killed.
Having in effect encouraged the proverbial law-abiding gun owners of the UCP base to feel free to shoot first and ask questions later about anyone that comes knocking at their doors, she goes on to whinge that “law-abiding citizens, hunters, farmers and sport shooters are not the source of violent crime.” The tautology aside, some of them soon will be if they take Ms. Smith’s hysterical advice.
“Alberta will not stand by while responsible gun owners are treated like criminals,” her hysterics concluded. “This motion is about using every legal tool we have to protect their rights, uphold public safety and push back on federal overreach into provincial jurisdiction.” (You know, like the Criminal Code. Oh, wait …)
I’m not going to quote the rest of the disgraceful hyperbole in this news release, which in effect encourages Albertans to use firearms to respond to imagined threats. Suffice it to say that Mickey Amery, the “justice minister,” and Mike Ellis, the so-called “minister of public safety,” and the province’s ludicrous “chief firearms officer” – scare quotes justified in each case – say much the same thing.
And it’s all being done, rest assured, to try to get the separatist MAGA nuts of the UCP base to settle down – a doomed effort if ever there was one.
Nearly 47,000 people died from gun violence in the United States in 2023. The UCP won’t be happy, apparen tly, until we Canadians are slaughtering ourselves at the same rate. This is truly deplorable.
UCP strives to make non-partisan work partisan
Who will rid me of this turbulent Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Amery must have been thinking when he cooked up one of the provisions of Bill 14, the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, tabled in the Legislature yesterday.
The bill would transfer important responsibilities of the chief electoral officer, who is supposed to be a non-partisan officer of the Legislature, to the cabinet, which is made up of highly partisan elected leaders of the government. Why bother to have a chief electoral officer at all then? Well, the answer to that is that presumably appearances must be kept up.
The problem, of course, was that Alberta Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure did his job and referred the question of the constitutionality of the Alberta Prosperity Project’s pro-separation referendum question to the courts, which is exactly what Premier Smith wanted to avoid.
So Bill 14 contains a provision requiring that court proceeding to be dropped so Ms. Smith can get back to slyly enabling separatism to keep the pressure on the feds.
In addition, Mr. Amery’s bill will make it illegal to have a dangerous word in it that the UCP is desperate to ensure is used by no other party – to wit: conservative. This wouldn’t have been necessary if the UCP hadn’t messed up and forgotten to renew its hold on the names of its antecedent parties. This shows, at least, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Since “conservative” is an English-language word with meanings in the dictionary, it seems likely this will be challenged in court – and since electoral rights are not subject to the Notwithstanding Clause, legal action can’t be stopped that way.
However, this aspect of the legislation’s goals will have been achieved if rebel MLAs Peter Guthrie and Scott Sinclair are prevented from calling themselves “Progressive Conservatives” in the next provincial election.
It must be admitted that Bill 14 is not bereft of good ideas. Its solution to the problem caused by the Longest Ballot Committee is effective without doing too much harm, although it will have no impact on federal election law.
On the road again …
As readers will have noted from the placeline on this story, I am on the road again this week, making it hard to keep up with the flood of political stories in Alberta. Indeed, early next week I’ll be giving a little seminar in British Columbia on “what the hell is going on in Alberta.” I don’t know that anyone can do that topic justice, but I will try. In the meantime, I am unlikely to be able to post at my usual frenetic pace.
Re: Guns…..I hope that a memo has gone out to the RCMP, warning them that they better announce themselves with sirens when showing up at 2 am regarding a family emergency. Just saying, been there, done that.
Words: hey Marlaina, so if I start a party, can we use “United Party Urging Responsible Stewardship ” ??
Since you’re taking the scenic route, it’ll give you time to weigh in on the ‘what the hell is going on in BC politics’.
Rustad, yesterday– “No I am not going to quit ”
Rustad today– “no I am resigning”
David Eby ” thanks John, Merry Xmas! Lol ( impo)
Talk: is this private, or open to the public?
Oh and can someone warn the mormons, fuller brush sales people(Do they still exist?) and paperpeoples and Doordash delivery persons and especially Amazon Delivery persons that they are subject to being blown away by Assault Rifle toting homeowners!!
At what point will the feds step in and put the kibosh on these scum? How far do these scumbags have to go before someone puts a stop to the sedition the United Crap Party is toying with? They’re legislating First Nations’ treaty rights out of existence, which is obviously illegal. It would not surprise me if they cancel the next election and install themselves as government in perpetuity. And they’re openly encouraging separatism, proof positive if anybody needed it, that Dictator Dani is a separatist. RCMP? CSIS? Anybody? Prime Minister Carney, what about the disallowance provision?
It makes me laugh, as you write the gun owners in the U.S.A. don’t seem all that concerned about real tyranny. They think what trump is doing is just fine. He’s getting rid of criminals, foreign ones. They don’t understand or believe in that line, “first they came for the Jews but I was not a Jew……….” They think they’re part of the “chosen”. The government simply doesn’t want guns which are used in war in people’s homes or on their person. Like what does a citizen need a AK whatever for? Guns need to be under lock and key when not in use. Keeps kids from being killed. There are lots of competitive target shooters who have rifles and guns, which they take to the range, follow the game rules and don’t seem to be bothered by gun regulations. O.K. its a drag to do the paper work to take them with you to a competition in Ottawa or a Commonwealth game, but they survive.
People who think they need guns to protect themselves from the government need to give their heads a shake. Their personal guns won’t do them much good. A serious government war on citizens will use drones, high powered AK type machinery, tanks and bombing. If tomorrow morning Trump decided to take out California it would be over in a couple of hours and no self defence group is going to be able to do anything about it. Just have a look at how the war between Ukraine and Russia is being fought. Some one might want to take out some ads showing what a personal weapon can do compared to what a professional weapon can do. People want to have guns because it makes some of them think they are tough or could fend for themselves. You can’t. The majority of North Americans aren’t that tough. There is a vast difference between the people who went off to fight WW I and II and those of the same age today.
They didn’t first come for the Jews. First they came for the Communists. Maybe there is something to that Mandela Effect business. Many of my relatives who fought in The War to End All Wars and the Big One had guns out the ying yang because they were rural Canadians. They shot competitively at local fairs the same as they grew prize chickens and horses for the same fairs. While it is true that when the Man comes for you in 2025 he’s sending drones, air-to-ground missiles and 155mm tank rounds, at the end of the day there’s no denying that armed resistance is the only thing that ever achieved any real change in the status quo. I think it’s safe to say that the Winnipeg General Strike would have ended differently had the Mounties been lit up by fifty or sixy men with .303 bolt action rifles. The Battle of Cut Knife was not fought with Tweets and Toussaint Louverture did not throw the French out of Haiti with a recall petition. What precisely is this vast difference between the people who got rolled into the twentieth century meatgrinders and our contemporary folks?
You’re right about coming for the communists, there @Murphy.
And the USA government has *never stopped* coming for socialists and communists, not only in their own country–but in everyone else’s country since the day the USA was hatched in the fevered brains of some wealthy guys who didn’t want to pay their share of the taxes then–and still don’t.
The fact is, when on the rebel’s side of the insurrection it doesn’t matter what weapons are legal or not to own (in any country)–that has little to do with the outcome as it’s always going to be asymmetrical–something the gun nutters seem to forget.
Funny too how other countries have lax or zero gun laws and histories of actual insurrections but they’re not running around in the mean time shooting up schools, malls and granny’s care homes while they wait for their shining moment in the sun of “takin down da tyrannical gubmint what went too far”
Meanwhile we’ve all been sold the Gandhi rhetoric about pacifist protest in India which…for anybody who understood the conflict–wasn’t that peaceful. Same with MLK vs Black Panther’s tactics. As well, there’s a vast difference between direct action that throws a wrench into the machine of capitalism and marching around like deluded penguins holding legal permits and hoping someone will notice.
You and that kind of talk, are one of the problems. How do you say you’re a UCP supporter without actually saying it? Oh yeah, but a lengthy essay on the U.S. invading California and defending Dani’s stance on disregarding federal law. And what’s happening in the U.S., he’s not getting rid of criminals. If you actually did pay attention, DJT has taken kids, put them in zap straps, detained people who were going for all of the mandated meetings for their green cards, while ICE waited for them outside the court. That’s not going after criminals, that’s targeted hatred. I suggest you get your news sources from anywhere else than Fox.
That’s a bit o’ rocket surgery right there…
Banging on about more guns to “fight for our fweedums” brought to you by a people that have let their government slide into full-blown fascism in living colour on the nightly news with barely an effective whimper against it except some “No Kings” nonsense protests and town rallies without formulating a single concrete demand for change.
Advice from a country where the #1 cause of death in under 25’s is gunshot wounds, kids hide under desks with their phones and learn how to dodge school shooters while there’s one mass (more than 3 injured/dead) shootings per day. It’s a permanent war zone where you don’t know if your loved ones will come home again unless you’re wealthy enough to hire private security.
How much “fweedumb” can you have in a country where you spend your life worrying when the next bullet hits, you can be snatched off the street by masked goons and disappeared into a windowless van at any time and if you do get caught up in a shooting or injury, you will go bankrupt from medical care?
All while Dixie Dani & Co waffle on about what conservatives want to call themselves.
These people are on tilt and ain’t nobody comin’ to recalibrate the pinball machine any time soon.
Other classes of UCP supporters would just have to wait to be “death with”? Is that a Freudian slip for ‘dealt with’ or a Shadenfreudian slip for ‘death wish’? The ambiguity is killing me.
Scotty: Check again. It’s been fixed. DJC
The wheels on the bus go round and round, right before they fall off.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/wildrose-party-to-rethink-the-wheels-on-danielle-smiths-campaign-bus
Danielle Smith sure knows how to protect children. If it’s not invoking the Notwithstanding Clause to take away their rights and force them back to school, it’s gun laws that increase the likelihood of them being shot or killed at school, just like in her dear U.S. of A. It’s the very thing no one wants, except Danielle Smith, who protects children by putting targets on their backs.
This is an interesting reaction of the UCP to all its political dilemmas and problems. First, their reflexive go for the guns approach is about as predictable as the ending of an old time tv western. While it does nothing to benefit most Albertans, I suppose there are some core UCP supporters this may distract or satisfy.
Second, their attempt to save the separatist referendum question, which is like a pick up truck stuck in the mud of legal challenges may lead to chaotic series of competing referendum questions. This will make a chair throwing ending to a Jerry Springer show seem easy to follow. Although perhaps that is their real intention, to just confuse the situation as much as possible or maybe hope the separatists can not get enough signatures to have a referendum.
Lastly and perhaps importantly, they seem to feel their political survival depends on no other party being able to call themselves conservative, so they will just ban that. So much for free political speech in Alberta and if anyone challenges this under the charter of Rights, I suppose they can just use the Notwithstanding clause again. They have already developed a taste for doing that.
I suppose in a way the UCP has now ripped off the bandages of several of their big problems all at once and it reveals a party that wants to try maintain power above all else. Interestingly they did not address recall legislation here, perhaps that would have been too much all at once even for them. However, given the theme here, expect the other shoe to drop soon without warning and also expect something as heavy handed.
Some new party name suggestions:
☆ Strong and Free Party
☆ Smith Sucks Party
☆ CPP Forever Party
McRocker…see my post above…lol
“… and since electoral rights are not subject to the Notwithstanding Clause, legal action can’t be stopped that way.”
Mickey Amery: “Hold my beer”
There is no denying that the Grifter-Yokel regime is playing dog-whistle games with their gun hysteria, but one does have to wonder why the progs focus so much on firearms. There are a lot of guns in Canada, and the population is simply not subjected to the kind of gun carnage and mayhem that the Americans enjoy. But then again, nobody else in the developed world is. There is some deep sickness in the US population, and there is scant evidence that Canadians suffer from the same prevalance of whatever pathology induces the creation of school shooting galleries in Freedomland. Canadians could buy all the gas-operated semi-autos that they wanted until 2020, but those rifles were not being turned on their fellow citizens with the zeal in which they were and are in the US. Bella Twin, a 63-year-old indigenous woman, shot and killed one of the largest grizzly bears ever taken, near Slave Lake AB with a single-shot .22, so I suppose the ‘berta hunters might be able to get by without a device originally designed for storming buildings filled with dirty commies.
I grew up shooting guns. I think it’s enjoyable and I don’t think firearms should be the exclusive property of the government, however…If you need a semi automatic carbine rifle to take a deer… you’re a bad shot and a bad hunter.
The problem with responsible gun ownership as I see it is two fold; on the first hand increasing the supply of guns in general increases the supply available to criminals. Much like Mexico most of our illegal guns come from the states, which while less than ideal, can’t be helped as much as simply restricting the supply in Canada does.
Two: and more importantly in my view is this Joe Average “responsible gun owner” is used as propaganda cover for the fact that a certain number of gun owners are neither legal, nor responsible. There’s been numerous cases in alberta within the last few years of far right extremists being rolled up by the Feds with massive caches of illegal weapons.
Not every gun owner is an extremist but most extremists collect firepower. The UCP is talking to these folks, not the shrinking numbers of rural ranchers and hunters.
Carbine rifles that can be modified to be fully auto (as the recent case out of the Edmonton area were) have no place in a free and Democratic country where people don’t hate and fear their neighbours.
And finally, the law as it’s written, which I’m sure Amery knows fully well, is that “reasonable” use of force may be used to remove someone from your property. Cracking a few shots through the door with your carbine is hardly that, most violent crime is done to people by people who know them and a big cache of guns rarely helps the situation.
I know conservatives are scared of everything but Yeesh.
I’m a Registered Nurse, and as such I look at gun violence as a public health issue. There is a direct epidemiological relationship between the number of guns present in a society, and the rate of mortality (deaths) and morbidity (serious injuries) caused by guns. In other words, more guns in a population = more gun deaths in said population.
It’s also true that guns can be a serious issue in cases of intimate partner violence, leading directly to femicide, and even legally-owned guns can fall into the hands of criminals through such mechanisms as theft and fraud.
I personally feel that there should be an absolute and strict ban on handgun ownership and possession by civilians in this country, and that only police and the military should be permitted to possess handguns, and even then only when on duty, or on call in those rural police detachments that use an on-call system.
As for banning “assault-style” firearms, I think most of us can agree that ordinary citizens should not be in possession of AR-15s, AK-47s, Uzis, or Heckler & Koch MP5s. But how much substantive difference is there between a semi-automatic 30-30 deer rifle and a semi-automatic carbine — like the SKS that is so controversial? Is it just the pistol grip that makes something “assault style”? How easy would it be for someone to convert a legal semi-automatic rifle into full-auto? Those are key considerations when deciding on what to ban and what to allow.
DJC— good luck with your work shop on Monday….
Thank you, Randi-lee. Should be fun. DJC
Once again we see these Reformers siding with their American Republican Party idiots. Their stupidity of everybody has the right to bear arms and kill anyone they want to, which is why children are being slaughtered in schools and seniors in churches and groceries stores and these fools don’t care, that’s how stupid they are.
I was a hunter for 67 years and my hunting friends, containing lawyers and police officers, and I have seen nothing about destroying our sport by taking all our guns away like these Reformers want you to believe.
This has always been about taking away Assault Rifles and Handguns from criminals and making certain the massive killings didn’t happen in Canada like the stupidity in the U.S.
Alan Spiller: I had an uncle who hunted. That was different. Quite frankly, I see no use for people to have assault rifles. The UCP wants us to become like the United States, where mass shootings are very frequent. How foolish is this government.
Anonymous I hunted for 67 years and many of my hunting buddies were lawyers, and even a Crown Prosecutor, along with police officers and they insist that it’s never been about destroying our sport like these Reformers want us to believe it’s been about protecting all Canadians from massive killings like we have seen in the U.S.
I am in awe of both you and your commenters today: all brilliant and witty.
Of all things beyond belief, now we have assault rifle toting separatists writing unconstitutional legislation in this Province.
Clearly they are pandering to the lunatic side of the party. Unfortunately the rest of us need to suffer as a result of this stupidity and the idiots that elected them in the first place will no doubt be right there to elect them into office again.
By the way, you missed the Battle of Costco where hundreds of St. Albertans fought tooth and nail over a few remaining Pokémon cards. Nary a gun in sight.
Having read Justice Feasby’s decision in full:
1) J. Rath’s assertion the separatists have “won”, and he won’t appeal because Bill 14 obviates the need is a FOS pipe dream. He is putting on a face & talking through his ass to his base. Justice Feasby directly and succinctly explains how the wing nut’s question is unconstitutional on 3 different fronts. Whether the Citizens Iniative even exists, amended or otherwise, is moot. Sylvestre’s question fails under the Constitution Act, Treaties 6, 7 & 8, and the Clarity Act.
2) Given Justice Feasby’s statements in his epilogue, I think the possibility of Bill 14, as currently proposed, getting a “constitutional fire extinguishing” by the Lt. Governor, or the Governor General, just became a certainty.
Justice Feasby has very correctly has called the clown party, Ditzy Dani, and the separafools undemocratic dipshits in no uncertain terms.
While Smith & Amery’s recall petitions have already been submitted, the reason should be amended. Bill 14 rises to the egregious level that Kenney was bleating about being the true spirit of the Recall Act.
Guess what Mitch Sylvestre’s store in Bonnyville sells…
And guess what Mitch Sylvestre has been promoting since at least 2019 on a now defunct website [StayFreeAB.ca]…yup, guns and gun rights.
And guess what Mitch Sylvestre used as the picture on posters he was handing out from his store [“Alberta NEEDS You! SAVE YOUR GUNS. If Rachel Notley wins this election, your firearm rights will continue to erode.”]…not a gun…Uncle Sam!
Connecting the dots makes a pretty clear picture…
Comment— Thanks for that; it explains alot. It’s funny how when you put a whole bunch of dots together, all of a sudden a clear picture emerges.
Maybe the bill being introduced by Senator Bernie Moreno that would eliminate dual citizenship in the US…citizens have one year to choose one citizenship or they automatically lose their American citizenship; will get some of the separatists back across the border.
Lol– so I would have loved to be the fly on the wall when Mr Scheer heard about this.
The UCP are steering Alberta down a dangerous path. Anyone that let this happen is also at fault for not stopping them when they voted, or by not voting.