It takes a certain ingenuity for a crooked government to keep its scandals hidden. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your perspective – that’s a talent Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party seem to lack.
Yesterday the Opposition NDP revealed in a news release it had “obtained video evidence that appears to show that a senior member of the United Conservative Party (UCP) party executive and a member of the UCP Caucus staff, people that are in the Premier’s inner circle, attended the April 16 online meeting of the Centurion Project.”
The Centurion Project is the corporate entity run by separatist activist David Parker that is right at the centre of perhaps the largest data breach in Canadian history, which effectively doxxed 2.9 million Alberta voters. The Centurion Project was registered as a third-party advertiser in the separatist “Stay Free Alberta” petition campaign.
“This meeting provided training to volunteers on how to use the separatists’ project database that is at the centre of this data breach of three million Albertans’ electoral data,” the NDP said.
A list of the 80 people who attended the April 16 meeting and a video recording of the call, the NDP release said, “identify that a ‘Rob Smith’ and an ‘Arundeep Sandhu’ were in attendance. The President of the UCP is named Rob Smith and the UCP Caucus Director of Stakeholder Relations is named Arundeep Sandhu.”
Let’s stop right here to note that the UCP vociferously denies that party president Smith, who is no relation to the premier, was the Rob Smith at the meeting. The party told the CBC Mr. Smith was at a fund-raiser elsewhere and huffily demanded a full retraction. Anyway, we’ll take their word for that. However, the UCP also admitted Mr. Sandhu was there because “Caucus staff regularly attend events of political interest, including the meeting in question.”
“The organizers of this meeting were adamant that the data being used was obtained legally,” the UCP statement continued. “At the time, the staff observing the meeting had no reason to believe the website in question was unlawful.”
Which does beg the question: Were they paying attention? C’mon! As NDP pointed out, the video shows that right before the eyes of the 80 participants organizers demonstrated the effectiveness of their database by pulling up the personal information of former UCP premier Jason Kenney – who was run out of office and replaced by Danielle Smith by some of the very people involved in the Centurion Project and has very good reasons not to want them to know his address and phone number. Surely this should have been an indicator something sketchy was afoot even without direct confirmation of the source of the data?
But apparently not, if we are to believe the UCP.
“This video appears to show the database that was built using the unauthorized electors list that was the subject of an injunction issued by the Court of King’s Bench on April 30, 2026,” the author of the NDP release added dryly.
The NDP gave the recording to the RCMP on April 17. Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi told Mr. Kenney about the breach.
Mr. Kenney, unsurprisingly, was not pleased. “I understand that my personal information, including my home address, was shared publicly on a screen at a recent Alberta separatist event. It was also recorded on video, and is now circulating,” he said late yesterday on the social media platform previously known as Twitter.
“This was apparently part of the outrageous data leak of Albertans’ private information, wherein Elections Alberta shared its entire detailed provincial voter database with the ‘Republican Party of Alberta,’ which in turn shared it with some separatist group called the ‘Centurion Project,’ whose leadership then shared my personal information publicly.”
“Over the past few years I have received no shortage of threats from people broadly associated with the separatist / antivax / far right movement in Alberta,” Mr. Kenney continued. “So it is disturbing that my personal information is now broadly available, particularly in those circles.”
“I will retain legal counsel to seek advice on recourse regarding this outrageous and potentially dangerous violation of my personal privacy,” he concluded.
In the Opposition news release, the NDP asked how Premier Smith could claim, as recently as Monday, “that she only learned of this data breach from police statements on April 29-30, published almost two weeks after this meeting took place?”
Moreover, the NDP asked rhetorically, “Why was it not reported or disclosed by any UCP or any government official to the RCMP and Elections Alberta that the Centurion Project appears to have unauthorized access to the electors list?”
Well, we all understand that we’re unlikely to get answers to questions like that as long as the UCP remains in power – and, if the most recent polling is accurate, that could be a while, maybe even forever if the UCP goes ahead with the Texas-style gerrymandering project it’s been telegraphing.
Weirdly, the UCP statement insisted the NDP should have told the UCP about what it learned from the recording of the April 16 meeting. If nothing else, you have to give them points for chutzpah for that one.
During Question Period yesterday in the Legislature, Premier Smith stuck to her talking point that she knew nothing about any UCP staffers attending the meeting and only learned about the massive data breach from the media. This is what is technically known in political science studies as “implausible deniability.”
Long-time observers of Alberta politics will remember the late Rod Love, premier Ralph Klein’s chief of staff, chief political factotum and principal strategist. Say what you will about the Progressive Conservatives in those days, Mr. Love would never have let anything this dumb happen, let alone leak out to the public. He must be spinning like a top in his grave that Conservative political strategy has come to this!
Premier did grace ‘Annual Christian Summit,’ but there was nothing to see there, folks
So far one secret that the UCP is managing to keep is what Ms. Smith had to say to the “Premier’s Annual Christian Summit” in Red Deer. Ms. Smith and at least three of her cabinet members – Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange, and Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf – showed up for the pricey pay-to-pray event yesterday.
Our agnostic premier published a social media post, but it contained nothing but anodyne platitudes. No news.
Journalists and commentators who bought tickets to the event were turned away at the doors by organizers if their names were on an interdiction list of folks known to be too “woke,” or something. Don’t worry, though, it’s quite likely that something will leak soon.
Smith seems to be doing her best impression right now of Sergeant Schultz from the old TV show Hogan’s Heroes. She knows nothing!
Amongst her talents is convincing performances, which would normally be an asset. In fact she has somehow convinced many Albertans over the last few years that she actually knows what she is doing. Regardless whether this is really true, it unfortunately makes deniability here for her even more implausible now.
It is hard to believe our politically connected Premier was kept in the dark while the opposition knew about this mess for weeks. If so what does this say about her or her staff? It is very hard to believe someone from the UCP who attended the separatist show did not tell her all about the Kenney address database demo. It would seem to be exactly the type of party trick that would get noticed and talked about in political circles.
The slow witted Schultz did not come across well in that old TV show and Smith’s implausible deniability will lead people to question either her competence or her honesty. I suppose we can add the aides who unwittingly attended that data base demo to the list of scapegoats someone in the UCP is probably drawing up right now to try take the pressure and attention away from Smith on this.
The UCP caucus now knowing that Smith and Sandhu were at the Project Centurion meeting. How much longer can Dinghy Danni continue this complete load of rubbish?
The immense nature of this is too severe to just push aside, or bury. No matter how hard the UCP and Danielle Smith tries to do so, they just can’t do it. There have been claims of this is just like a telephone book. Not so, because the information in the telephone books was not very detailed as the information from voter’s lists, and nor was it compulsory to have one’s name in the telephone book. The outcomes of the UCP’s rotten and corrupt behavior is going to make what happened to Grant Devine’s PC Party in Saskatchewan, in 1991, look tame in comparison. Rod Love was Ralph Klein’s sidekick, and as bad as Ralph Klein was, the UCP and Danielle Smith look like they are outdoing him. Danielle Smith is living in denial, if she claims to know nothing about this. Expect to see class action lawsuits against the UCP.
The creator of that poll is going to have to end up in the shock of their lives, because of the fallout from this major data breach can’t put the UCP and Danielle Smith in a good light.
As far as that expensive prayer breakfast with the UCP was, the UCP obviously didn’t read the Scriptures, where it talks about things like showing mercy and compassion to the poor, pride goes before a fall, and all of that.
More deja vu for the Alberta electorate where it appears that past behavior is a very reliable predictor of current behavior, i.e., a very sure thing as everyone’s darling is hoist with her own petard once again, because in this case history both repeats and rhymes:
“Alberta’s Opposition NDP leader says Premier Danielle Smith has entangled herself in a web of lies and needs to come clean over what she has been saying to prosecutors pursuing COVID-19 health violations. “She’s scrambling. She is either lying now or she was lying then. Clearly lying is happening. There is a lot of lying going on,” Rachel Notley told reporters in Calgary on Friday.”
Or, “”The problem with the radio show is that the version of events keeps changing. Her story keeps changing,” Bratt said.”
Soon to follow will be a similar statement like this one, “”I’ve had 27 years in public life making statements and, you know, there are sometimes where I’ve had missteps, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she said. “I think people are forgiving when you give an opportunity to explain what you meant and I want to extend the same opportunity to others…Sometimes we’re not perfect in how we communicate and I keep, every single day, working on that and I’m going to encourage my candidates to do the same.””
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/i-think-people-are-forgiving-smith-says-of-ucp-missteps-ahead-of-provincial-vote/
So, based on past ‘missteps’, if the lying and denials do not work out as planned another phony contrition act will be coming right up for all the dummies and tribal loyalists.
More bathos for the bathetic dummies.
Funny how we’re all prim and prissy about this one, as if outrage will move the needle. Sweet summer child, as they say.
Remember the teacher registry? So you could find the bad ones? Still in place, complete with middle names, former names, dates. Fully legal. Well, I guess now you can look their address up too.
If the illegality of the thing is what bothers you, well that’s a simple fix. The UCP will change a couple of regulations retroactively, no foul play.
Albertans appear on the whole to be remarkably indifferent to corruption and scandal. Yawn. Apart from the merry little band of foot soldiers still bravely collecting signatures, gathering for the workers, writing earnest essays on Substack. As if rule of law was still a thing.
Something’s cracked. Might be my tinfoil hat. Dunno.
In and around the year 2031 the RCMP will release a statement regarding the leak. Their conclusion will be that something may or may not have happened. Case closed.
As for Elections Alberta, there is always an argument for doing nothing but they appear to have elevated that sentiment to an art form.
It appears that Dingy Smith has a much bigger problem on her hands. On one side, the UCP has often mocked the NDP for getting their information from the media and now Smith herself admitted she was advised of this breach through the media. On the other hand, this would lead us to believe her closest advisers are not letting her know about things that might make them look bad, which in this case is making her look really bad. And let’s not forget that Smith is probably lying about the whole thing and knew all along but decided to ignore it because it involved her pal David Parker and the separatist movement she so adores. So she really is in a real lose-lose-lose situation here. For her to no do anything will certainly not help, and as the outcry grows things will only get worse for her.
Or she’s lying.
Personally, it would out of character for her to be telling the truth, from where I’m sitting.
Teachers dead or alive, forgot to add. Round them off, rope ’em up.
Rod Love didn’t have to deal with the internet. The Kons of that era were as brazen as the current krop. The position of the Kons was far less precarious in that era and thus less extreme measures were required to manage the mouth-breathing yokels. Supposably. It’s conjecture, but I think in the era of instant digital communication and cel phone cameras, the Klein regime would have provided infinitely more theatre than derpy Marlaina and her lackeys. The mechanism by which Klein was chosen by our overlords alone would have been impossible to keep under wraps in the time of social media and might have derailed the Barf Train before it left the station. The plotting of oligarchs like ol’ Bud and henchman in the Legislature like “the Great One” would have been all over the interwebs in real time, rather than dribbling out over the years in works like those of Kevin Taft. In the beginning was the Grift!
“OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!” Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland. The sad thing is, that Fraulein Schmitt and the UPC will be able to duck all responsibility, she’s good at that and someone will get thrown under the bus. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they find a “volunteer”. I wish Kenny all the best in his legal action.
I’m curious as to whether David Parker’s name and those of the UPC government are on that list, or were they deleted before posting.
This is a perfect example that the separatists go to Kenney’s house to roost.
I wonder if Kenny was stamping his chubby little size 6 feet because he was truly miffed or just pretending in order to distance himself from the monster he created. If memory serves he is trying to rehabilitate himself as a Statesman.
Really, how serious can Kenney’s doxing be? The doxing address probably has Kenney living in his mom’s basement. You know, the place he told Parliament where he lived. No doubt he has moved since then.
However, the UCP also admitted Mr. Sandhu was there because “Caucus staff regularly attend events of political interest, including the meeting in question.”
Arguably, they couldn’t get away with claiming that ‘Arundeep Sandhu’ is a name so common in Alberta that everyone knows several people called ‘Arundeep Sandhu’. The jig was up. They couldn’t sweep ‘Arundeep Sandhu’ under the carpet. Next time, the UCP will likely choose someone with the WASPy surname ‘Jones’ or ‘White’.
Nobody seems to care that another former premier, Rachel Notley, was also apparently doxxed for “training purposes”. Oh, well. She’s a progressive woman and Jason Kenney is a conservative man. Kenney works for a law firm, so he’s not kidding. None of the 2.9 million people who were doxxed should have been doxxed — not former premiers, nor you or me. If one of the commoners had been singled out, would we have heard about it? People in the public eye are definitely at risk from this blatant abuse and misuse of the voters’ list but so are ordinary people.
I do hope we have some amateur detectives in Alberta who can show us some lovely charts connecting all the characters in this Shakespearean tragedy.
They could start with Cameron Davies of Buffalo/”kamikaze”/Republican Party fame and spread out from there. Don’t forget the “Halls of Montezuma” and the United States Marines!
Next, David Parker and his connection to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then onto Danielle Smith and the UCP.
Jason Kenney is caught up with Cameron Davies and the “kamikaze” scandal, but also connects to Stephen Harper.
There are so many interconnections in this tragic tale of the pursuit of power at any cost, betrayal, more betrayal and absolutely no one falling on a sword or “meeting” justice.
If should be a play.
This early afternoon’s session of QP on May 6th was afire, with Marlaina and Naheed throwing insults at one another! It’s clear that the govt. wants to deflect by pinning the blame on the NDs.
At the end of it, the dreary House Leader Joseph Schow launched a Privilege motion, with an attack on Nenshi that will receive a response from the NDP tomorrow.
Stay tuned, until the fat lady sings (and that make take a concerted amount of time).
What a little shit house on the prairie we have turned into. The last time I experienced this kind of deceit and lack of character I lived in a place that was ungoverned by a certain Muammar Gaddafi. There the support whether they liked it or not was 99%, here we are at 49% so I guess the list they have stolen is to make support go to the Libyan levels and then call ourselves the Democratic Parker-Smith Republic. What a F… misery and our saviour prime minister keeps feeding this shit. Other than First Nations no one has done much to deal with this MAGA premier. Send her to Mar a Lago PLEASE.
Nenshi has got Dingy rattled. Today they issued a Point of Privelage claiming Nenshi did not advise the legislature of the breach or Elections Alberta for many days. This totally ridiculous, is the NDP supposed to do the Premiers job, especially when it involves Smith’s friends when she looks the other way? This while she does absolutely nothing about the breach.
I am very concerned that 120 km/h posted speed on Highway 2 south of Leduc and to be posted on 11,000 km of 4-LANE highways in Alberta will lead to more fatalities and serious injuries on Alberta highways. I have written the UCP about this and never received a reply. I am willing to shared the letter I wrote to the UCP AGM last November but never received a reply.
John: Send it to the blog email address. DJC