Now that the metaphorical horse has departed the proverbial barn for pastures unknown, Alberta’s toothless elections agency says it’s slamming the barn door shut.
At any rate, Elections Alberta officials told the CBC yesterday that the evening before Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure had sent cease-and-desist letters to 568 people involved one way or another with the Purloined List of Electors Affair.
The national broadcaster reported that 23 of the letters were sent to people who had received the voters list from the so-called Centurion Project, the separatist third-party advertiser campaigning in support of the Stay Free Alberta/Alberta Prosperity Project citizen initiative petition that is now in the hands of Elections Alberta. They are said to have 48 hours to confirm they have complied. The remaining 545 are presumed to have accessed the list.
Well, good luck to Elections Alberta. I mean that sincerely. But that horse ain’t comin’ back.
Unsurprisingly, Elections Alberta didn’t put this information in a news release. To do that, they would have to have put on the record just how powerless they are and what a massive screw up the largest data breach in Canadian history is.
To be fair, of course, no government or organization has the power to put that genie back in the bottle. The personal information of 2.9 million Albertans is in the wind and certainly in the hands of malign actors among both our traditional adversaries, and a couple of former friends who have been revealed as adversaries. Still, anyone who has been paying attention would conclude that our former friends present a significantly bigger threat right now than even our most determined adversaries.
Meanwhile, in a news release yesterday, the office of Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod said she too has launched an investigation of the data breach. The investigation will ask five questions about whether Centurion had the authority to collect the information in the voters list, use it, disclose it, took appropriate security measures to protect it, and if it had an obligation to notify the office of the commissioner.
Alert readers can probably guess the answers to all these queries, and a second-year law student should be able to look it all up and write a report in about 15 minutes without using AI. So one suspects no one should get too excited about this development.
Moving right along, CityNews national reporter Sean Amato posted on social media yesterday that the RCMP has weighed in with a statement urging us all not to get our knickers in a twist just because our personal information can be scraped up by bad actors all over the planet.
“We appreciate the significant public interest surrounding this investigation – the apparent inappropriate release of your personal information is of great concern to the public and the RCMP,” said the commanding officer of the Alberta Mounties, Trevor Daroux. “However, the RCMP’s primary responsibility must be to protect the integrity of the investigation and therefore are limited on details that we can share publicly, including confirming comments made by third parties.”
“We encourage the public to rely on official statements released by the RCMP,” Deputy Commissioner Daroux concluded.
With respect, the public is unlikely to be reassured by a statement saying the police won’t have anything to say about its investigation, but urging us to rely only on what it has to say about the investigation.
In addition, memories are long, and many Albertans recall the force’s five-year investigation into the “Kamikaze Affair,” allegations of fraud and identity theft in Jason Kenney’s victorious 2017 campaign to lead the newly formed UCP, after which the Mounties announced no charges would be laid.
And speaking of Mr. Kenney, he said yesterday he is taking security measures to protect himself because of the data breach. “I’ve got people threatening that I will be executed following the Nuremberg trials for my crimes against humanity,” he told the CBC. “These are people who are not well, and I think most of them are probably harmless, but all it takes is one person to go too far.”
Finally, Press Progress reported yesterday that self-appointed separatist supremo Mitch Sylvestre, the gun store owner from Bonnyville, is calling on his legions to join the UCP and turn it into an official separatist party. “We have to get this to a vote,” Mr. Sylvestre said on a YouTube livestream noticed by Press Progress. “So how do we do that? We have to leverage UCP.”
And that was just yesterday!
So, some conclusions and predictions:
- With the data long gone, the Alberta government utterly lacks the knowhow, the manpower, the capability or the inclination to do anything useful about this.
- Ottawa needs to act, but is unlikely to risk it. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has other fish to fry.
- The police can determine the legal culpability of some of the well-known actors in this drama, but this is likely to take a very long time and do nothing to stop the UCP from proceeding with a separation referendum using compromised electoral lists in the hands of its allies. Someone may eventually go to jail, but it will be a small fry.
- The days when a List of Electors can reasonably be given to political parties – including the big ones with seats in the Legislature – are over. And not just in Alberta. But that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to happen.
- The separatists should calm down. They already control the UCP. This is why Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government cannot be trusted to manage this problem.
- This story will continue to generate headlines at a feverish pace. The UCP is going to have to do something really outrageous to distract us all from the uproar. They’ll most certainly try.
The barn door
The yard gate
And the horse trailer @ the end of the driveway……
So now Mitch has the brands heating up on fire…?
Yippee kai yay!!
I do believe that a class action lawsuit has to happen against these shady individuals, and also with the UCP. This is absolutely disgusting, and it should be extremely concerning for everyone of a voting age in Alberta, who are registered to vote. The damage has already been done, because personal information of registered voters in Alberta is still out there, and is likely to be in different hands. Any nefarious things could be done with that personal information, once it gets into the wrong hands. In addition to a class action lawsuit against these scumbags, immense jail time has to happen for them. Danielle Smith doesn’t want an independent inquiry into this, because it will most likely implicate her and the UCP for helping to cause this, by making Elections Alberta exist without any real teeth, with Bill 54. Bill 54, was actually the result of the UCP’s Kamikaze election scheme, involving Jason Kenney, who sacked Lorne Gibson, and all of his staff for handing around $230,000 in fines to those in the UCP camp, because he wanted to get to the bottom of that. What do we see from the Postmedia columnists, such as Rick Bell? Phony outrage over bike lanes.
Alberta to bring in law to rip out bike lanes and stop new ones | Calgary Herald https://share.google/vXLYYXWQOxrQpyjUS
Shall we assume the UCP announce the demolition of the Royal Alex?
Another great article, David!
I’m hoping for the book to be thrown at these yahoos but expecting they’ll get nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
“…586 people” differs from the headlines of 568. Easy mistake to make 🙂
Thanks, Suzanne. The correct number is 568. It’s been fixed in the text. DJC
So Jason Kenney, the man who, metaphorically at least, allowed a pack of wild animals into the house is now upset because he’s been bitten by them. Well I reject the premise of Mr. Kenney’s grievance. He needs to take number 2,900,001 and get in line. Now serving number 0.
In my view if no one else has been paying attention, there is no shortage of outrageous things the UCP has been doing to distract from their scandals. Is the most important things for Albertans to have is: a Whiskey Act, censorship in libraries, slashing benefits to seniors and disabled folks, and so on? A sign Smith is on the ropes is how she reacted to Nenshi calling out her staffer for not informing them of the breach. Then in a moment of sheer brilliance accusing Nenshi under a point of privilege. There is nothing more obvious than this behavior to redirect blame away from her, but underscores how little she is on top of things. The question becomes: how many more scandals need to occur before the stupid people of Alberta catch on and turf Smith and her gang of clapping seals?
I used to think UCP backbenchers had the easiest job in the world. They show up at the legislature, check their spines at the door and then sit around waiting to be told what their opinion is on any given subject. I believe working at Elections Alberta is even easier.
Why does Smith want to replace the RCMP? They are absolutely no threat to the UCP. Would a provincial police force be any less of a threat?
I wonder if the rest of Canada is thinking, “You people voted for her, you got what you wanted”.
Bike lanes. Ripping them up seems to be Smith and the UCP’s first attempt to try distract us from this mess they helped create. They will have to do way more than this to try change the channel here.
Class action lawsuits. Kenney is very angry his personal information got into the hands of people it shouldn’t have and he is not the only one. This is likely a more effective route to pursue than hounding the slow moving and possibly ineffective keystone cops.
Public inquiry. Like with the AHS scandals, Smith and crew are again resisting pressure to have a public inquiry in the hopes this will all go away and eventually be forgotten. Such an inquiry is needed here and will only happen if the pressure for it is overwhelming and relentless.
Queen of Chaos. Like their role models, the MAGA inspired separatists have created another huge mess for everyone else. One of Smith’s many mistakes here was to be overly indulgent of them. It is time for this to stop.
There has to be a way to go above Smith to get these public inquiries.
Linda: The federal government can declare a commission of inquiry on a matter of public importance, so they could do so if they wanted. https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/services/commissions-inquiry.html DJC
“With the data long gone, the Alberta government utterly lacks the knowhow, the manpower, the capability or the inclination to do anything useful about this.’
That is for the simple reason that the actors involved in this conspiracy are intimately related to the acting government in this province and are individuals that know one another and are actively working together to accomplish the same objectives. In the age of the cell phone they would also be communicating with one another on a frequent basis, because people love to talk except when they have been accused of a criminal act.
For example, “Before he became leader of the Republican Party of Alberta, Cameron Davies spent years deep inside Alberta’s conservative backrooms. . . . Davies operated through the Wildrose Party era, the merger politics that created the United Conservative Party, and the campaign structures that helped consolidate conservative power in Alberta.”
https://prairiesexposed.substack.com/p/cameron-davies-the-ucp-insider-who
The same is true of David Parker,
“Both men come from the same old Wildrose political circles. Both operate inside Alberta’s hard-right activist networks. Both have deep roots in anti-establishment conservative organizing while simultaneously benefiting from years inside establishment conservative politics.”
See also,
“Parker did not build Centurion in isolation. The separatist ecosystem it sits inside — Stay Free Alberta, the Alberta Prosperity Project, and the Republican Party of Alberta — shares the same individuals across multiple organizations simultaneously.”
https://factsmtr.substack.com/p/what-is-the-centurion-project-and
See also,
“The connection isn’t theoretical. It’s organizational, legislative, and personal — linking the United Conservative Party (UCP), Take Back Alberta (TBA), and the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) through shared people, overlapping leadership, and coordinated goals. Together, they form an ecosystem where one shapes policy, one mobilizes support, and one promotes full separation.”
https://factsmtr.substack.com/p/what-is-the-centurion-project-and
Finally, the obscurantist bullshit and gaslighting that the apologist Barry Cooper (an academic that promotes Alberta separatism and is a close associate/advisor of the current government) presents is simply false.
“Cooper said that these sorts of missteps are all but “inevitable” among fragmented movements like the one pushing for Alberta independence. While opponents of Alberta’s separatists tend to frame them as a unified force, they are in fact made up of a number of small and independent advocate groups with differing strategies, focuses and messaging.” (Missteps like Danielle Smith ‘missteps’ one assumes)
Contrary to the nonsense offered up by Barry Cooper, it is a unified force promoted by Calgary School academics and with operatives that are intimately linked to the UCP and its leader, with connections to the federal conservative party. All of the individuals involved both know of one another and know one another.
The MSM characteristically remains both dead quiet and does not question the falsehoods being presented for public consumption.
Note the following: Mistakenly double posted a reference source above.
The third quoted source that was linked for the following,
“The connection isn’t theoretical. It’s organizational, legislative, and personal — linking the United Conservative Party (UCP), Take Back Alberta (TBA), and the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) through shared people, overlapping leadership, and coordinated goals. Together, they form an ecosystem where one shapes policy, one mobilizes support, and one promotes full separation.”
should have been:
https://factsmtr.substack.com/p/ucp-power-and-alberta-separation
Sorry for any confusion. I temporarily forgot that “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Speaking of knowing one another, I think the lifelong connections made at elite private schools are more interesting than what people learn there.
While one of the well-known architects of Alberta separation was learning to play cricket at a private school on Vancouver Island, he met a student from Calgary whose family member played an infamous role in the partition of Bengal “allegedly”. By jove, partition, you say? Is that what inspired this idea of the partition of Canada? Violence and brutality were very much part of that historic partition. This is what we need to remember. The partition of Bengal was enacted by foreigners who were not averse to force. It happened in 1905, the year Alberta was made a province of Canada. The architects of Alberta separation might find that date coincidence delightful.
A most cogent and concise summary of Alberta politics, and a rather depressing forecast of what to expect.
The gutter elite have taken control in Alberta, they are playing hardball, and the numerous agencies and media meant to provide checks and balances are unable or unwilling to push back meaningfully, in a timely manner. The opposition party seems unable to generate any energy. I am extremely discouraged by the now blatant tactics employed by “conservatives”, and by the refusal of the Alberta electorate to hold these goons accountable for their undemocratic maneuvers.
In the meantime, my research looking for a new address outside this asylum gets more urgent.
Bike lanes! The Dinger has a scoop that the province wil give itself the power to override municipal decisions – and remove the bike lanes that are destroying democracy. If that’s the best the UCP can do to create a distraction, they’re in deep trouble.
Just a thought. If Elections Alberta fines each of the 23 people who were given the voters list by the Centurion Project $100,000, then it would have enough money to hire more staff to fully investigate all the others who had or still have access to the app. I’d like to see a public listing of the names of these 500+ people, so that we know who to watch out for. And before anyone says that would be a violation of their privacy – no, no, no, they don’t get any privacy. Not after what they’ve done. I want names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, websites, businesses, employers, everything. If they’re the brave soldiers of the Republic that they claim, they won’t be afraid of standing up to be counted.
My suspicion is that bike lanes are just another means of attacking municipal autonomy. They want to subsume this grass roots, democratic (relatively!) level of government under the party system, so they can be “whipped” into line. Bike lines have culture wars cachet, so away we go.
And the UCP would, I am sure, rather talk about bike lanes than abandoned wells. AND also, whatever the UCP is, it ain’t “grass roots”.
The picture of Sylvestre, in my mind, and of the horse leaving the barn is apt. Living as I do in Sylvester’s vicinity, we are left to muck out the barns. There is a discernible animus against Bonnyville (not unlike people not wanting to shop in Trump country). Nowhere is this more evident than around Canadian Air Force Base Cold Lake, and areas where people devote their lives to serve, and safeguard Canada, including ex-service personnel, and families of veterans, who put more than their ego on the line. I still vocally thank every member in uniform for their service. Since I avoid being anywhere in the proximity to Sylvestre’s gun shop, do my commerce with solid Canadians especially in Cold Lake. So I want to thank those who serve Canada once again, everyday – not once a year. I will refrain from expressing my feelings toward cowards and traitors.
Be sure to check out “Increase in Unknown Calls from Alberta Numbers” on Reddit.
Never answer unknown calls. Your voice can be used for VOIP ID theft. Maybe revert to the automated voice for your voicemail, too.
I can’t imagine who’s behind those some calls from Olds, Alberta. Can you?
Meanwhile, our top officials want your copy of the 1955 phone book back. Secret code: letters were used by folks back then for the first two digits of their phone number. People rented their phones from Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). Phones were black and hardwired to the wall. The dials were rotary. Country folks had party lines and some folks didn’t have phones at all.
Nowadays the former AGT is known as Telus. You might know them from all the spam calls they make and relentless high-pressure sales people they send to your door.
BTW, don’t answer your door now. Bad people know where you live.
What are the chances for success of a class action suit against the Republican Party, the Centurion Project and its leaders?
MAGA North strikes again.
We are as powerless as the opposition to Trump is across the border.
American a-holes are aiding our a- hole separatists cause.
The Carny Banker is angling to privatize airports so that the “capital” tied up in that infrastructure can be diverted elsewhere. Palantir already has all your personal data. The Grifter Yokels cannot create a separate state, so this is all theatre. That does not mean that a serious crisis is not developing. Progs and liberals walk so that fascists can run. They would like the Great Unwashed to consent to oligarchic plutocracy, but when economic and geopolitical conditions are such that consent cannot be maintained through the usual devices, outright fascism will do in a pinch. There is no rupture with the US Empire. There are only two economic poles and the Canadian state and economy are not aligning with the PRC. The Carny Banker is seeing to it that the Canadian Military Industrial Complex confined to do the Empire’s bidding, from financing the destruction of the population of the Ukraine to actively participating in the developing efforts to cut off Chinese oil in the Strait of Mallaca. It’s only fitting that a lickspittle imperialist comprador state like Canada is now participating in military exercises with the original overseas US colony, the Philippines. Our allies in Israel, who absolutely uphold our Canadian values, have destroyed 1400 buildings and 50 towns in Lebanon in the last ninety days. The following is an accurate depiction of the failure of the plutocracy to maintain the fictions with which it has inculcated the Canadian people for the last eighty years
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/E5CpPmx1Exg?ra=m
I saw that poor ol’ Jason Kenney is upset the problem he helped create has come back to bite him. Cue the worlds smallest violins. And quite the hissy fit performance by marlain-a-lago about the opposition not informing her about the bad things her members are doing. Are we in upside down world yet?
JS: Mr. Kenney’s complaint is proof of the folk wisdom that he who sups with the devil should use a long spoon. DJC
Never heard that one before. Too true!
I watched Kenneys interview on power & politics (I think that was it) and it struck me how retired politicians become a little more honest, to some degree.
I recall Thomas Lukaszuk’s mea culpa on why the AB PC party got punted by the NDP.
And today’s headlines are in the Toronto Star. Three stories by Richard Warnica about Sylvestre’s paranoid insanity – he thinks King Charles wants to kill him. Warnica is also tweeting about it for people like me who don’t go over the paywall.
Why the hell is the idiot Smith ignoring this lunacy and sucking up to the separatists? Maybe she is just as crazy? Some reporter should ask her if she fears being assassinated by King Charles, or possibly the Pope who does come from Chicago after all.
Mitch Sylvestre is going full Handmaid’s Tale now. Babies, make girls have babies! More babies! Girls? As in minor children? What in the Jeffrey Epstein is he thinking?
https://archive.is/2026.05.08-131540/https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/im-an-albertan-whos-been-covering-donald-trump-for-10-years-i-went-home-to-write-about-the-independence-movement-i-was-terrified-by-what-i-saw/article_2a003f93-2769-4509-97bd-5b03e841c966.html
Why is she doing it? Because she is a separatist. Easy Peasy for her, she just had to create her wonderful sentence “Sovereign Alberta within a Unified Canada” – and it works. That is how we get to be punch bags.
Like the British Liberal Leader classified Trump, she is a corrupt gangster. She was the only Canadian politician that ‘invited herself’ to Trump inauguration. She is a MAGA nutcase just like him.
Marlaina ” Canada and the separatists need to see a guidance counselor “……yada, yada, Trudeau…oh for crying out loud….Really??
I have a much better idea for her: how about Albertans get a divorce from you, and since you are the abuser, we keep the property, because it belonged to us, long before you showed up. And you don’t get visiting rights!
I think that class action lawsuits against the UCP and Danielle Smith are going to happen. This is negligence of the worst kinds, and they caused it to happen.
Personally, Anon, I don’t think it was negligence. I think it was intentional. I think they thought they could get away with it – and maybe they can. DJC
David Climenhaga: This is the negligence that I was talking about. I believe class action lawsuits are coming.
Message to Albertans from the Chief Electoral Officer re: Unauthorized Use of List of Electors – Elections Alberta https://share.google/PUY4cwgcLjXQ99xBG
They will get away with it. Should we use bet 365?
Carlos: I’m not so sure Danielle Smith and the UCP will get away with this. There is a lot more compelling evidence that the UCP created the means for this to happen. When Danielle Smith was grilled about this massive data breach by Naheed Nenshi in the Alberta Legislature, recently, she went bonkers and tried to blame him. The next time Peter Guthrie grilled the UCP on this in the Alberta Legislature, Danielle Smith wasn’t there, so one of her cabinet ministers responded with a juvenile attack on him. Because of the magnitude of this, as it involves the personal information of millions of Alberta voters, the legal authorities can’t brush this off. Seeing Danielle Smith in press conferences, she she looks very disturbed and uncomfortable.
If you want to bet I am ready. NOTHING i Repeat Nothing will come out of this.
If i am wrong I will post the biggest I AM A LOSER to Anonymous.
Yes that is possible but then Danielle Smith will delay it another 10 years and no one will even remember it. That is the only thing they are good at.
Carlos: You are not a loser. This is not going to be brushed off very easily. Too much compelling evidence that shows how serious this is.
We will see my friend. How long have you lived in Alberta?
Speaking of the toothless EA, how is their other “action” against Parker going? The one about financing violations from a year or two ago? Not so well, judging from the fact he is still at his dark shenanigans. EA…what a joke.
Firth of Fifth: Bill 54, which was created by the UCP is the cause of that. Elections Alberta can’t do anything.
568 , 958, 1028 it does not matter. We know this will take another 5 years and then nothing happens as always. No wonder people keeping taking advantage of us and then laugh at the end. Interestingly enough now Jason Kenney is MAD. Well it is not easy to be the punch bag like we all were when he was premier. No wonder we are all going down to fascism like a rock. WE ARE DONE with BULLSHIT.
This will pass and our democracy gets a bit weaker. Politicians only care when the role reverses like Jason Kenney so what we need to do is to bring big trouble right to their door.
Carlos: Jason Kenney helped create this fiasco of epic proportions by neutering Elections Alberta, after the Kamikaze affair. After at least $230,000 in fines were levied against those in the UCP camp for breaking the law, Lorne Gibson and his staff were all sacked by him when he visited the United States. The UCP doesn’t like democracy, or Elections Alberta trying to preserve it, so this is why they created Bill 54. However, the legal authorities can’t sweep a data breach involving all registered voters in Alberta under the carpet. It’s because of risks to people, which includes those fleeing from domestic violence. Jason Kenney should have thought about the consequences of weakening the powers of Elections Alberta.
One minor quibble with this comment, Anon. The Office of the Election Commissioner was set up as a separate office by the NDP. It was rolled into Elections Alberta by Mr. Kenney. Even if Mr. Gibson’s office had been retained, in my opinion the manpower and budget of the two offices combined would not be sufficient to meet the current threat environment. DJC
David Climenhaga: Thanks for the clarification.
I agree with David. By the way Jason Kenney knew exactly what he was doing. He is just now trying to get Pierre Poilievre job and so he pretends to have common sense. He has none. He is as bad or worse than Danielle Smith but like a good politician just lies his way to power. We need to create an oversight citizen group to keep this garbage from destroying our democracy. Politicians will keep pushing the system to collapse. There are no guardrails anymore. The Senate could be doing this job but unfortunately they are useless. They are afraid of the House because they are appointed. We need serious reform but I doubt it will happen. Politicians are comfortable and will not push for anything. Too out there for them.