According to the website of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Calgary-Shaw MLA Rebecca Schulz gave up her seat on May 15.
That’s not a surprise, but it’s odd.
It’s no surprise because when the former minister in cabinets formed by United Conservative Party premiers Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith announced her resignation as Alberta’s environment minister last New Year’s Eve, she said she’d be leaving her seat in the Legislature in May. Her cabinet resignation took effect on Jan. 2.
“Timing is everything in life and in politics, and it is time for me to seek new opportunities in my career,” she wrote in her anodyne cabinet resignation letter, without providing any hints of why she chose that particular moment or what opportunities awaited her. Premier Smith praised her contribution to the government, as is customary in such situations.
What’s more, on May 12, Ms. Schulz offered a swan song of sorts in an interview with CTV News, praising the premier, sending up hosannas to former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, and dutifully carping about former Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau and his environment minister Steven Guilbeault.
What’s peculiar, though, is that her resignation from the Legislature seems to have gone all but unremarked by official Alberta without so much as a fare-thee-well. Indeed, the confirmation of her departure on the Assembly web page is implicit, not explicit – that is to say, it merely notes May 15 as her end-of-service date and her seven years, zero months, and 30 days as an MLA.
One would have thought that tradition and protocol would have required at least gentle pat on the back and the promise not to let the door smack her on the way out, if not a nice press release thanking her for her service.
After all, she served in cabinet in three important ministries – environment, municipal affairs, and children’s services – and ran for the leadership of the UCP in 2022, casting herself as a kinder, gentler sort of Conservative leader, promising to deliver “compassion and common sense in addition to conservative values.”
It doesn’t seem likely given Ms. Shulz’s effulgent praise for the premier in her May 12 interview that there is any sort of significant disagreement between the two. So presumably this has something to do with the by-election required by law to replace her.
But the UCP’s relative radio silence for more than two weeks on a topic bound to stir a lot of political interest is unusual, to say the least. Perhaps Ms. Smith has some ducks to get in a row.
Somebody knows something, of course. On Wednesday, political commentator Dave Cournoyer reported that the UCP had posted a notice online stating today would be the deadline for nomination candidates, then pulled it down.
Also Wednesday, separatist supremo Mitch Sylvestre posted a video statement on social media Wednesday saying a by-election would take place in Calgary-Shaw on June 21 and urging his supporters in the riding to sign party memberships by today and to vote for his favourite separatist candidate. At least two other candidates have come out of the woodwork seeking the UCP nomination in the reliably conservative riding in Calgary’s deep south.
There is no official confirmation of the June 21 date.
All this assumes that Ms. Smith won’t want to find a way to conn the ship of state to avoid having to call a by-election within six months as required by law, which wouldn’t be entirely out of character for our premier.
Smith signs cabinet order ensuring separation referendum
Premier Smith, meanwhile, signed a cabinet order yesterday formalizing the wording of her controversially murky Oct. 19 separation referendum question.
Never mind the boldface statement that lingered yesterday on the Internet home page of the UCP Government’s Alberta Referendum 2026 website that “A referendum is a direct vote where citizens are asked to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on specific issues.”
This specific referendum question will be multiple choice.
Says the question: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”
Voters will have two choices: “Alberta should remain a province of Canada,” and “The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
Note that the questions don’t say what form this separate Alberta might take if you’re thinking a cozy little republic is a deadbolt cinch instead of, say, an unincorporated U.S. territory like Puerto Rico.
The Order in Council also mentions that “the result of the referendum is not to be binding.” So if the UCP – which may or may not be a separatist party depending on whom you’re listening to at any given moment – doesn’t like the result, it can always ignore it.
Rebecca Schulz always stuck me as a suitable doppelgänger for Miranda Rosen, as they both have that vacant look that the lights are on but no one is home. Well, she’s flown the coop, without so much as a pat on the back or a public celebration at the close of her tenure. I genuinely believe that Schulz wouldn’t know that there was even so much of a ripple of tension with her presence even if it smacked her in the face. Truth be told, she was the ideal UCP MLA: sit quietly, don’t stir, and collect your pay, benefits, and bribes.
But it seems that the seppies surging all over the UCP maybe getting on some MLAs’ nerves. I understand Shane Getson is considering not running again. What? The guy that loves the culture wars and convoys is bolting from the wreck? Interesting times.
Just: I have to disagree with you there. I have met them both and, in my opinion, Ms. Schulz had real depth, and real potential to be a good legislator. I found the way she picked up the worst aspects of the premier’s shtick very disillusioning. With Ms. Rosen, I think, what you see is pretty much what you get. My understanding is that Mr. Getson has decided to run for other reasons. I think you’ll see him depart for the Land of Trump, which he will feel more at home. DJC
If trump fails to win the midterms I think the states will be busy with other issues.
Good riddance to Getson, that’s one anti-vaxxer gone from government.
I have speculated if Schulz’s past government decisions had any connection to the E. coli outbreak in Calgary daycares in 2023, but I don’t know.
It seemed like she did Brian Jean’s job for him until recently, and he is not shining in it now.
Just Me, I agree. She was entirely convincing in her mini-Dani role and her trad wife ringlets just made me shake my head.
It is interesting and unusual how Schultz’s departure happened so quietly and we only now know it occurred a while after the fact.
Of course it is not surprising, as there has been a steady departure of anyone considered moderate since the Wildrose party took over the PCs and renamed it the UCP. However, usually Smith doesn’t pretend or try too hard to seem moderate, so I’m not sure why she wanted to ignore or downplay this latest casualty. I feel it may be because of the strong blow back to her referendum question and strategy, which seemed to upset almost everyone and perhaps has Smith feeling a bit rattled now.
So I feel there may not be a by-election in Schultz’s previous area anytime time soon. However given Smith’s inclination to roll the dice, we still can’t rule out her calling an election before the referendum. It could work, but calling an early election didn’t go so well for the last PC Premier and things seemed to be going more smoothly for him at the time than they are for Smith now. Athough, she may be desperate enough to go for it. She seems to follow the Trumpian approach of when one distraction becomes a disaster, creating another distraction to try stop people focusing on the disaster.
The UCP are fractured and are falling apart. Other UCP cabinet ministers are resigning, but will finish off their terms, because it would be tough for Danielle Smith to see the UCP’s slim majority disappear. With Rebecca Schulz, I think Danielle Smith will not allow a by-election to happen right away in that riding, because she is afraid of getting challenged. Something tells me the UCP aren’t going to last. Corrupt Care is still an issue, and there are other problems too.
Judging by their cousins down south, corruption is their only policy
Carlos: In Alberta, a rock painted blue can run as a Conservative candidate and win. Even though the UCP has made it this far, the amount of UCP MLAs resigning shows something is wrong. The United isn’t there. Corruption definitely is. Rebecca Schulz, the other UCP MLAs, and Danielle Smith, certainly aren’t angels. I doubt the UCP can last.
“In Alberta, a rock painted blue can run as a Conservative candidate and win.” You missed a word: rural. Edmonton is solid NDP and Calgary is competitive, but aside from a scattered few seats like Lethbridge West and Banff-Kananaskis, your observation is absolutely spot on in both rural and “rurban” seats.
“The Order in Council also mentions that “the result of the referendum is not to be binding.” So if the UCP – which may or may not be a separatist party depending on whom you’re listening to at any given moment – doesn’t like the result, it can always ignore it. ”
The good news is that a subsequent government for grown-ups can also ignore it.
I see two sides to the “not binding” referendum thing for Dingy. One being the separate side wins and she ignores it, but the worse one that I see she will choose is if the stay side wins, then she will continue on the separation path. Keep in mind she has not listened of the grown ups in the room, is clearly pandering to the separatists to get their petition on its way, is willing to challenge the court decision against the separatists and put the separation question on the referendum. In spite of her lies, how much more evidence does one need to have to label her as a full blown separatist?
True to form Dictator Dingy Smith is stubborn and will not listen to anyone regarding the referendum, not even the Prime Minister, Premier’s of most provinces, critics, their own party and a multitude of others.
I have never seen such total arrogance before and hopefully never will again when she is gone which can’t be too soon.
It will be interesting to see if a candidate that is openly separatist will make in roads in the by-election or not.
@Old Albertan,
I was watching CBC and dammed near upchucked my favourite olive pizza.
A panel, sitting there, commiserating with poor Dani being caught between the separatists and the loyalists as if that wasn’t a shirtshow of her own making. No care for the non-separatist Albertans caught up in this mess. No care for the small business people that won’t be able to get investments with separatism hanging over their heads. No care for the rest of the country that would be broken apart like a discarded Barbie doll then politically and financially destroyed for a century.
Not a word about Dixie Dani’s record of corruption scandals
Just an hour of commiseration for how hard it was for this exigent fool who won’t spend a single minute unemployed or struggling after she destroys the lives of millions of their own countrymen.
Un-fookin-believable. This is what now passes for our “National Dialogue” channel.
In regards to a byelection – I smell an early election call.
Bear with me:
1) the seperafools do get 22 riding associations to force a review on Smith
2) Smith doesn’t want a byelection win for a separatist candidate
3) So she goes all “Hail Mary”, rolls the dice to head off both and kick the can down road again, trying to keep her job.
If the Grift-o-Kons get their referendum or if they don’t, the John Birch/Franklin Graham kooks are not going to give up their efforts to destabilize the province and the country. The propaganda mechanisms that produced the liberal-MAGA division in the US has produced a significant minority of Albertans who are politically radicalized and engaged to the extent that they believe they are in an existential battle against bilingual commie fairies. This suits the plutocracy as they ride out the Kamikaze run of the US Empire. That Shaw riding is slippery. A hard-core superstitious Grift-o-Kon set a record for the win not so long ago, and then a Wildrose homo erectus crossed the planks just at the time the Grift-o-Kon schism erupted. A Neoliberal Deception Program one-timer ended up corralling a few thousand voters that seemingly broke from both Kon parties, and took the chair for the interregnum. Hard for Marlainia to put it all on black in those parts.
@Murphy, with your wordplay I’d read all your substacks. If you ever get one, lemme know!
Amidst the mire, distractions and deflections, another quiet step down/back (?) was by Jason Stefan, Marlaina’s “constitutional adviser”…..
CBC news/ May 25th (J.Markusoff)
One would suppose that it’s merely another coincidence that after Rob Smith, appeared on P&Politics, that Marlaina comes out swinging and telling everyone who will listen that “SHE ” is in charge of the party…and Rob backs off? Hmmm!
Oh to be a fly, sitting on the cat….
Shout out to everyone out there making their voices heard today. ( song for the day- “We’re not going to take it…”)
Schulz won by a very slim margin. That is why she was targeted for a recall petition. By extending the date of her resignation to May, Smith can put off the by election to November after the referendum, and not have to worry about the extra eyes on a protest vote by-election.
Whatever happened to the good old days when Smith was destroying her political parties? Other than pick on AISH, the elderly, the sick, teachers, students, doctors, nurses, and raising hell, foreign travel to Trump Land and allied Saudi Arabia, revving up the separatist loonies, one would think here wrecking crew would be busy enough.
Imma put this here for anybody interested. It’s an entertaining a factual doc on what’s actually going on with Big Daddy Oil in Albertastan AND the comment section is priceless:
B- Also educational! Thank You!
A Pat on the back? What has she done other than killing the renewable energy sector?
Carlos: There also may be conflicts of interest issues with Rebecca Schulz and her husband.
Carlos, while Smith, our rodeo Queen is busy killing re-newable energy, her and all her little Einstein’s are missing the boat. China just successfully completed a test flight of 20 or so miles, of a hydrogen powered turbo prop. Oil, like it or not, as a fuel is going to be obsolete. Re-newable energy is the future, but lill’ Dani Smith and her people can’t figure that out. And I’ve started to look at E-Bikes for running around and doing my shorter errands.
The most likely reason is for a separatist to come in
Should the UCP government “commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding referendum” on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.”
I will never tire of reminding that, contrary to the UCP’s proffered referendum question, there is no legal process to secede from Canada. Point final.
I guess Danielle Smith’s rejoinder would probably be: Oh! There isn’t? Well, great! Then it isn’t required!!
But even if there were a legal process, it would have to have been added to the Constitution by way of an amendment— for which, Smith should be relieved, there actually is a legal process (10Prov.Leg>50%Can.Pop,+HoC must ratify the amendment). The SCoC ruled the amendment would have to say that all provinces, plus the federal would have to agree with a secession. Also meaning that no referendum, not even a Clarity Act compliant one, can possibly be “binding” upon the Alberta government. Nice try, Danielle.
Smith is thus advised that the other provinces are not in any way bound to ratify a succession in any case, and surely not if there is no mechanism to secede—which there won’t be unless the Constitution is amended.
I’m probably not alone in distrusting Smith. It’s probable she knows these facts. If so, why does she make these announcements? It’s possible she and her separatist buddies want to imply that they’ll secede unilaterally, but not say so out loud because that would further imply involvement, or interference of the USA.
Indeed, separatist Jeff Rath has already claimed to have been to DC to discuss Alberta separatism with the tRump administration which he hopes Canadians take that as a warning not to interfere with the Maple MAGA Albertans notion of “direct democracy”—that is, skip over the border and the government, and ignore the law and the Canadian Constitution if or when Albertans decide to do so. This kind of “Democracy” is their cudgel with which the separatist pit, scratch, and deface the rule of law. Typically Smith thinks she has an appealing argument to overturn the recent court ruling that secession, even a referendum on secession, is unconstitutional because it ignores the duty to consult with treaty First Nations: She thinks it’s “undemocratic” and therefore a “error in law.” Rath argued in court that the alleged 300,000 petition signatures he could not verify should be democratically weighty enough to abrogate solemn treaties settled from 1876 to 1899, and override S.35 Aboriginal Rights in the Constitution. What a dope (I forget how the judge put it…)
The UCP has dared the federal government and judiciary to strike down a number of probable, and a few definitively unconstitutional bits of UCP legislation. It hasn’t gone quite as far as presenting an occasion to test these rather hesitant challenges to federal authority in court yet, and the federal government and judiciary hasn’t bothered to rise to the bait—for example Alberta’s provincial gun regulations that conflict with federal authority over firearms.
Other taunts aimed at federalism or the feds include suggestions that S.35 should be amended (preposterous) and rumination on a Greater Idaho-like corridor across BC so to give Alberta direct access to tidewater (equally preposterous). Smith’s blithe claim that her government is engaging productively with BC Coastal FNs through whose traditional territories a Rupert pipeline would pass naturally taunts federalism by way of BC’s unfortunate history of refusing to settle treaties (until 1997)— not specifically targeting the province but, rather the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which is as federal as the Constitution of which it is an inextricably integral part.
This kind of talk is as cheap as it is simple to gin rural Alberta separatists that a successful succession result of 50%+1 and a nod from the USA is good enough to secede and an easy, “democratic” route to “independence.” Prairie-noiacs’ delusion that Ottawa is out to get them have two resorts under cross-examination: for the more wary it’s that US-to-the-rescue innuendo; for the more worrying it’s a Freedumbmensional-Chess move supposed to disguise confessed fifth-column negotiations with the most unstable destablizer in history as nothing more than innuendo (cuz ya cain’t prove nuthin’ what’s in yer mand). The Texas North stare-down has probably earned Rath and his ilk each their own files at the CSIS.
But naturally words also have consequences too—which is exactly what secession dreamers hope the rhetoric either has or will have if their haywire narrative holds together just a little longer (one trope being: ” Hurry up cuz Canada is so bad we can’t take much more!”) Smith hopes her own rhetoric will cut the mustard with her party’s majority separatist faction, but trying to blow reinterpretation of the Constitution past Canadian premiers was foolish and rather embarrassed her (like, just because you’re chair, Danielle, doesn’t mean you can use that kind of forum to speak appeasing words to your TBA base, as you and the rest of the world found out by way of Premier Kinew’s easy, empty-net goal). Should rush-rash be diagnosed?
What appears a turning point in UCP popularity since the King’s Bench quashed the secession referendum proposal and she parried with a newly-worded bunch of baffle-gabbed referendum questions, and likely since her schooling by Wab Kinew, has not slowed the march of time one bit. Kinew made a little innuendo himself by simply asking, why not put the referendum on the shelf for a year or so?—which he and everybody knows won’t work in Smith’s obvious dilemma.
Ask pipeline Harper: delays run out the clock and rushed corner-cutting ultimately fails. Danielle —or at least the scheduled UCP term which expires October after next—would seem to have, discounting for the moment the unseen and unknown scandals and screw-ups sure to attend, ample enough time to wiggle around these present obstacles. Would, they wish, that theirs was the only calendar they had to fret about, but there’s a tighter timeframe ending the November after this October—just over five months from now—which might diminish the effect of Maple MAGA’s US-intervention innuendo. For without the threat of tRump doing something unthinkable, the separatists’ grudge-grudge-blink-blink is impotentized.
B– also on CBC, an interview with Keith Wilson; saying he’s formed/ forming a new “Independence Party “.
I personally got the impression that he doesn’t think Marlaina has handled the situation correctly, but he was gung-ho on how well Alberta would do as an independent “country” ? So a little bit of homework, and what do you know. Huh!!
Keith Wilson on X- March 31st 2025….
“Alberta’s Citizens Initiative Act empowers citizens to petition for referendum on separation.
600k votes in 60 days can put Alberta on the pathway to be it’s own country—or a US state. With 750 rural voters it’s possible.
If Carney wins in 2025, we’re gone, negotiating with the US or standing Sovereign. A bold move for a better future for our kids and grand kids .
#Alberta Independence ”
I’m still curious to know if he is still listed as a special adviser to Marlaina. Asking for a friend.
More and more of these Reformers are realizing their party is over and the rats are abandoning the ship. We knew it was coming everyone we know has had it with these fake conservative clowns.
Poilievre continues to prove what a fool he is. He just doesn’t get it. It’s always someone else’s fault he has no solution for any problem, proving how stupid he is. You would never see any of the conservatives under Lougheed or Getty proving how stupid they were would you?