Alberta Premier Danielle Smith yesterday announced a raft of referendum questions for Oct. 19 demanding provincial intrusion into federal jurisdiction, cutting services to new Canadians and other anti-immigrant measures, and seeking significant changes to the Canadian constitution.
There will be five wordy policy referenda focusing on immigration and clearly designed to appeal to the United Conservative Party’s base, but worded to sound reasonable at an inattentive glance. There will be four additional questions asking voters to approve an effort to negotiate major constitutional changes.
Needless to say, once it gets a border or two away from Wild Rose Country’s well-trained voters, all this is likely to float about as well as the proverbial lead balloon.
But if nothing changes in the way the federation is structured, that will be just fine with Ms. Smith and her political brain trust. This is because the plan described in her 13-minute televised message last night at suppertime is clearly designed to succeed at the first step, passage by a majority of however many Albertans bother to vote, and thereafter to get bogged down in opposition from other provinces and the complexities of the Canadian Constitution’s amending formula. This will advance the United Conservative Party’s separatist agenda.
In the meantime, with her finger-pointing about how falling oil prices and Liberal politicians are responsible for rising costs and tighter spending in Alberta, her televised chat yesterday evening was also an opportunity to lower expectations for next Thursday’s provincial budget.
As retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey observed yesterday after the video had been aired, “what we have here is a premier blaming immigrants for her government’s failures to maintain health care, education and other social services. What she forgot to mention is that most ‘immigrants’ to Alberta come from other parts of Canada.”
“I can guarantee that there will be no constitutional changes,” Dr. Brownsey added. “She seems to be setting the province up for a vote on independence.”
Ms. Smith acknowledged that all the referenda ideas came out of her government’s directed and supporter-packed “Alberta Next” policy snake-oil road shows, but framed that as if it were a good thing.
Throughout the fire-free fireside, she blamed most of the province’s problems on lower-than-expected oil prices, immigrants, and Justin Trudeau, not necessarily in that order. The focus on immigration was widely expected, in part thanks to a couple of her advisors’ intemperate social media posts in the previous few hours.
Ms. Smith pointed to Trudeau Era immigration policies as the cause of the province’s shortage of classroom space for the children of new Albertans. Never mind her UCP government’s failure to plan for growth everyone knew for years was coming, or to fund it.
And while she barely mentioned the lack of capacity in Alberta’s hospitals that has seen them descend into chaos in recent months, that glossed over the fact it’s been more than 40 years since a new hospital was built in Edmonton while the population of Alberta’s capital city has more than doubled. It would have been hard to deny that Mr. Trudeau was prime minister for less than a quarter of that time.
Naturally, Ms. Smith also made no mention of the multi-millions of dollars her government has hosed away on ideological projects and political mischief to own the Libs in Ottawa, like that $70 million for almost unusable children’s “Tylenot” purchased during a short-lived national shortage of acetaminophen in 2022. The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that that Alberta has just spent another $718,000 to destroy what was left.
Nor did Ms. Smith say anything about her call less than two years ago for Alberta’s population to double to 10 million people – the better to throw our weight around in Confederation. Or the UCP’s successful advertising campaigns calling on Ontario and B.C. residents to move here. This caught the attention of her own party’s highly influential MAGA base and by the summer of 2024 she had jumped onto the anti-immigration bandwagon.
So her dream of Red Deer, a city of 100,000 souls best known as a coffee and gas stop halfway between the fleshpots of Calgary and Edmonton, hitting a population of a million any time soon will have to be put back on ice for a long spell.
“Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” Ms. Smith complained, exploiting her government’s carefully nurtured popular misunderstanding of how federal transfer payments work.
Turns out the population growth she was demanding so recently is “financially crippling and undercuts the quality of our health care, education and other social services.” You know, like public health care, which her government is striving to dismantle.
Hilariously, the premier assured listeners that despite low oil prices and the cost of all those immigrants, “the approved wage increases for our doctors, nurses and teachers will remain in place so we can continue to attract the skilled professionals needed to catch up with our growth.”
Nice to know. I wonder who informed her that, unlike the United States she so admires, even governments in this country have to abide by legal contracts and the rule of law? Can you imagine what would have happened if the UCP had tried to roll back just-negotiated wages with skilled health-care professionals? It wouldn’t have been pretty.
So here are Ms. Smith’s planned referenda questions, in her own words:
- Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purpose of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and ensuring Albertans have first priority to new employment opportunities?
- Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs such as health, education and other social services?
- Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs, as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to be resident in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?
- Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their families use of the health care and education systems?
- Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to be eligible to vote in a provincial election to strengthen Alberta’s constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada.
Needless to say, much of this makes little sense upon examination. It is mostly bad policy that would not save money and in some cases would violate the constitution we have now. In addition, it would be mean-spirited and often cruel. The final point is a solution in search of a problem, although one that is fiercely believed in by MAGA fantasists.
In addition, the government will seek approval to work with “other willing provinces” to amend the Canadian Constitution in four ways, Ms. Smith said. It is not completely clear if this is supposed to be one referendum question with four bullets or four referenda.
- Have provincial governments and not the federal government select the justices appointed to provincial Kings Bench and appeals courts?
- Abolish the unelected federal Senate.
- Allow provinces to opt out of federal programs intruding on provincial jurisdictions such as health, education and social services without losing any of the associated federal funding for use in their own provincial social programs.
- Better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared constitutional areas of jurisdiction priority over federal laws when in conflict with one another.
All these ideas are likely to be immediately rejected by other provinces. Which, as previously noted, is probably the point.
The NDP Opposition, foolishly, decided to wait until this morning after the news cycle has moved on to respond. That fits with Leader Naheed Nenshi’s wish to do politics in full sentences. It doesn’t show much understanding of how political discourse is carried on in this era, though. The UCP, I am sure, was delighted.
When you have a poignant line, I love to open with it; “Ms. Smith complained, exploiting her government’s carefully nurtured popular misunderstanding of how federal transfer payments work.” Hinterlanders will lap it up, the metropolis not so much. She is undaunted in her pursuit of lies, misinformation, racial prejudice, private health care, and making the poor pay more. This is the most evil politician in the country. Enough said.
I really do have to wonder if Premier Ditzy and her brain? trust are suffering from a case of micro miniature brain. Do they not realize Canada’s birth rate has fallen below replacement levels. Immigration from other countries makes up the shortfall. Further, stats do tell us immigrants bring fresh capital to our economy which is badly needed. Finally I detect a taint of racism in this, and I say that as a member of the average white band.
And yes, I think it extremely doubtful any or sufficient numbers of other provinces will be interested in Premier Ditzy’s MAGA genuine imitation constitutional proposals and oh why bother?
Last off, Premier Ditzy you need to reform the royalty and taxation regime. Your government has a revenue stability problem. It won’t be fixed by dreaming about future oil booms. Heavy oil demand is going down, no matter the size of the tar sands.
The last time a UCP Premier held a referendum on matters outside of their jurisdiction no one outside of the province listened or took it very seriously. In the end his strategy and supposedly clever plan was shown to be totally ineffective. Not coincidentally, he is no longer Premier now.
It seems Smith is trying a similar approach, except shouting louder being more provocative and asking more questions. Its a referendum smorgasbord!
Its not just that no new hospital has been built in Edmonton in 40 years, it is that the UCP cancelled the one that was planned. They have been ineffective in managing health care, education and government finances. So particularly with the upcoming budget likely to be grim, they need a new nuclear level distraction now.
Maybe this flurry of referendum questions will distract enough Albertans from the growing number of problems the UCP has created and things they are not managing well, but perhaps this will not.
DJC— so is it just me, or is anyone else experiencing the 429 problem either reaching your site or trying to post a comment?
Randi-lee: This is the first I’ve heard of it. Can you send me a screenshot? DJC
We have an absolute gong and horror show in Alberta, led by a premier who is a Donald Trump clone in a dress. It’s totally disgusting. What are the NDP to do when the media will not even acknowledge Naheed Nenshi? The usual mouthpieces for Danielle Smith and the UCP are ever present in Postmedia newspapers, with their columns. The Alberta Legislature hardly even has sessions, and that was done by design, from Danielle Smith, which also doesn’t help. The corruption of the UCP just reeks, and it is very immense. Decade after decade, we have seen these phony Conservatives and Reformers squander away the wealth that Peter Lougheed intended for us to have, while grossly underfunding the much needed things we rely on, and increasing costs due to foolish policies, like deregulation of power and natural gas. Somehow, immigrants, Justin Trudeau, any other excuses Danielle Smith can concoct, including her misunderstanding of equalization payments, get used. Have Albertans come to their senses yet? Is there a breaking point? What will it take for people to wake up?
@Anonymous:
The NDP, at this point, sorry to say, are complete idiots when it comes to media. Nobody watches legacy any more except to see what Carney’s plans are and hockey scores.
Podcasters/YouTubers have a reach millions of times larger in viewing statistics than legacy media. Anyone who can do an informal interview on friendly terms and speak intelligently for a couple of hours that is running for any left-wing party is highly prized on leftist channels and even some fairly neutral ones. There are even smaller, all-Canadian channels with tens/hundreds of thousands of viewers. One example is that Joe Rogan ran Bernie Sanders to the tune of tens of millions of viewers boosting his profile by supporting him, long before Donald Trump ever showed up. Had the DNC not cheated him and he let them–Sanders had a clear shot at the White House due to his popularity in the podcasting realm.
Charlie Angus has a wide reach and I doubt he’d turn down the Alberta NDP as Charlie is anti-separatist.
Jagmeet Singh was on the correct road with TikTok but in the wrong lane. Nenshi doesn’t talk like working class people, he talks like an academic. That’s what will drown him, not the legacy media. Carney shot to popularity by being personable on Jon Stewart’s show.
Politicians don’t need to be brilliant. Smith is an idiot. They need to be personable and have a solid message. Then they need to have a knack for keeping skilled people around them and not butt-kissing sycophants.
Seriously, if I didn’t speak to you folks here, I wouldn’t even know who Nenshi *is*–and I follow politics. That’s how low-key he is. A fundamental rule of politics is that voters follow the popular herd. Doesn’t even have to be their own herd. Just the biggest herd.
He and the occasional NDP MLA are on Instagram quite often. This may reflect the UCP’s bigger pot of gold.
@YYC
Instagram has the same problem as TikTok. It’s not designed for long-form interviews. It’s just full of quickie adverts, propaganda and celebrities, not thoughtful discussions.
The NDP has posted at least 3 Youtube videos in the last week. I have read that they have hired someone who helped with Mamdani’s campaign in New York. Nenshi holds at least one general internet broadcast a month. As someone who is on the NDP mailing list, I am noticing their email messages have changed from donation appeals to highlighting UCP actions. They are trying but the media, including this website, ignore them. The media are too distracted and obsessed with the gong show that is the Smith UCP and the separatists to have any bandwidth left for the NDP. As Steve Bannon has advised, the UCP is flooding the air waves so that what passes for reporting in todays’s world is captured.
@LAS
Sent to NDPers. Nobody else is watching them. The NDP needs broader appeal and nobody gets that, talking to themselves.
This is how people like Bernie Sanders, AOC and Mamdami drummed up huge support. Like it or not–most American podcasters/YouTubers are more popular than Canadian podcasters and have wider reach inside Canada. Thus the Maple MAGA movement.
Thank you for the mental image of “a Donald Trump clone in a dress”.
Have to get the brain bleach out now.
Its all J. Trudeau’s fault. Back in my miss spent youth I recall, it was all P.E. Trudeau’s fault. In between there were Conservative P.M.s but guess they just weren’t up to fixing the problems those pesky Trudeaus caused. There were Alberta Premiers after Lougheed. If those Premiers were supposed to be the best the province had to offer you’d think they would have fixed some of those alleged “problems”.
All Smith does is whine, whine, whine. Sounds like a 3 yr old. She hasn’t put forth any thing of value, just continues to make a mess of the province. It really is time she and her gang get to work to improve the lives of Albertans and stop wasting money on all her pipe dreams. She isn’t going to be rewarded by Trump if Alberta separates from Canada. All she’ll have is no health care, more homelessness, no transfer payments, more political corruption and the destruction of the enviornment. Lets not forget the storm troopers, ICE, murdering citizens and building concentration camps. Ya you go there girl, go straight to Florida and play golf. I’m sure there is some one in Alberta who knows how to run a government.
In my opinion, this is just a smoke screen with a bunch of irrelevant Dingy Smith fluff. The real adder for the referendum will be: do you want Alberta to separate from Canada? Regardless of what the outcome of the petition underway now, I anticipate that question will land on the mix ballet shortly before the vote.
OA: This sounds right to me. DJC
Thank you, DC. I guess we now know why Smith didn’t want us to demonize and marginalize separatists. She’s too busy trying to get us to demonize and marginalize that traditional fascist target “immigrants”. It seems she has refrained from even mildly rebuking the racist effusions from her staff. Meanwhile is next week’s budget going to introduce some new taxes to pay for this fall’s Smitherendum event?
Simon, new taxes, Ditzy and the gang would sooner issue Social Credit funny money !
Did they not pass a law saying no tax increases without a referendum, or something like that? So they can really only increases “levies” or “user fees” which they can pretend are not taxes. Hmm. Would not be surprised to see a health care “levy” a la Prentice being sprung on Albertans.
It occured to me after I wrote that: A “Smitherendum” is what you do when you want to blow the country to Smithereens.
Well wasn’t she little Miss Sunshine last night. What kinda drugs was she on? 13 minutes of horse shit, don’t let the facts get in the way! Didn’t Enbridge say last week, that it would not take on “pipeline risk in Alberta” she must have missed that memo. And I thought Quebec didn’t want a pipeline either. And those damn migrants, it’s all their fault, sorta reminiscent of Germany in the 1930’s. And lets not forget Trudeau, like again with the Trudeau thing? seriously, get over it! 13 minutes of horse shit, 13 minutes of, it’s everybody’s fault but mine.
Nenshi’s feeble response to this and other Smith initiatives is giving me flashbacks to Adrian Dix’s disastrous 2013 NDP campaign in BC, in which he refused to run any negative advertising, and played nice. This post-mortem gives the flavour: https://themainlander.com/2013/05/15/why-did-the-ndp-lose/ I realize that this was more than a dozen years ago, and in a different province, but if anything the party’s squishy centrist consultant class is even more entrenched.
@Sub
Because the NDP is playing politics like it’s a knitting circle and not a blood sport. You don’t have to run negative ads to be effective, either.
Simple messaging such as, “It’s us vs the 1%. Why should you pay their share? A wealth tax benefits us and it won’t hurt them.” or whatever pitch Nenshi is actually going for here. Which I don’t know really because I never see him on any new media saying anything coherent to the working class who, I assume, is the people whose votes he’s courting.
The NDP, at no level in this country, represents “us vs the 1%”. The NDP is a stalking horse tasked with attracting people with “progressive views” and substituting dog-whistle moral panic issues for real analysis of the prevailing economic hierarchy. At the federal level, a Christian Zionist is the most venerated individual in party history, and it gets worse as one goes down the chain, to an Alberta provincial party that pandered to the oily kleptocrats like there was no tomorrow. NDP supporters are groping in a miasma of propaganda at least as thick as that which envelops the Grift-o-kon yokels. You have a 99% that is somehow locked in a losing struggle for economic rights in a functioning democracy? Please. Political power comes from a ledger balance, not a ballot box. Kevin Taft has done a reasonably thorough job in his books detailing where the money went and how it got there, and we’re left with a prog party that brags about raising the minimum wage and preventing the superstitious yokels from finding out if their offspring are in gay-straight alliances at school, in a province with a billionaire ruling class. If the Neoliberal Deception Program does manage to get elected in this province, the only plank in their platform should be giving everyone in Alberta free access to pharmaceutical-grade MDMA so we can really groove on this madness.
@Murphy, on top of making me chuckle about the MDMA, I can’t disagree with anything you’ve said there.
Yes, they’ll help you make your landlord fix things but bring up the fact billionaires can only exist through economic crime and they’ll stare at you like a deer caught in the headlights. I’ve talked to enough of them to know.
During a housing crisis (which has never ended) I brought up squatting and the overturning of the homesteading laws with Jack Layton. It took me over half an hour to explain to him something most unhoused people grasped in the first five minutes because property law favouring the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, well–that was beyond his scope of understanding or he pretended it was.
The man who lived in co-op housing wasn’t pushing for co-op housing where the poors might have some say in their own economic futures.
As a person, I liked Jack. As a leader of a place where people freeze to death every winter? Not so much.
Now we know why Danielle wants our nationality to be on the drivers license. Our new ‘citizenship’ document.
Two other points.
This recognizes that oil and gas companies see no need to expand the existing infrastructure in Alberta. So no need for ‘immigrants’ from the rest of Canada to build anything new, now we have reached Peak Oil.
Second, it shows that the reforms of the Senate that Trudeau started (as leader of the 3rd party in Parliament, BTW) are effective, making the Senate a working part of our government. Why else would she want to eliminate it.
And a soucon of Racism, right out of the MAGA playbook, to spice it up for the base.
She is going to decimate the Albertan economy, starting with Real Estate. There is nothing investors loathe more than instability.
Smith is the epitome of a “frenemy” — the smiling co-worker, neighbour, team-mate, in-law, etc. who feigns congeniality while stabbing you in the back.
Like so much of her politics, this latest ploy is borrowed from the US. The 1999 *South Park* satire described it perfectly: “Blame Canada!”
Thanks for the clip, it was great.
I get the impression, and it’s very likely an accurate one, that Smith is one of these meddling neighbours. You know the type, the ones who are always leaving flyers in mailboxes that demand whoever follow some weird edict, or face the consequences. No question that Smith had by-law enforcement on speed dial, to inform them of some slight that was a vicious attack on Western Civilization and white people.
“Ms. Smith pointed to Trudeau Era immigration policies . . .”, but ever so conveniently not to the lobbyists that both orchestrated and then benefited from the scheme. Why the dead silence from the shallow loudmouthed Alberta schemer/lobbyist/libertarian stooge occupying the Legislature regarding the details of the “Trudeau era” neo-liberal business venture and the lobbyists that were responsible for it?
Noting carefully that the lobbyists benefiting from the policy initiatives have zero accountability for policy failures, as the government is left to absorb all of the costs and losses, as well as all of the negative publicity of moving forward with any failed lobbyist policy proposals. While the benefits for the lobbyists and their friends, i.e. profit, remains private, personal, unadvertised, and hidden away from public viewing.
In any case, the facts in the public realm regarding Canadian immigration policy are unequivocal:
“Multiple founders and affiliates of the organization have been employed by McKinsey & Company, a multinational consulting firm. Due to this, the Century Initiative has been connected to a scandal over McKinsey consulting expenses by Justin Trudeau’s government, in which whistleblowers have highlighted McKinsey’s large and growing influence over Canadian immigration policy. Dominic Barton co-founded Century Initiative when he was the head of McKinsey & Company. Aleema Jamal, the inaugural executive director of the foundation, was also previously employed by McKinsey.
In 2016, four of the organization’s five volunteers were employed by McKinsey. Also that year, one-third of the initiative’s manpower was employed or formerly employed by McKinsey & Company. The Century Initiative Board of Directors is chaired by co-founder Mark Wiseman, who was the Global Head of Active Equities of BlackRock and ran Blackrock’s Alternative Investment division at the time that the Initiative was founded.
BlackRock’s Alternative Investment division includes the firm’s international real estate investment portfolio which could potentially benefit from increased demand for financing of new home construction, and is the subject of the BlackRock house-buying conspiracy theory. The Century Initiative’s other co-founder, Dominic Barton, is married to Geraldine Buckingham, BlackRock’s Asia Pacific chief, which has previously generated conflict-of-interest concerns.”
Further,
“At a Century Initiative webinar hosted by the Globe and Mail on April 6, 2022 (the second in a series of so far four annual webinars begun in 2021), Mark Wiseman [Chair of the Board of Directors, Co-founder of the Century Initiative]said:
“Let the private sector move to bring people in and facilitate them being able to do that. A lot of the screening and other stuff that we do frankly is just bureaucracy, it’s a waste of time. Let’s let people in by and large and if we have to do the screening ex-post, that’s fine. I can tell you bad guys and bad women probably find their way into this country through means other than applying through permanent residency…We just need to sort of take this on as a challenge…and then partner with the private sector…Look at this anachronistic way of these labour market opinions, those who try to hire somebody from outside of the country to do a job. I mean it’s crazy. Guess what? A Canadian firm wants to hire somebody from outside the country? They’ve identified them, they’ve interviewed them, they want to pay them and that individual’s going to be paying taxes in Canada. Approved! What’s that mortgage at? Approved! We should get those guys to be running our immigration system.””
A similar type of grift is now being proposed by the Alberta separatists and the Premier, as she has closely aligned herself with both the people and the overall separatist agenda itself. Sadly it is unsurprising that the current Premier playing the role of a polished huckster appears to have all of the qualities of a dishonest fraud along with all of her separatist friends.
Once again, Smith is an opportunist, not an ideologue. Last night’s unveiling was all about maintaining her position as party leader after November’s UCP AGM. Not a surprise the vote will be held in mid-October. Timed so that she can walk on stage at the AGM waving a paper and claiming victory over Ottawa. There’s a possibility that the separatists will not collect enough signatures on their petition to trigger a referendum on separation. What happens then? Some will disappear back to the farm claiming they never took it seriously. But others will demand Smith declare unilateral independence. When she doesn’t (because she can’t), they’ll start a campaign to replace her as leader. The nine referendum questions are both a ‘participant’s ribbon’ to make the deflated separatists feel better about themselves (snowflakes!) and an attempt to head off the radicals. This is also a way to ‘own the NDP’. Not a coincidence that the UCP is targeting immigrants. You know, brown people who are Muslim.
All hail the Princess of Ponoka, the Regent of Referenda, the Queen of Canada (if she can stake out an unoccupied corner of Richmound, Saskatchewan and run a line for her septic field). ICE is nice, am I right, Kristi Klone?
One question: Where is my referendum on the Forever Canadian petition?
I could go on about how cruel it would be to deny an immigrant child care for an ear infection or to turn our backs on her/his parent suffering from injuries in an industrial accident, but cruelty is the point.
When will Albertans buy a $70M US designer jet to transport the Viscountess of Vanity to the concentration camps, just outside the special economic zones? Well look, it’s the least we can do. À propos of nothing, did anyone ever tell you that lip fillers, Botox, dental whitening, hair extensions, designer clothes and expensive jewelry don’t pay for themselves? Imelda, please!
https://youtu.be/pVQpRjjkdNE?si=XLastTL-68o14R0D
Does anyone remember “Alberta is Calling”?
So while these phoney conservatives, Reformers, create the “Alberta is Calling campaign” stupidity and offer $5,000. to people to come to Alberta now they are whining about them coming and creating a nightmare for our healthcare and education systems that’s how stupid they are, what did they expect? We knew it would.
She is still promising to waste billions more on another pipeline while oilmen know that if these Reform Party Clowns hadn’t destroyed Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate taxes there would be no need for them, that’s how stupid they are.
One more question. When a person wears their watch on their right wrist, it is a sign that they are left-handed. How can a left-handed person miss applying self-tanner to their right hand? Maybe this uneven application of makeup is a sign of deference and loyalty to the Tangerine Terror? Maybe the hands were AI-generated (again?), but surely they’d have extra fingers? I see no sign of grotesque bruising or pancake makeup on the left hand. Left hand over right next time, please.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/22/politics/hand-bruising-trump-health
Maybe it’s sloppy AI. If you’re going by the screenshot on this post, maybe it’s MY computer. DJC
The CTV video also shows what looks for all the world like Trump’s makeup on the one hand. Why? I think Trump may be covering up bruises from an IV connection. Did Smith have surgery or something?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/alberta-to-hold-referendum-on-out-of-control-immigration-amid-strain-on-social-services-budget-smith/
Maga albertans would probably be less obsessed with this (incorrect) idea we are being “overrun” with immigrants if they didn’t spend so much time at Tim Hortons. To be clear , they are talking about people from South Asia, I don’t hear a lot of people complaining about Ukrainians for example, despite them often being LESS fluent in English than our south Asian brothers. Racism is a disease that thrives on ignorance. Yankee Doodle Dani isn’t falling too far from the tree though, time was alberta used to have laws against black folks and Chinese folks settling here.
I don’t get their obsession with the stupid referendums. To me, they want as many albertans as possible to stay home next election, a massive voter turnout doesn’t exactly bode well for them. At the same time, for the referendums to pass they need to pull both of the big cities, or if not then everyone else in the province. They really do believe, deep down inside their cowardly traitor tot shoes that everyone agrees with them !
Bird: It’s the base. They hope to get out the base. They hope the rest of us will ignore the stupidity and stay at home. DJC
The photo of Ms. Premier has her hiding her hand and her hands are a different colour–one is more orange. Is she hiding a MAGA supporting hand bruise? Some sort of solidarity with the orange menace south of the border.
I was more caught by her facial expression in the speech. Pained, or paralyzed? Did she take a rum and coke with a sedative beforehand? Just asking.
Halibut, her face also looks like she has been shot ups with Botox snd fillers.
Does she not realize that a large majority of our HC professionals, Drs, front line staff & HC Aides working in senior care facilities are immigrants?
I think that Danielle Smith’s already won the next election because the NDPers do not know how to respond to Smith’s madness.
So she wants to kick me and my family out of Alberta.
Is it because I’ve lived here since 93 but have never voted Conservative? Or
That I’ve always lived in the big cities?
Maybe she hates people like my Italian grandfather – an immigrant that worked a job few others wanted, a custodial midnight shift to provide for his family.
Perhaps she wishes we didn’t pay for my immigrant dad to be educated as a non-English speaking 5-year old?
Or maybe she doesn’t want to provide health care to my foreign worker Jewish immigrant grandfather? Or my grandmother- she’s from Quebec.
All I’m doing is transferring her current racism to the 1950’s and applying it to the “non-whites” like my family.
Can you tell I’m upset?
Meanwhile, CPC leader Skippy Poilievre, rather than fighting for Canada he is making workout videos. Maybe he is fighting back by implying, “make Canada strong like me, look at my kettlebell work”.
As for the Alberta NDP, they have brought a spoon to a knife fight.
Judging on the photo, Danielle Smith was not recently vacationing but actually having cosmetic surgery. Those eyebrows looked yanked up as if by invisible fishing line. The foundation clearly troweled on to hide the scars, not to mention the corruption.
Rufus: I don’t really want to host a discussion about political leaders’ appearances, but I’m going to allow this one so that I can respond to it. Whatever was going on with Premier Smith’s video, which a number of people have commented on, I am inclined to think it was digital, not physical. Take a look at the photos of the premier that appeared on the government’s Alberta Newsroom Flickr account today and tell me if you still think this is so. https://www.flickr.com/photos/albertanewsroom/ DJC
I have been hoping these Maga people would assume some responsibility but every single time it is disgraceful. One day in the near future, I hope, Danielle Smith will be forced to accept the responsibility of her lack of character and her incompetence. I am glad I am no longer a landed immigrant, unless of course she intends to hire some ICE from her leader down South.
Poor extreme right wing Jason Kenney is now trying to avoid his old friends. He is now preparing his way to convince Canadian conservatives he is not like the slogan parrot now heading the Conservative party and that he can talk better. My goodness, how much lower are these cultists going to take this charade? Maybe invite Vance to be our first Alberta President.
https://pressprogress.ca/jason-kenney-is-sounding-off-at-the-right-wing-website-juno-news-for-platforming-a-white-nationalist/
I will leave it to others to assail the anti-immigrant xenophobia underpinning those five referendum questions — they’re doing a good job of it, and I don’t wish to be redundant.
So I’ll comment on the other four, all of which are constitutional in nature.
Firstly, abolishing the Senate? Did Daniellezebub secretly sign a federal NDP membership? That has been longstanding NDP policy, but the Supreme Court has already ruled (not that long ago) that it would require not just the basic “7/50” formula to amend the Constitution, but a unanimous declaration by all 10 provinces and the Parliament of Canada. That bar is just too high, so we’re stuck with the Senate forever.
On judicial appointments, giving provinces a voice in Supreme Court appointments was part of the failed 1987-90 Meech Lake Accord, as was the whole notion of provinces getting money from the feds for health and social services without conditions on that funding — bye-bye Canada Health Act (not that it’s being enforced now, but that’s another matter).
Meech failed in 1990, only to be followed by the roughly similar 1992 Charlottetown Accord, which was rejected by Canadians in a nationwide referendum that October.
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/meech-lake-accord
Ever since, Canada’s political class have had a sort of political PTSD that makes any constitutional discussions a third rail, even though that was a third of a century ago. So now Daniellezebub, wants to reactivate those discussions? Who will be triggered by that?
It cannot be denied that Queen Danielle is crazy like a fox. The problem is that being that crazy also means you believe your own b.s., which is something of an achievement in itself. So, Smith, by her own doing, has created this amazing echo chamber, which is starting to bleed into reality. Trying to create a massive crisis over immigration is one thing, but using it to blame immigrants for all the failings of the UCP government is on a level of obfuscation that would be even too much for Doug Ford. It really does take brass to tell lies that are that big. So, Smith is going to have a referendum — an expensive referendum — that will distract everyone from the levels of treason committed by the UCP. Wouldn’t it be great if Smith invites DJT on an official visit for referendum day? Or, as Smith with call it “Alberta Liberation Day”. Of course, in the US in embroiled in another civil war at that time, Smith may just declare, in a stellar act of Berta sovereignty, pedos can apply for refugee status in FreeDUMB Alberta. How’s that for thinking outside the box? Carney must be staring at Alberta and muttering, “What a timeline.”
Credit to Andrew Leach who pointed out on twitter that if Smith got her wish and provincial laws could override federal laws, then BC could block a pipeline even if the feds declared it was in the national interest. Also, BC could probably pass its own oil tanker ban instead of relying on the federal one.
DJC— I believe you may be right about the digital, re: AI generated.
Peter A. on P&P ..played part of the clip, then brought Marlaina on live.
The contrast made me flinch. It looked like DS was at least 10 yrs younger in the clip shown.
Plus when Peter* ran the video from 2024 of her asking for immigrants, you suddenly have 3 pictures to choose from.
**bravo Peter…it’s about time that both her and Skippy were fact-checked on air with receipts.
I also find it ironic that both of them fail to see that their own immigration policies would have made their parents ineligible to enter Canada; along with a huge portion of the population— The “great Canadian railway” wouldn’t have been built if it wasn’t for ‘foreign’ workers .
Unfortunately we know that history and math are not strong suits for the Con’s.
Or as Kellyanne was so fond of saying “I’m just giving you alternative facts”.
P.S. is Scott sending bots after you? Given the slimy tactics going on with the separatists, I for 1 would not be surprised.
Seems easier after midnight (my time) I guess even trolls need some sleep ¿¿
Donald F tRump is starting to panic because his presiduncy has made a right mess of things in the USA. So, right on obsequious queue, Danielle F sMyth has to likewise broadcast the most absurd scapegoating and preposterous bombast. It was always meant to keep the MAGA base in both countries on standby. Now it’s repurposed to distract from tRumpublican-caused disaster, a sort of cornered-skunk manoeuvre.
As DJC noted, this is all for show–just that sometimes one wonders who the intended audience is supposed to be. The feds? The Donald? The referenda aren’t supposed to happen until just before US midterms, so TBA, I guess?
BC’s 2002 Referendum on Treaty Negotiation (most of BC First Nations have no treaties) had similarly loaded, tendentious questions the plain bigoted purpose of which was so odious that half the mail-in ballots mailed out to voters were returned to a ceremonial protest pyre and burned in front of the Legislative Assembly–a Referendum so mean-spirited that premier Gordon Campbell had to publicly apologize to FNs at a ceremony to forgive him (probably because their lawyers reminded his that the 1997 SCoC “Delgamuukw” decision confirmed their sovereign claims were neither extinguished by BC’s 1871 confederation, nor because BC illegally refused to settle treaties for the previous 127 years, and certainly not because a Referendum tried to bully them into forfeiting their sovereign claims and ignore the Constitution of Canada). Campbell of course didn’t have 127 years to try to amend the Constitution, anyway, much less Smith to achieve the legally impossible.
tRumpublican MAGA is UCP mojo, replete with “out of control immigration” and “they’re ripping us off” and “open borders” and all the rest in remarkably imitative lockstep. But if Smith shadows tRump’s rhetoric so closely as to emulate the tantrums betraying his terrified desperation she’ll only sound more ridiculous than she does already because, really, her problems are nothing in comparison.
True, both are motivated to distract from the messes they’ve each made in their own jurisdictions, and the clock is ticking away the time left to do anything about it before their respective electorates get to weigh in. Yet her own date with fate is a scheduled twenty months away while his is only eight. Unless she actually does something illegal in office, the worst result for her would be finishing her working career in a restaurant persecuted by paper drinking straws.
The Orbange One, on the other hand, is looking at a cascading legal problems that will very likely ruin his family business and could involve prison terms for at least some of his expendables if the GOP loses Congress in November and all the chickens cowed hitherto suddenly feel safe to rat out their lame-duck presidunce who’s conceding fights he’s too desperate to stop picking. One shudders to think what Smith will feel obliged to imitate if tRump’s threats, stunts, and insults ramp up like they surely must as he tries to delegitimize midterms he can’t win without cheating while dodging a number of other serious legal consequences. He could try to cancel elections and rationalize it by declaring an emergency, and rationalize that by attacking a foreign power, and rationalize that by some perceived slight. He could easily start a second civil war–120 million citizens per side, his side with all the guns. He’s not done yet, this everybody knows.
But what can Danielle do to keep up? Cancel federal elections? Attack Iran? Recruit a few hundred thousand separatists to fight the remaining forty-plus million Canadians? Of course not. But don’t be surprised if she ramps the rhetoric up to crisis levels anyway. That’s the reality for the Orange-Goo-Tanned One, not for her–or for Alberta or Canada.
Alberta separatists know they’re to few to win a referendum or secede unilaterally, so they rely totally on tRump to “help” Albertans “win their freedom” and “independence” (as a wholly-owned vassal territory of the USA). Without him–and only him–their movement would shrink back into a shadowy fringe. They must be confident he’ll survive midterms with increased power, which hints darkly at what kind of lawlessness they would tolerate in the new Alberta they envision.
But it also tells how unrealistic they are.